Mistress vs Maid: Race, Class, Nation and Boundaries between Women in Argentine Fiction since the Mid‐Nineteenth Century.
This article analyses the historical construction of the ‘maid’ and the ‘mistress’ in Argentine literature from the mid-nineteenth century through to today. Inspired by the surprising continuities, as well as the less dramatic changes, in the portrayal of the mistress-maid relationship, it explores...
| Published in: | Gender & History Vol. 30; no. 2; pp. 401 - 423 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jul2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=131480871&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 131480871 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09535233 BPJ jtl: Gender & History issn: 09535233 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jul2018 vid: 30 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 131480871 10.1111/1468-0424.12369 ppf: 401 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 215KB tig: atl: Mistress vs Maid: Race, Class, Nation and Boundaries between Women in Argentine Fiction since the Mid‐Nineteenth Century. aug: au: Dunstan, Inés Pit, Rebekah su: Argentine literature -- History & criticism Women in literature Social classes Women household employees in literature Race in literature Mármol, José Rosas, Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de, 1793-1877 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 1811-1888 Argentina sug: subj: Argentina Argentine literature -- History & criticism Women in literature Social classes Women household employees in literature Race in literature Mármol, José Rosas, Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de, 1793-1877 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 1811-1888 ab: This article analyses the historical construction of the ‘maid’ and the ‘mistress’ in Argentine literature from the mid-nineteenth century through to today. Inspired by the surprising continuities, as well as the less dramatic changes, in the portrayal of the mistress-maid relationship, it explores literary representations of this ubiquitous but understudied duo. The article reveals how overlapping constructions of gender, race, class, sexuality and national identity have shaped differential understandings of women’s ‘appropriate’ domestic roles. Situating such ideas in relation to contemporary politics and historical legacies of slavery and violence against indigenous and mixed-race peoples highlights the long shadows cast by institutionalised racism. Writers have frequently associated a privileged Argentine identity with the figure of the white mistress and set her in opposition to the figure of the ‘inferior’ non-white maid, suggesting that the white mistresses should maintain racial and class boundaries to preserve order. While this article also examines works that highlight the oppression of the maid, it finds they too have reiterated features of the dominant discourse. We argue that the fraught place of the mistress and the maid in Argentine literature reveals a larger unease with the place of women, especially subaltern women, in Argentina’s national imagination. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Gender & History is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Gender & History holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2018 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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