Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas: Contesting the Power of Latin American Gender Imagery

Challenging the stereotypical images of the dominating male and the subservient woman, Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas addresses the variety of representations of gender in Latin American culture. Ranging across homosexuality, prostitution, football, politics and ethnic relations, this fascinating study analyzes the many potent images of gender, from Maradona, the child trickster of Argentinian football, to La Malinche, mistress of a conquistador and traitor to her nation. Based on social anthropological fieldwork, the essays in Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas present rich ethnographic material drawn from a variety of locations in Latin America, from Mexico City to the highlands of Ecuador. Paying particular attention to the cultural and symbolic meanings of gender research in the region, together the essays reveal the central role of gender differences in the making of ethnic, national, political and economic divisions.

Merit Melhuus has carried out fieldwork in Argentina, Norway and Mexico. She is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo.

Kristi Anne Stølen is Director and Professor at the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo. She is the author of Gender, Power and Social Change in the Argentine Prairie.