Restructuring Patriarchy: The Modernization of Gender Inequality in Brazil, 1914-1940 / Edition 2

by Susan K. Besse

Overview

Susan K. Besse broadens our understanding of the political by establishing the relevance of gender for the construction of state hegemony in Brazil after World War I. Restructuring Patriarchy demonstrates that the consolidation and legitimization of power by President Getulio Vargas's Estado Novo depended to a large extent on the reorganization of social relations in the private sphere. New expectations and patterns of behavior for women emerged in postwar Brazil from heated debates between men and women, housewives and career women, feminists and antifeminists, reformist professionals and conservative clerics, and industrialists and bureaucrats. But as urban middle- and upper-class women challenged patriarchal authority at home and assumed new roles in public, prominent intellectuals, professionals, and politicians defined and imposed new 'hygienic,' rational, and scientific gender norms. Thus, modernization of the gender system within Brazil's rising urban-industrial society accommodated new necessities and opportunities for women without fundamentally changing the gender inequality that underlay the larger structure of social inequality in Brazil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807845592
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	02/19/1996
Edition description:	2
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Susan K. Besse is associate professor of history at the City College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

[An] engaging contribution to the literature.—Luso-Brazilian Review



[An] extremely valuable book that will change forever the political analysis of both twentieth-century Brazilian history and modern patriarchal relations.—Historian



Besse's book is a valuable contribution to the historiography on gender in Latin America. Its careful analysis of the constestation of gender ideologies in a key period in Brazilian history provides important insights for our understanding of middle-class and elite women in the urban environment.—American Historical Review



Besse offers a detailed and insightful analysis of the impact of modernization and political change on Brazilian women during the interwar years.—Choice



This excellent, provocative, and well-written book elucidates and explains the far-reaching cultural, socio-political, and economic changes in gender relations during the Estado Novo in Brazil. . . . Besse tells a compelling story and tells it well: this book will interest social historians and all Brazilianists and will be exciting fare for graduate courses and advanced undergraduates. I recommend it strongly.—Elizabeth Kuznesof, University of Kansas

Editorial Reviews

ÝAn¨ engaging contribution to the literature.

"Luso-Brazilian Review"

ÝAn¨ extremely valuable book that will change forever the political analysis of both twentieth-century Brazilian history and modern patriarchal relations.

"Historian"

[An] engaging contribution to the literature.

"Luso-Brazilian Review"

[An] extremely valuable book that will change forever the political analysis of both twentieth-century Brazilian history and modern patriarchal relations.

"Historian"

A detailed and insightful analysis of the impact of modernization and political change on Brazilian women during the interwar years.

"Choice"

A valuable contribution to the historiography on gender in Latin America.

"American Historical Review"

Besse raises important questions that will spur further research.

"Journal of Social History"

From the Publisher