Entre a produção e a reprodução social : a reivindicação das trabalhadoras por creches no Brasil e na Paraíba (1980-1986)

Abstract

This paper analyzes women's participation in various struggles for the establishment of public childcare services for the children of working class women in the 1980s, both in urban and rural areas. The main historical sources used were the feminist journal Mulherio, which contributed to the visibility of various issues related to the rights of working women, including the struggle for childcare centers, and the notebook of the First National Childcare Meeting. Both documents were produced by researchers at the Carlos Chagas Foundation and are available in the institution's digital repository. The theoretical framework for this study is based on the theoretical perspective of Social Reproduction Theory, seen as essential for understanding gender oppression in capitalist society. Key references include studies by Lise Vogel (2022), Tithi Bhattacharya (2023; 2019), and Cinzia Arruzza (2023; 2019). Furthermore, we engage with the Social History of Labor, drawing on Petersen (1997), Thompson (1987), Silva (2022), among others, to address the experience of working-class women from the historical context in which they lived. Reading the sources from the perspective of Social Reproduction Theory and the Social History of Labor allowed us to perceive essential aspects for understanding these historical subjects in this context, focusing on the relationship between the women's movement's demand for the expansion of childcare centers and capitalism's division between production and reproduction labor. Thus, we propose a history of the working class that goes beyond the factory floor and the wage worker, that is, one that begins with an integrative vision of this class, also including the struggles related to social reproduction as a central element of human societies.