More Than Muscles, Money, or Machismo: Latino Men and the Stewardship of Masculinity

Twenty Hispanic-/Latino-identifying men participated in a qualitative-quantitative mixed-design study centrally focused on the melding of masculinity, romantic relationships, and sexuality. The current study interrogated men’s beliefs and practices orbiting intersections of cultural heritage and dominant societal messaging about masculinity and masculine performances. Men were recruited from the community, mostly from an intra-mural sporting league for adult men. Men reported core values that guided their personal scheme of masculinity and rejected masculinities which they described as false, including the machismo role often associated with or ascribed to Latino men. The values and behavior men regarded as most desirable were those associated with caballerismo. Men rejected the notion of a singular masculinity—one uniformly available to or adopted by all men—as either desirable or practical. The majority of participants reported negligible perceived differences in masculinities across straight and gay men. Men’s narratives yielded beliefs of a contemporary gender ideology, an ideology where relationships with family, women in romantic or sexual relationships, and other men, are based on respect, fairness, and affection.