Education of female body: a study in the Brazilian magazine of physical education (1944-1950)

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the specialized discourses about the female body coupled to an important magazine for the Brazilian Physical Education in the 1940's: "A Revista Brasileira de Educação Física". The body and sporting practices used to be seen as achievements for women, but at the same time they could endanger the project of "order" and "progress" and also the femininity representation in force. Thus, several rhetorical discourses were put into action, which showed restrictions on the female participation in this universe. The main justification presented in the pages of the magazine was the biological factor, based on anatomical and physiological differences, and on an excessive fear of the virilization of women. In conclusion, this work shows that, despite the limitations imposed on women within the corporal and sporting practices, their entrance in this universe represented an achievement due to the fact that they left the private space of home and entered in the public sphere.