Being a mother in the first half of the 20th Century: natural attribution, scientific learning and civic duty

Abstract

This article analyzes the discourses on motherhood directed at women in the first half of   the 20th century in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, seeking to highlight  their ambiguous nature. On the one hand, it was stated that being a mother was the biological destiny of women, who were naturally endowed with a maternal instinct. On the other hand, it  was argued that it was necessary to teach women  how  to  perform  the  maternal  role  well.  The analysis  focuses  on  the  journal  Educação  e  Pediatria, published  from  1913 to 1915, in Rio de Janeiro, and on materials used in the training of students at the Puericulture Center of the Escola Normal da Praça da República de São Paulo. The analysis is based on the perspective of discourse analysis, by Michel Foucault (2004).