Restraining Women: Gender, Sexuality and Modernity in Salvador da Bahia

Abstract

The paper explores constructions of masculinity and feminity in the speech and practice of residents of a low-income settlement in Salvador, Bahia. In local talk about sexual mores and parenting, the dominant theme is the ‘liberal’ and ‘decadent’ character of the modern age. Modernity is equated with a loss of social control over female sexuality and reproduction. Embedded in this vision is a powerful gender ideology that conditions the construction of gender identities. Analysis reveals that the negotiation of identity is a complex and contested field. But against the postmodernist trend in contemporary gender studies, the paper argues that it is necessary to locate multiple and contested gender identities in the overarching gender system. This is rooted in gender ideology, in sexual practice and in the systematic features of social and economic life. Far from signalling transformation in the gender system, talk about women’s loss of restraint and respectability functions as a brake upon pressure for change.