Suave făpturi, cerbere, blânde mume, diletante agreabile, vivandiere... Femeile în publicațiile periodice ale Serviciului Social, România 1935–1939.

Between 1934 and 1939, several hundred voluntary student teams went to Romanian villages to perform “cultural work,” i.e., to help and guide peasants to work more productively and to live healthier lives. In 1938, the Law of the Social Service was passed, stipulating that all university graduates, irrespective of gender and academic specialization, were required to take part in social intervention activities in villages to obtain their diplomas. In this paper, I argue that a new constellation of gender ideas, norms and expectations was drawn up in order to allow for enough room for young middle-class women to be part of student teams that were going to spend a couple of months away from their families and in the unknown settings of the rural areas. Therefore, I explore the discourses used in the main information and propaganda periodical published by the Social Service and I identify and illustrate some strategies and mechanisms employed in the production of the gender model needed for the social and national construction of the new and improved Romanian village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]