Representations of working women in the magazine Caras y Caretas (1916-1930)

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century there was a growing female participation in the workplace, as part of the economic dynamism, migratory influx, urbanization and modernization that the country experienced at a social and cultural level. Women's wage activities were especially extended in the secondary and tertiary sectors, which demanded cheap and unskilled labor.

In the world of work, as in other spheres of life, the position of women was unequal. They were victims of segregationism supported by the construction of sex / gender roles, which pushed them mostly towards specific sectors linked to manual occupations, especially in domestic service, the textile and food industries.

This study analyzes the representations created around the working woman from the texts and images of the magazine Caras y Caretas, a publication of wide importance in the Argentine journalistic field as it was the first in magazine format. Similarly, the temporal cut is due to the time of the first governments of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR), from 1916 to 1930, a period that brought significant political, social and cultural transformations.

The approach identifies the iconic and textual discourses that the weekly used and that reproduce meanings in relation to working women, who burst onto the public scene and gain visibility, not only from their jobs, but also in the organization of strikes in conflicts with employers. It also projected women into occupations considered socially feminine, such as telephone operators, teachers, and nurses.

The publication revolved in several senses, some opposed, around the female subject. On the one hand, it projected women in traditional spaces (the home, the family), but it also made visible women workers, strikers and speakers at public rallies.