A representação da “mulher feia” na revista vida capichaba nos anos 1920

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the representation of the “ugly woman” in the Vida Capichaba magazine during the 1920s, with an emphasis on literary texts extracted from the periodical that linked standards of female beauty and ugliness to the social morality of the time. Based on a corpus with the common theme of female ugliness, this study analyzes how the discourse on ugliness operated in the 1920s. The research is part of the documentary literary studies, based on authors such as Roger Chartier (1991; 1995; 2002), Pierre Bourdieu (1989), Michel Foucault (1996; 2008), Umberto Eco (2004; 2007), Naomi Wolf (2019), and Joana Novaes (2006) to discuss the notions of representation, female ugliness, symbolic power, and discourse. For a survey on the social history of women, we use the contributions of researchers Maria Angela D’Incao and Guacira Lopes Louro (2017). The study reveals that the woman considered ugly was often praised as an ideal for marriage because she did not represent a threat to the dominant patriarchal order, being the opposite of the beautiful and, therefore, “dangerous” woman. The analysis highlights the declared misogyny of the authors toward both the “beautiful” and the “ugly” women, by excluding women's identity through the discourse in the press, granting them the naturalization of behaviors, or the repetition of patterns that aimed at the provincial conservatism of the time. It is concluded that such a representation acts as a mechanism of symbolic control and reaffirmation of the patriarchal order, by reinforcing stereotypes for the “ugly woman” as the perfect housewife.