ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PHONOAUDIOLOGY AT MEDICAL SCIENCES FACULTY (UNR), A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE (1942-1985)

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: It is proposed to delve into the material and symbolic configurations that permeated the Phonoaudiology’s history in Rosario, incorporating a feminist perspective that allows recovering and making visible some significant events that marked the development of the discipline in relation to inequalities around the binomial doctor-male/auxiliary-female.

OBJECTIVE: Analyze the different symbolic and material configurations that went through the history of the phonoaudiological discipline at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (UNL-UNR), from a feminist perspective focused on the unequal reproduction of genders, between 1942 and 1985.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: documentary sources (resolutions, notes, memories).

METHODS: documentary survey. The analysis and systematization occurred through the triangulation of the data obtained in the field work and the crossing with theory.

RESULTS: The inequalities between genders, present in the development of Phonoaudiology, are reflected in: the distribution of paid teaching and management positions granted to male doctors, while women remained for years in lower-ranking and ad honorem positions; the physical spaces for education and assistance, in addition to being scarce, were characterized by it’s difficult access, little or precarious infrastructure and lack of resources, among others. This allowed us to accentuate the historical relationship of phonoaudiology as a “doctor’s assistant”.

CONCLUSIONS: It is observed that the material and symbolic conditions of development of Phonoaudiology (re)produced certain gender relations, while these gender relations (re)produced unequal material and symbolic conditions.