Gender and Disability in Eduarda Mansilla's Literature for Children

In the late 1800s, Eduarda Mansilla de García worked to redefine women's place in Argentine society. While scholarship has praised the pioneering character of her literature for adults, little attention has been paid to the literature she wrote for children. This article analyzes how "La paloma blanca," a children's story published in the 1880 collection Cuentos, compromises the model of modern womanhood that Mansilla advances in her larger oeuvre. "La paloma blanca" tells the story of two cousins, one disabled and one exceptionally abled, who represent the two discourses of femininity that circulated in the late nineteenth century: the angelic "hunchback" metaphorizes how the discourse of domesticity paralyzes porteño women, and the athletic "tomboy" embodies the emancipatory possibilities of feminism. Because "La paloma blanca" mobilizes ableist stereotypes of disability in order to critique the patriarchal status quo, it ultimately implies that the patriarchy cannot be changed, and that women should maintain their traditional roles within the home. By challenging the feminist stance that Mansilla assumes in her literature for adults, "La paloma blanca" defies the expectation that nineteenth-century children's literature was low-quality, frivolous writing that served primarily to entertain. This article thus expands the study of gender and protest in nineteenth-century print culture to include literature written for younger audiences, and it also advances our understanding of Spanish American narratives of disability.