Abstract
The article investigates the institutionalization of social sciences in São Paulo with a focus on the interlinking of academic disputes and gender asymmetries. The connective thread is our reconstruction of the trajectories of four professors of the first generation of university intellectuals between 1934 and 1969: Gilda de Mello e Souza, Gioconda Mussolini, Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz, and Paula Beiguelman. In spite of an increase in women professionals’ entry into the new higher educational institutions, progression in their careers was hard and tortuous. Under the paternalistic logic of the cathedra institutional structure, they were at a disadvantage, generally occupying lower and more insecure positions in the academic hierarchy.
Gender; Trajectory; Career; Intellectual; Asymmetry