“Street masculinities”: social constructions of gender in Bogotá from a feminine and feminist perspective

Abstract

This article reflects on street masculinities in the city of Bogotá, from “feminist objectivity” and situated knowledge, learning from our own bodies, interpreted as feminine. We begin with an ethnographic position in which our stories are combined with those of men, women and transgender people regarding male roles, the family, the street and everyday violence. Based on these stories, the aim is to analyze the way masculinities are constructed (thought of with and without men) in a context characterized by extreme precariousness, drug-dependency, delinquency, prostitution, and physical, structural, and symbolic violence. Feminism contributes to the interpretation and understanding of masculinity, showing that, in these contexts, identities, roles, practices and emotional burdens have been imposed on male and female bodies that correspond to hegemonic social constructions of masculinity.