Poderes disseminados, fazeres transformadores: Mulheres que ressignificaram espaços

Abstract

In this article we dicusstheprofessional performance of the philosopher Maria da Conceição Adjucto Botelho and the nutritionist and nurse Firmina Santana, both born in traditional families in Paracatu, a small city in Minas Gerais, between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth; these women did not participate in feminist movements, but had benefited from the possibilities of education and expression that were opened by them. We seek to contribute to the deconstruction of the alleged submission of women using Foucauldian conceptions of power to analyze female agencies that endorse a less linear history, reveal tensions and accommodations, and present other forms of existence. Without transgressing norms, these women resignified their spaces of action.