The Social Constitution of Gender Identity among Peruvian Men

1. Peruvian society inherited a social order imposed during the three centuries of Spanish domination. The colonial society was conceived as a product of conquerors (Spanish) and conquered (Indians). Outside the Spanish and Indian republics, without a precise place in the dual order, were the mestizos and the slave populations of African origin. After the wars for independence, the juridical and political system supporting the colonial classificatory system disappeared, but the ethnic and racial boundaries continued to influence social relationships and were reinforced by Western cultural and economic domination. Each city reproduces these hierarchies at the local level, but on a national scale, Lima is also considered more Westernized, whereas Cuzco is associated with Quechua-speaking (Inca) populations and Iquitos with native peoples of the Amazon region.

2. Twenty-three young men (of sixty) underscored the importance of having an athletic body. Of these, seventeen were from the working class and five from the middle class. Only ten (of sixty) adult men stressed this quality.

3. Degendering is defined by Gutmann (1996) as a process in which there occurs a “decentering of the perceived wisdom that associates practices especially with men or women” (p. 190).