Since the second wave of feminism stated that ‘personal is political’, the way in which we understand the dichotomy between public spaces of politics and economy and private spaces of family and domesticity has been transformed. Gender and sexuality are no longer circumscribed to the realm of intimacy. We have now learned that they are part of minorities' social movements in search of vindications, and moreover, gender and sexual rights are included in most political agendas of almost every country around the world.
This recent concern about the study of gender and sexuality does not mean they have been hidden from public surveillance in the past. On the contrary, their close relationship with the modern conformation of the State and the construction of identities has been documented in many ways since Foucault formulated his idea of invention of sexuality at the end of the 18th century. According to the same author, said mechanism directs individuals toward socially-accepted behaviours and attitudes by establishing a division between what it is decent, good and correct, and what is indecent, abnormal and improper. Thus, by explicitly involving the ethical evaluation of the individual, his/her desires and practices, it is possible to understand its effectiveness as a bio-power instrument.
French and Bliss' compilation is an excellent example of this intertwined relationship between, on the one hand, institutions, social and political conditions, cultural values and gender and sexuality conceptions, and on the other, the concrete sphere of individual daily life. The introduction of the book clarifies the conceptual frame and gives theoretical unity to the eleven chapters and an appendix, assuming that gender and sexuality must be conceived as socio-historical constructions that only make sense if we are capable to find out their conditions of possibility in a given moment in a particular society.
The various essays presented in the volume offer a complex kaleidoscope of what being a man or a woman signifies in Latin America, a vast territory which exhibits a common inheritance due to Spanish and Portuguese conquest. But they also highlight the importance that native cultures have in syncretism processes and in the construction of the national ethos. As the editors state, categories like ‘man’, ‘women’, ‘lesbian’, or ‘homosexual’ can be understood ‘ … as positions from which to interpret and act politically rather than as established or inherent set of values or characteristics’ (p. 22).
Thus, for Western or Westernised cultures, heirs of the Jewish-Christian and puritan traditions, sexuality and gender are located in the centre of all kinds of dilemmas: medical, moral, religious, social, judicial and political. By examining these different discourses, each chapter analyses a wide historical spectrum of nearly 200 years, from the first Republic at Venezuela during the beginnings of XIX century, through the post-dictatorship times in Chile, showing how the unequal distribution of power can be concealed or taken for granted as a natural consequence of gender roles.
Nevertheless, some of the authors reveal as well how individuals take advantage of stereotypes in order to obtain their goals. For instance, Díaz analyses the way women from Caracas appealed to the notion of sacred motherhood in an attempt to save a female murderer who was with child from the death penalty. Likewise, Archetti demonstrates how the imaginary of native ‘gaucho’ became the archetype of masculinity, force and a sense of belonging for a country being ‘invaded’ by massive immigration from Europe and Middle East. Along with tango, el gaucho became the representation of Argentina, excluding women from national symbols. In the same manner, Parker examines dueling as a practical institution reserved only for men that underlined credibility, honour, force and respectability, and gave powerful men control not only over women but also over other men. Howe shows the complexity of Nicaraguan politics regarding gender and sexuality during the Sandinista revolution and the contradictory alliances and struggles between feminist and gay and lesbian activists.
Both Bronfmann and Green chapters deal with Cesare Lombroso's theory of criminal anthropology. In her study of delinquency among Cuban women, Bronfmann explores the contradictory position of Cuban physicians about criminal features: evident to behold, but very easy to hide. One the other hand, Green analyses how medical discourses constructed the homosexual body between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ – an idea that we can still find in Latin America – ignoring the fluidity of sexual behaviour.
Some chapters are of particular interest for those studying transgressive gender roles or transgressive sexuality. Windler's work refers to a French midwife who was able to work as an ‘homen-mulher’ in middle nineteenth-century Brazil, functioning as a cross-dressing medical practitioner in a masculine world. Bliss and Blum examine how Mexican teenagers experienced sex and gender in early twentieth century in Mexico City, against all the family and official structures that promoted ideals of sexual restraint and dichotomised gender roles in a period of turbulent historical transformations.
Piccato's work deals with a marginalised space, the Belem Prison in Mexico City, where the gender and sexuality order is reversed, but according to specific rules and power relationships based on ‘negotiations, alliances, and resistances that undermined, as much as preserved’ such an order (p. 88). Putnam also focuses on a borderline region, where labour in export agricultural plantations attracted large male and female populations, but the absence of effective law protection made male impunity a reality.
I particularly enjoyed Frazer's chapter about the strategy deployed by the Chilean during the Pinochet dictatorship, a strategy which located the cause of psychological ills in the domestic sphere rather than in society. Her use of literature resources highlights her conclusion about the construction of certain subjectivities and memories that accept the space of death as a consequence of state violence.
Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Latin America since Independence should become a key reference for those interested in the ways in which sexuality and gender relationships shape and are shaped in particular contexts, posing a universe of possibilities for research.
