Gender Roles and Culture

I just finished a book called In the Land of God and Man by Silvana Paternostro, which is reviewed here. This book takes a harsh look at the sexual culture of Latin America and the harm that the values of machismo have inflicted and continue to inflict on the female population.

She writes of a permissiveness of reckless sexual behavior among men in the name of being manly that is matched only by a fierce double standard that women be imitators of the Virgin Mary, saving themselves for the only man with whom they'll ever be intimate, who also never paid a thought to saving himself for her.

I read nearly the entire book last week while working in the clinic recruiting participants to our HPV study, and the timing is coincidental because one of our target populations for our study on a sexually transmitted infection is Latino men and women.

While I read, I had to keep an eye on patients entering the waiting room so that I could approach them if they appeared to fit our recruitment criteria, and as I lifted my eyes occasionally from my page, I wondered to myself if these harsh indictments apply to the Latino men sitting in my midst.

Some of the author's stories angered me to the point of wanting to jump out of my chair and stomp my feet on the ground in frustration.

This information was not entirely new to me either. As part of our training as research assistants last summer, we sat down with a Latina woman who led a domestic abuse support group for Latina women in Des Moines and talked through some of the cultural barriers we may encounter in the data collection process. We also attended one of their meetings for participant recruitment. Regardless, I think receiving that information from multiple sources almost makes it more upsetting because then it takes on an air of commonality, like its a normal thing that's just a part of life. Some of the things these women go through should in no way be acceptable or accepted.

Entonces, [stepping off my soapbox] issues of gender roles in Latino culture have been called blaringly to my attention, and I wonder if our data will reveal any of these patterns as well. I also wonder what role these issues may play in my future work, whether it be direct, as in a specific focus of my career or more indirect, as simple reality of which I need to be acutely aware when working with Latino people.

With that in mind, I just stumbled across a website for and organization called Casa de Esperanza which is based in St. Paul and devotes itself to just these kinds of issues. Good people doing good work :)