Banca de DEFESA: MADJA ELAYNE DA SILVA PENHA

The feminae oeconomicus in Brazil: a business management of the self in the media

Feminae oeconomicus; self-entrepreneurship; discourse; neoliberalism; media device.

In the exploration of economic rationality, Michel Foucault (2022) identifies a new subjectivity governed by market logics: the self-made entreprise, or homo oeconomicus. Rejecting universals and focusing on gender, this research outlines the concept of feminae oeconomicus, a woman who is entrepreneur of herself. The study aims to analyze the formation of this feminae oeconomicus subjectivity, grounded in a Foucauldian archaeo-genealogy, towards an ontology of the present. To achieve this, we examine the model of feminae oeconomicus to understand its continuities and ruptures, based on discursive materiality, identifying points of intersection; we discuss the one’s modeling through media in a management of the self, for the governance and surveillance of bodies; and we identify points of dispersion, escape routes, towards a new art of living. The starting point emerges as a glimpse, considering the study by Rago (2019b), which indicates a gap in the production of subjectivity within a traditionally valued feminine identity. Following this lead, we investigate the construction of feminae oeconomicus subjectivity through an analysis of neoliberalism (Dardot & Laval, 2016), questioning the position of women from an economic perspective (Federici, 2017, 2019; Marçal, 2022; Oksala, 2019; Saffioti, 2013), not for empowerment, but for genuine emancipation. Divided into three stages, the study interposes analytical practice with theoretical-methodological assumptions, moving through media biases in their gendered spaces (Lauretis, 1987), such as newspapers, magazines, advertisements, soap operas, and digital social networks, understanding the statement in its semiological condition. Through an archival description, we inquire into its forms of expressibility; conservation and memory; reactivation and appropriation (Foucault, 2013a). In the journey through the media discourse that permeates us, we encounter a body that is banned, liberated, and mechanized, shaped by the designs of capital.