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University of California Press

The Meanings of Macho

Being a Man in Mexico City
by Matthew C. Gutmann (Author)
Paperback eBook
Price: $34.95 / £30.00
Publication Date: Oct 2006
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 362
ISBN: 9780520933538
Series:
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About the Book

In this compelling study of machismo in Mexico City, Matthew Gutmann overturns many stereotypes of male culture in Mexico and offers a sensitive and often surprising look at how Mexican men see themselves, parent their children, relate to women, and talk about sex. This tenth anniversary edition features a new preface that updates the stories of the book's key protagonists.

About the Author

Matthew Gutmann is Professor of Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, and Latin American Studies at Brown University and is the author of The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (Tenth Anniversary edition, 2006) and The Romance of Democracy: Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico (2002), both from UC Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 
Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition 
Maps 

Introduction: Gender Conventions 
I. Real Mexican Machos Are Born to Die 
2. The Invasion of Santo Domingo 
3. Imaginary Fathers, Genuine Fathers 
4. Motherly Presumptions and Presumptuous Mothers
5. Men's Sex 
6. Diapers and Dishes, Words and Deeds 
7. Degendering Alcohol 
8. Fear and Loathing in Male Violence 
9. Machismo 
IO. Creative Contradictions 

Notes 
Glossary 
Bibliography 
Index

Reviews

“In what may be the most fitting tribute to Gutmann’s ability to study human beings rather than subjects, the preface to the new edition mostly consists of epilogues on what has happened to the main characters rather than updated ethnographic data. This is a book about people.”
— The Herald Mexico
Praise for the first edition:

"Gutmann has done the hithertofore seemingly unthinkable. [A] wholly other vision of Mexican gender relations emerges."—José Limón, American Anthropologist

"This book does for the study of men what two generations of feminist anthropologists have done for the study of women."—Lynn Stephen, author of Zapotec Women