Masculinity, poverty and violence in Argentina – Analyzing children’s discourse.

ALEJANDRA MARTÍNEZ; ALDO MERLINO

Amsterdam Social Science Journal

University of Amsterdam

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2009 vol. 01 p. 1 - 1

This article shows part of the results of a research, the objective of which was to analyze the way boys and girls - that live in the city of Córdoba, Argentina - of the ages of 8 and 9, that belong to different socioeconomic levels, build discourse around gender norms. About the analysis, it is focused around discourses built by children that live in one of the poorest city areas. This work explains how children reproduce, in their discourses, schemes considered as “traditional” around gender definition. But specifically, the way poor boys and girls stress men’s body relevance and men’s ability to exert physical violence towards masculinity definition and social recognition.