“I offer the portrait of my daughter as proof of our recognition”:

The female body from the perspective of mental health expressed in a journalistic source in the city of Feira de Santana, Bahia (1921-1950)

Abstract

The historical perspective of mental health in the city of Feira de Santana, Bahia, refers to the gender relationship as a conditioning element of experiences that allow understanding society in this time frame. The speeches disseminated in the journalistic press can give clues about these experiences and constructions. Thus, this article aims to identify how mental health was translated in the publications Jornal Folha do Norte (JFN), in the period 1921-1950. This research has a documentary character, a qualitative approach based on data collection from the collection of digitized copies of the JFN at the Casa do Sertão Museum of the Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana (UEFS) University. The analysis of publications identified, between advertisements and news, a discourse imposed by the current medical-sanitary model that converges to the focus of the disease with devices for disciplining the body based on medicalization for mental health care, especially for women. Several news and drug advertisements were based on herbal medicine, referring to the control of the female hormonal cycle at the time, understood as a nuisance; to the hormonal oscillations inherent in the female physiology, which lead to malaise and irritability, aspects considered female misfortunes. Such visibility of the female body in a medicalized context points to issues related to gender inequality and how the social environment permeates destructive processes to mental health.