DE LAGARTA A BORBOLETA: CONSTRUÇÃO E (RE) CONSTRUÇÃO DAS IDENTIDADES FEMININAS A PARTIR DO MOVIMENTO DE MULHERES DA PRIMAVERA, DE GUARAPUAVA/PR

Abstract

This investigation aims to understand the empowerment process and (re) construction of gender identities of women in the Movimento de Mulheres da Primavera, from Guarapuava, located in the Center-South of Paraná, Brazil. The foundation of the women`s movement in 2004, organized around the parish Nossa Senhora de Fátima, in Spring Quarter, established an important demarcation for the women`s recognition process as political subjects. This process embraces the reflection about issues such as: violence against women, economic empowerment and participation of women in politics. These demands were formulated from periodical study meetings and it occasioned to the development of new social identities and the building of the new social representation of women in Guarapuava. In order to understand the identities transformation and the empowerment of women, we conducted interviews with the movement`s militants, adopting the individual and collective memory as a tool to identify the building of every single person inside the group. The oral source, understood as a text, enables us to access feelings and individual sensation that structure the women experiences in their recognition as political and social subjects. Our study also has intent to link the construction of memories and gender identities of the women`s movement with the visibility of their actions in politics and regional press. The campaigns, marches, courses, among others actions, has conquered attention in journalistic media and has allowed the achievement of women in public spaces and political parties, introducing the subject of gender - and the violence against women, especially - definitely in the public agenda of Guarapuava. The mapping of the journalist coverage during the campaign "16 Days of Activism against gender violence", in 2013, and the analysis of four opinion papers signed by movement militants and published in newspaper Diário de Guarapuava during the campaign, direct our interpretation for the concerns and demands by which the Movimento de Mulheres da Primavera has still to fight. This investigation is anchored in gender theories, social representation and identity and collective memory theory. Through the interviews voices and the opinion articles, we are able to intuit that the equality between men and women is a demand difficult to achieve: there are many cultural questions that still hamper the end of the violence gender. As a result of this research, we intent to insert the experiences of the Spring Women and their struggles in the social history of the city. We demonstrate that, despite its role as important figures in the development of human and social rights, the struggle for women`s emancipation, gender equality and the effective achievement of discussion forums on gender violence in the city, the cultural challenges to be overcome are large and it still need many coping fronts involving the whole society.