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The Meanings of Macho:
Being a Man in Mexico City
National Period
The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. By Matthew C. Gutmann. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Photographs. Maps. Tables. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. xvi, 330 pp. Paper, $16.95. In a male culture that prides itself on being a bastion of masculine values and quixotic attitudes, being Mexican and being macho have often been considered equivalents. However, these days, what does it actually mean to be macho in Mexico? Furthermore, how do macho attitudes express themselves in the context of Mexico City, the largest concentration of human beings on earth? These are the key questions that Matthew C. Gutmann poses and sets out to answer. Correctly pointing out that the philandering macho stereotype has ignored the role fatherhood in the lives of millions of Mexican men (p. 2), Gutmann explores the lives of working-class men in Mexico City and examines their attitudes about sexuality, fatherhood, alcohol, violence, and machismo itself.
The Meanings of Macho is the product of a few months of fieldwork in Santo Domingo, a barrio located in southern Mexico City that was established in the 1970s when homeless families from Mexico City and the provinces illegally invaded unoccupied lands. There could be no more barren environment than the arid-rock subsoil, which dates to the ancient explosion of the Xitle volcano. It was here, among the settlers, that Gutmann was able to find a group of people ready to talk about such diverse aspects of their daily life as parenthood, sexuality, alcoholism, child care, and male violence. Although this research methodology of participant observation offers some key insights, it also constitutes a limitation, since it restricts Gutmann's analysis to where he lived, the barrio of Santo Domingo, and rules out any comparative focus or reference to other areas of Mexico City. Thus the possible uniqueness of the case study of Santo Domingo is a topic left unexplored. This limitation deprives Gutmann's work of a needed perspective that would contextualize the interviews he conducted as well as the [End Page 198] conclusions he offers, particularly in the light of similar works. The lack of historical depth and the very immediacy of his narrative style further weaken Gutmann's book, for the reader is unable to properly evaluate possible changes and continuities in the behavior and lives of the people interviewed. The absence of proper contextualization is even more striking given that some of the interviewees themselves recognize the role of their social background and upbringing in their own formation.
In addition, by failing to explore both the personal and the social background of his informants, Gutmann seems to take their statements at face value. He works mainly with the text of what informants say about their sexuality, their love lives, and their parental obligations. Yet the reader is left with the impression that there might be a great gap between what they say and do, a gap that Gutmann fails to point out. At times, he makes use of Spanish colloquial terms such as casa chica (literally "small house," a second household of an adulterous relationship), chilanguismo (from the term chilango, used, often insultingly, to refer to someone from Mexico City), and maraquero (masturbating man) in an effort to deepen his exploration of a particular concept. Yet, with the exception of machismo, Gutmann fails to offer an in-depth explanation of such terms in the context of local use. The result is that he is able to communicate only a superficial use that is more akin to an epithet than to an analytic concept. This might indicate Gutmann's problem with Spanish terms themselves, since he mistranslates necio as "fool," whereas "stubborn" is a more precise equivalent (p. 209); and he mistakes creía, "I believe," for crié, "I was raised" (p. 234). A more in-depth study of the history, uses, and meanings of such concepts would have helped the work enormously and...
The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (review)
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