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What It Means To Be A Man

Reflections on Puerto Rican Masculinity Rafael L. Ramirez Translated by: Rosa E. Casper Gresenia Gil Suarez Francisco Torres. What It Means To Be A Man. Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico continued. Under U.S at first known as Porto Rico Plebiscite- U.N 1917 forced citizenship

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What It Means To Be A Man

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  1. Reflections on Puerto Rican Masculinity Rafael L. Ramirez Translated by: Rosa E. Casper Gresenia Gil Suarez Francisco Torres What It Means To Be A Man

  2. Puerto Rico

  3. Puerto Rico continued • Under U.S at first known as Porto Rico • Plebiscite- U.N • 1917 forced citizenship • U.S has ability to override the P.R constitution and all laws passed in the country • First governors were appointed by the Unites States • Social issues- Diaspora vs islander

  4. Puerto Rico • “Male domination is perpetuated in Puerto Rican society by presenting women as subordinate, dependent beings in contrast to the more or less powerful male”

  5. MACHISMO • Popularized in the social literatures of the fifties and sixties and was initially presented as a Latin American phenomenon that appeared in its crudest form in the peasant and working classes • Associated with male traits or behaviors to which negative qualities are attributed

  6. Latin American men categorized as beings who are: Aggressive Oppressive Narcissistic Insecure Loud mouthed Womanizers Massive drinkers Uncontrollable sexual prowess Parranderos de parranda larga Machismo

  7. Machismo • Positive aspects: • Courage • Responsibility • Perseverance • Used in multiple ways • Set of attitudes • Configuration on traits • syndrome

  8. Machismo- Stycos • Explains machismo as an analytical category- studying sociocultural aspects of human fertility in order to make specific recommendations to guide the Puerto Rican birth control programs • The drive in males to manifest their virility • Drives men to produce a limitless quantity of children

  9. Cont’ • Stycos- Response of 72 men who were asked the following questions: • “Speaking of being a macho completo (complete man) how does a man show it? How does he prove it?” • 15.4 % said that machismo is manifested “through abusiveness” • 73.7% said (courage, honesty, chivalry, reliability, being a good neighbor, being a man of honor) • 39.2 % associated machismo with virility and sexuality

  10. Machismo-Styco’s cont’ • Machismo is a “general lower-class value” and is transmitted by the penis adulation of infants and by the reinforcement of activities considered to be masculine • “The most striking manifestation of attempts to inculcate machismo occurs in the adult adulation of the infantile penis. By praising and calling a great deal of attention to the penis, the parent can communicate to the child the literal or symbolic value of the male organ” (10).

  11. Machismo Writings • Repetitive • Uncritical • Machismo is manifested in an inequal manner in the class structure, with a lesser incidence in the higher classes because women have more economic independence from their husbands. Higher prestige, and more power

  12. Cont • Middle classes display the greatest manifestation of machismo • Women have more sexual freedom than their counterparts in other social classes

  13. Masculine Ideology • A social construction that favors the masculine and belittles the feminine • Places men in a universe of categories and symbols of power that reproduce daily • Although there is one ideology , there are various behaviors that vary according to the power and privileges that each man possesses • Least powerful men and those in greatest apparent competition with others to demonstrate manhood resort to acts of behaviors that exaggerate attributes of masculinity

  14. Culturally and Socially Constructed • Not physical, but common beliefs of what each sex should exhibit • Carrot and stick idea • Thorne (education) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIXUjzyMe0

  15. Homosexuality vs Heterosexuality • Gender and privileged (McIntosh) • Not considered separately- bluntly sex is sex • Ancient and modern practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84wHXT2KgWY

  16. Hegemony-manlyness (dominance) • Fight to be manly or seen as failure • Gilmore- provider • Hardworker • Bigness-achievement and physical • Personal accomplishment for “greater good” • Easy to survive without men-dangerous for us

  17. Androcentrism (men centered) • Godelier- Baruya- men vs woman • Unequal treatment • Boys into men, made nor born • Semen thing- men and boys • Richardson(language)

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