Abstract

KUNIN, Johana. The "medio putos" (kinda faggy): Subaltern Masculinities and Alternative Gender Dynamics in the Rural Argentinean Pampas (2014-2017). Hist. Soc. [online]. 2021, n.41, pp.69-92.  Epub July 28, 2021. ISSN 0121-8417.  https://doi.org/10.15446/hys.n41.92029.

This article explores gender dynamics in the Argentinean Pampas, with a special focus on masculinities. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted, including participant observation and interviews, between 2014 and 2017 in a rural district where very conservative gender views prevail. It was concluded that it is imperative to understand the emic category "medio putos" ("kinda faggy"). This is how minority males who participate in dissident initiatives such as community theater and agroecological horticulture production are pejoratively designated. Typically, in Argentina, a gay man is denigrated as a "puto" (faggy). The label in this case does not refer to the sexuality of the person in question, but rather to his low social hierarchy in a strongly patriarchal world. "Medio puto" is intended to designate a feminized corporeality (which does not demonstrate its virility daily or loudly) that, although it does not assume a homosexual identity or practices, does "weird" things that "real men do not do". This article, therefore, empirically shows the heterogeneity of positions linked to masculinities, especially those related to subaltern masculinities, in order to reveal how the latter can produce gender dynamics, to some extent, alternative to the hegemonic one.

Keywords : masculinity; gender; rurality; Argentine pampas; virility, homosexuality; XXI century.

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