Abstract
It seems uncontentious that the renovation which both the feminist movements and the gender studies promoted, starting in the 1960s, allowed for a new way to write the history of women in the west, which also applies, evidently, to Brazil. This renovation’s impact within Catholicism remains, however, an open question, still demanding deep studies and the reassessment of the past and present roles assigned to women and men inside the church. Some important research has highlighted that, facing processes that generate deep transformations, the Institution often reacted with a reaffirmation of values that, despite being apparently archaic, were presented as constitutive of the essence of Catholicism and, therefore, seen as static and immutable. The present study discusses an example of such a reaction by analyzing the discourses in relation to women on the pages of The Archdiocesan newspaper, an official organ of the Archdiocese of Mariana (Minas Gerais), that circulated weekly from 1959 to 1988, and that, usually with a conservative approach of the theme, reaffirmed certain social places for women, especially in relation to the roles of mother and wife.
Keywords
women; Catholicism; press; conservatism