Sofocante Buenos Aires. Representaciones de género en la literatura de viajes sobre Argentina (1880-1920)

Between the 18th and the 20th centuries, Argentina was the destination of both male and female travellers that published their impressions upon visiting this country. As it is perceived through their texts, many of these foreigners –mostly, Europeans- could see the importance Argentinean women gave to marriage, as well as to the strict rules regulating their relationships with the opposite sex. From a dominant stance, these travellers conceived themselves as representatives of a “civilized” sexual order while in their own opinion, both local men and women were less than barbarians belonging to a culture that condemned women to married life and child bearing. As for the texts of those writers visiting Buenos Aires between 1880 and 1920, I will focus on gender representation built around their own contact with men and women of the country´s capital city. It is my contention to work on “decolonizing” the knowledge of the sexual differences within a context matching in time with the settlement of the Argentine nation, with the arrival of local women in the workforce and the extension of citizenship –the universal (male) vote was granted in 1912, but their female counterparts had to wait for 30 years to obtain the same right