Ranging from fatherhood to machismo and from public health to housework, Changing Men and Masculinitiesin Latin America is a collection of pioneering studies of what it means to be a man in Latin America. Matthew C. Gutmann brings together essays by well-known U.S. Latin Americanists and newly translated essays by noted Latin American scholars. Historically grounded and attuned to global political and economic changes, this collection investigates what, if anything, is distinctive about and common to masculinity across Latin America at the same time that it considers the relative benefits and drawbacks of studies focusing on men there. Demonstrating that attention to masculinities does not thwart feminism, the contributors illuminate the changing relationships between men and women and among men of different ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and classes.
The contributors look at Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and the United States. They bring to bear a number of disciplines—anthropology, history, literature, public health, and sociology—and a variety of methodologies including ethnography, literary criticism, and statistical analysis. Whether analyzing rape legislation in Argentina, the unique space for candid discussions of masculinity created in an Alcoholics Anonymous group in Mexico, the role of shame in shaping Chicana and Chicano identities and gender relations, or homosexuality in Brazil, Changing Men and Masculinities highlights the complex distinctions between normative conceptions of masculinity in Latin America and the actual experiences and thoughts of particular men and women. Contributors. Xavier Andrade, Daniel Balderston, Peter Beattie, Stanley Brandes, Héctor Carrillo, Miguel Díaz Barriga, Agustín Escobar, Francisco Ferrándiz, Claudia Fonseca, Norma Fuller, Matthew C. Gutmann, Donna Guy, Florencia Mallon, José Olavarría, Richard Parker, Mara Viveros
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The essays in this volume represent a significant advance for our understanding of both the texture and obstinate endurance of inequality in Latin America. Building on recent breakthrough studies of women, gender, and sexuality, Changing Men and Masculinities opens up worlds of male experience, from the bedroom to the workplace. The volume confirms that masculinity is a useful, and indispensable, category of analysis.”—Greg Grandin, author of The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation
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Changing Men and Masculinities in Latin America stands on the frontier of gender studies. Its interdisciplinarity, broad historical scope, and multicountry coverage portray well the diversity of masculinities in Latin America.”—Elizabeth Dore, coeditor of Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America
From the Back Cover
“The essays in this volume represent a significant advance for our understanding of both the texture and obstinate endurance of inequality in Latin America. Building on recent breakthrough studies of women, gender, and sexuality, ” Changing Men and Masculinities” opens up worlds of male experience, from the bedroom to the workplace. The volume confirms that masculinity is a useful, and indispensable, category of analysis.”–Greg Grandin, author of “The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation”
About the Author
Matthew C. Gutmann is Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant Professor of the Social Sciences–International Affairs in the Department of Anthropology at Brown University. He is author of The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City and Mainstreaming Men into Gender and Development: Debates, Reflections, Experiences (with Sylvia Chant).
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