Quebrando o silêncio: um estudo acerca das mulheres negras docentes da Faculdade de Serviço Social da Universidade Federal de Alagoas

Abstract

Ethnic-racial inequalities between men and women predate capitalist society, but is there that other meanings and functionalities are acquired, such as oppression/domination of one race over another or one sex over the other. and when we approach the gender and race debate, black women are doubly subordinate. Because exploitation, domination and oppression, both endorse process of enslavement of black population and are affected by patriarchal gender relations. This research has its origins in understanding how the structure of the university and its composition are based on the social, racial, and sexual division of work, based on my life as a black woman and granddaughter of a black woman working in general services at Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL). Entering the university world, I faced this rigid racial division that determines social standard for assuming certain roles. Thus, this dissertation has as main objective to reveal the racism that has crossed and continues to cross the trajectories of black women teachers of Social Service Course at UFAL. Our intention is to give voice to the screaming and deafening sound of racism that echoes and whitens the academic, but which remains in untouchable silence. The study outlined the following specific objectives: researching the patriarchal mode of social reproduction, which historically delimits the role of women, naturalizing and strengthening gender inequalities and how they intertwine with racism; understand the professional and political processes of black teachers on UFAL Social Service course from their origins; analyze the experiences of women at university to understand impacts on both their personal and professional lives when becoming a university professor. In order to guide the study, some questions were considered: how these women manage multiple working hours? How power relations and role division occur within the home? How do power relations occur within university? What are the challenges of being a black female professor at university? Thus, the qualitativequantitative research was aimed at black women professors of the Social Service Course at UFAL, with data collection relying on the application of a semi-structured interview guide. Historical-dialectical materialism comprised the method adopted for the analyzes regarding the socio-historical formation of Brazilian society and the particularities of the reality of Alagoas in the aforementioned course. We also delve into feminist epistemologies, with an emphasis on the studies of black thinkers, who based the analyzes in relation to gender and race inequalities, in order to support the understanding of the inequalities that legitimize and are legitimized by the process of domination, expressed in ways of subordination and inferiorization of black women, whose access to high-ranking social spaces is segregated. The research outlined the challenges of black teachers experienced in patriarchy and our everyday racism, in a capitalist, patriarchal and racist society that continues to reproduce a coloniality of power in all its spaces, including universities.