Mulheres incansáveis : a construção da identidade de trabalhadoras do setor de higiene e limpeza

Abstract

Modern society hás been going through constant transformations in the political, technological or social scenery. It can be stated that changes in societies have also been influencing changes in gender roles and in working relationships, including here the feminine work. Working women of the twenty-first century have had different roles from the ones they used to have so far. Inserted in this context, the present research hás as objective to analyse and interpret how woman's working identity is built in the human activity of paid work, in the sector of hygiene and cleaning of one state and one private third-grade institutions in Maringá city, state of Paraná. In order to do it, besides a bibliographical research, a cumulative field research was carried out, having as strategy a study of comparative case with exploratory and descriptive purposes. The data was collected in 2012, within two groups of working women, in a total of 14, through a semi-standardized interview and a focal group. Discourse analysis was used to analyse and interpret the data. By confirming what theory has shown, it was concluded that women's identity is formed through their sense of belonging not only individually or in groups, but also in their jobs, as well as in the enterpreneurships. It was observed that their work is central in their lives, and it occurs mainly through identity processes that happen in their working lives outside their houses, which strengthen their feelings of self-esteem and make them believe they have innumerable capacities. It was also verfied that paid work changes women's domestic roles and that they would not have the possibility of getting to know themselves fully, had they just been related to the domestic environment.