No he sido ni soy un misógino: antifeminisms in the illustrated humor magazines PBT and O Malho (Argentina and Brazil, 1904-1918)

Abstract

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the action of different social movements in different contexts and scenarios.The subject of women's rights and women's suffrage, in turn, gained strength through the voices of suffragettes. The world press wrote the actions of the English militants while new groups and women and feminist's associations began to articulate to claim the rights of equality. In Brazil, the Women's Republican Party (PRF) was created in 1910, centered on Leolinda Daltro's public figure. In Argentina, Elvira Rawson founded the Feminist Center in 1905, at the same time other similar associations emerged, such as the Pro-Suffrage Committee (1907). In addition, in 1911, Argentine socialist deputy Alfredo Palacios presented the first bill to rule the female right to vote - which in Brazil happened in 1917, at the initiative of deputy Maurício de Lacerda. These growing political mobilizations in favor of feminist ideals aroused several criticisms in the public opinion, which used different approaches to delegitimize, ridicule and produce distrust towards women and men engaged in the struggle of women emancipation. Thus, this research purpose is to analyze these positions, characterized as anti-feminist, specifically published between the years of 1904 and 1918 in illustrated humor magazines of large circulation in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. The perspective of comparative history is evoked to understand the similarities and, mainly, the particularities of anti-feminism in each country. The caricatures, chronicles and jokes present in editions of the following magazines Argentine's PBT and Brazilian's O Malho satirically brought up the theme of feminism and the search for equal rights. We propose, through these sources, to study the discursive mechanisms present in the approach of laughter and irony, which, in turn, fostered the denial of political rights to women. (AU)