RESIST AND (RE) EXIST: THE FEMINIST COLLECTIVE AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR REFLECTION AND SOCIAL MOBILIZATION IN THE ACADEMIC CONTEXT
Feminism. Feminist Movement. Feminist Collective. University.
INTRODUCTION: The gender perspective has been transformed over the last century and the best results, however, are still presented unevenly under different social, cultural and economic contexts in most societies. These inequities can only be canceled due to an untiring struggle of social and feminist movements in the historical process, or that has culminated in the presence of this population in academic spaces in recent decades. With a growing presence of women in the academic environment, we understand that feminist collectives founded at the university are necessary for the social development of women. OBJECTIVE: To apprehend the contributions of the Feminist Movement to the participants of a Feminist Collective within a Federal University in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte. METHODS: This is an exploratory and descriptive study with a qualitative approach, developed by the Faculty of Health Sciences of Trairi (FACISA) with undergraduate students who regularly participate in the Feminist Collective Dandara. this research carried out two steps for data collection, the first consisted of the self-application of a socioeconomic questionnaire and, subsequently, the creation and execution of focus groups, composed of up to 6 students, with an average duration of 50 minutes. For the data processing phase, this study used the Content Analysis proposed by Laurence Bardin and the categorization of the themes highlighted in the speeches of the participants. RESULTS: The results were presented through a central category entitled “Contributions of the feminist movement to the participants of a feminist collective”, from the reports obtained, we arrive at 3 categories represented below. The first category "A feminist arises" gave rise to 2 subcategories of discussion: "The discovery of being a feminist" and "Perceptions about feminism". The second category "Representations of feminism in the subjectivities of being a woman", originated the subcategories "Deconstructing the labels" and "Feminist awareness: Why (m) mourning?" Finally, the last category of discussion “The collective as an instrument of female empowerment” gave rise to the subcategory “Feminist collective: a place of speech and listening”. CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained in this study, achieved in an integral way of the objectives proposed in its construction, demonstrating as contributions of the Feminist Movement represented in the reports of participants of a Feminist Collective inserted within a Federal University of the interior of Rio Grande do Norte, indicating benefits related to the dynamic search for more harmonious relationships, in minimizing the problem that permeates social issues of the female gender in the most diverse experiential spheres.