The gender representations of the biographic profiles of women honored with street names in the urban space of Londrina (PR)

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to understand the role of urban toponymy as hegemonic discourses of the social role of women in the formation of the city of Londrina, Paraná. Hence, we make use of biographical texts attached to the bills that name public places. In the impossibility of presenting all the questions engendered by this writing, we opted for a specific analysis on the representations of gender contained in the biographies of women chosen for such honors. We propose a reflection on the imbrications between biographical writing, History and gender relations, observing the city of Londrina, which is also marked by a strong memorialistic discourse on the pioneering spirit of those – especially men – who built the city. In the period studied, more than four thousand places were created, with the names of women being in 781 of them. Thus, we observe that the toponymy with names of women is underrepresented, and highly marked by delimited social roles.