This article examines female sterilisation practices in early twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It argues that the medical profession, particularly obstetricians and psychiatrists, used debates over the issue to solidify its moral and political standing during two political moments of Brazilian history: when the Brazilian government separated church and state in the 1890s and when Getúlio Vargas’s authoritarian regime of the late 1930s renewed alliances with the Catholic church. Shifting notions of gender, race, and heredity further shaped these debates. In the late nineteenth century, a unified medical profession believed that female sterilisation caused psychiatric degeneration in women. By the 1930s, however, the arrival of eugenics caused a divergence amongst physicians. Psychiatrists began supporting eugenic sterilisation to prevent degeneration – both psychiatric and racial. Obstetricians, while arguing that sterilisation no longer caused mental disturbances in women, rejected it as a eugenic practice in regard to race. For obstetricians, the separation of sex from motherhood was more dangerous than any racial ‘impurities’, both phenotypical and psychiatric. At the same time, a revitalised Brazilian Catholic church rejected eugenics and sterilisation point blank, and its renewed ties with the Vargas regime blocked the medical implementation of any eugenic sterilisation laws. Brazilian women, nonetheless, continued to access the procedure, regardless of the surrounding legal and medical proscriptions.

中文翻译：

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堕落的性别：天主教巴西的女性绝育、医疗权威和种族纯洁性


本文探讨了二十世纪初巴西里约热内卢的女性绝育做法。它认为，在巴西历史上的两个政治时刻，医学界，特别是产科医生和精神病学家，利用对此问题的辩论来巩固其道德和政治地位：巴西政府在 1890 年代将教会与国家分离，以及 Getulio Vargas 的独裁政权20世纪30年代末与天主教会重新结盟。性别、种族和遗传观念的转变进一步影响了这些辩论。十九世纪末，医学界统一认为，女性绝育会导致女性精神退化。然而，到了 20 世纪 30 年代，优生学的到来引起了医生之间的分歧。精神病学家开始支持优生绝育以防止精神和种族退化。产科医生虽然认为绝育不再对女性造成精神障碍，但拒绝将其视为种族方面的优生做法。对于产科医生来说，性别与母性的分离比任何种族“杂质”更危险，无论是在表型上还是在精神上。与此同时，重振旗鼓的巴西天主教会断然拒绝优生和绝育，并且它与巴尔加斯政权重新建立的联系阻碍了任何优生绝育法的医疗实施。尽管如此，巴西妇女不顾周围的法律和医疗禁令，继续接受该手术。