We address the formation of the female instructors in the nineteenth century, taking into account the practical conditions of education and the state impulse towards the professionalization of education in the escuelas normales, in response to the demands of a society that staked its transit towards modernity on its distance from the culture of popular world. Women were seen as the ideal agent for teaching due to their feminine nature; this had the effect of feminizing the profession, which by the end of the century put stress on the educational system from within, reproducing inequalities that impacted on women’s work.