Challenging the stereotypical images of the dominating male and the subservient woman, Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas addresses the variety of representations of gender in Latin American culture. Ranging across homosexuality, prostitution, football, politics and ethnic relations, this fascinating study analyses the many potent images of gender, from Maradona, the child trickster of Argentinian football, to La Malinche, mistress of a Conquistador and traitor to her nation.

Based on social anthropological fieldwork, the essays in Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas present rich ethnographic material from Mexico City to the highlands of Ecuador. Drawing particular attention to the cultural and symbolic meanings of gender, the contributors redress the economic bias that has underpinned much of the gender research in Latin America. Together the essays expertly reveal the central role of gender differences in the making of ethnic, national, political and economic divisions.

Marit Melhuus has carried out fieldwork in Argentina, Norway and Mexico. She is senior lecturer and former Head of Department at the University of Oslo.

Kristi Anne Stelen is a researcher at the University of Oslo. She is co-editor of Gender and Social Change in Developing Countries and author of Gender; Power and Social Change in the Argentine Praire.