Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
Latin American/Caribbean, transnational, bodies, children, family, gender, marriage, motherhood, politics, religion, reproduction, sexuality
Abstract
In the broadest cultural offensive of its “dirty war,” Brazil’s military government mandated Moral and Civic Education (EMC) in all Brazilian schools after 1969. Philosophically and programmatically linked to similar initiatives abroad, EMC was designed as a cultural (moral, sexual, gendered) complement to the violence deployed against suspected “subversives.” In this short paper, I examine the classified records of EMC’s genesis to demonstrate the ways in which hard-line autocrats envisioned the program as a Cold War weapon, to be used in tandem with repression. My survey of EMC textbooks, moreover, reveals a curricular attempt to restructure national and individual identity in terms of gender, culture, and morality. EMC classes sought to redefine Brazilian nationhood, “race,” and ideal citizenship, writing brasilidade into an anti-modern narrative in which moral and gender traditionalism formed the foundations of Cold War security.
Keywords
Morality, Gender, Sexuality, Cold War, Countersubversion, Dictatorship
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“Sex and You”: Educação Moral e Cívica and Brazil’s Military-Authoritarian Agenda
In the broadest cultural offensive of its “dirty war,” Brazil’s military government mandated Moral and Civic Education (EMC) in all Brazilian schools after 1969. Philosophically and programmatically linked to similar initiatives abroad, EMC was designed as a cultural (moral, sexual, gendered) complement to the violence deployed against suspected “subversives.” In this short paper, I examine the classified records of EMC’s genesis to demonstrate the ways in which hard-line autocrats envisioned the program as a Cold War weapon, to be used in tandem with repression. My survey of EMC textbooks, moreover, reveals a curricular attempt to restructure national and individual identity in terms of gender, culture, and morality. EMC classes sought to redefine Brazilian nationhood, “race,” and ideal citizenship, writing brasilidade into an anti-modern narrative in which moral and gender traditionalism formed the foundations of Cold War security.