ABSTRACT
Rethinking the Americas with a gender perspective allows for recognizing the biases that have built hegemonic masculinity as the standard parameter to analyze past historic periods. Gender refers to the socially constructed cultural expression of identities, sexualities, bodies, and social roles associated with perceived biological differences. Stereotypes and negative images of Caribbean women abound in the journals of Columbus, as well as in the writings of travelers, missionaries, and European planters in the 18th and 19th centuries. Euro-American societies have experienced a long history of discrimination based on social race, gender, sexuality, and class. Sexual regulations and imaginaries about sex and gender were concomitant within the colonial apparatus. Spanish colonial officials were so appalled with what they saw as a mismatching gender system compared to Europe that women seeking to continue those ancestral traditions were harshly punished under the “defiance of colonial civil and ecclesiastical courts” in the Andes.
