Hispanic immigration to the United States and Canada, the North American Free Trade Accord, and Spanish language classes have all peaked North Americans’ curiosity about their neighbors south of the border. My own interest in Latin America stems from the fact that Spanish was my minor in college and that I come from a Latin background myself (Italian). The life of Latin American women in particular always intrigued me. So when the book In the Land of God and Man: Confronting Our Sexual Culture came out, I immediately purchased it.

The author of the book is Silvana Paternostro, a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in publications such as Time, The New York Times, and World Policy Journal. She was born into a wealthy family in Barranquilla, Colombia, where her childhood and early adolescence were spent, but she attended the latter part of high school and university in the United States. She currently resides in New York City.

In the Land of God and Man describes the life of Latin American women. The book’s basic premise is that Latinas are oppressed by the forces around them: men, the Roman Catholic Church, the government, and a general atmosphere of machismo. Latin society, according to Paternostro, slots women into two categories, virgins and whores, with little in between. If they dare to express their sexuality outside the bounds of marriage and motherhood, they are branded as sluts. In the worst-case scenario, women who become pregnant accidentally are made to pay for their transgressions by either bearing an unwanted child or undergoing an illegal abortion - the consequences of which can range from prison to medical complications to death. But being a “good girl” - remaining a virgin until marriage, staying faithful to one’s spouse, and not using birth control - also has its hazards. In a culture where females are taught to be chaste and males to sow their wild oats, married women are at high risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases from their philandering husbands and boyfriends. Economically too women are kept in a subordinate state. As Paternostro explains, “men… are more than happy to continue to see women as wives, mothers, virgins, or whores, but not as engineers, journalists, lawyers, surgeons, or statesmen.”

The book consists of five chapters and an epilogue. Paternostro begins by recounting her childhood in Colombia: her strict Catholic upbringing, the pressure she felt to be a “good girl” and the way in which that pressure conflicted with her emerging sexuality. Next come her move to the United States and her exposure to what she perceives as a much more liberal culture. From her own experience she relates those of other Latin American women. Among the people she profiles are a businesswoman and personal friend; a Brazilian mother and grandmother; a number of gay men, transvestites, and street youths; a Guatemalan woman with AIDS; and a Hispanic woman living in New York City. In Paternostro’s view, all these individuals - other than the Latina in New York - are victims of oppression. The Brazilian grandmother, for example, has had several children, undergone at least eight clandestine abortions, and long ceased to enjoy sex with her husband, whom she nonetheless feels unable to leave. Paternostro’s childhood friend, now a successful executive with her own family, still takes her husband’s surname (by putting “de” and her husband’s last name after her own), which the author sees as a sign of subservience.

In the Land of God and Man makes for enjoyable reading. Paternostro’s style is professional yet readable: not overly academic but not exaggeratedly colloquial either. She is obviously devoted to her cause; that is, describing the oppression and defending the rights of women (and gay men, whom she also views as victims of a patriarchal culture). However, while her dedication to feminism and gay rights is an asset in many ways, in others it carries its own weaknesses. For one, the reader is left with the question of whether Latin American women are really as badly off as Paternostro claims. When confronted with headlines such as the deliberate neglect of baby girls in India, the veiling of women in the Middle East, and the flogging of a Nigerian teenager impregnated through rape, one can’t help thinking that Latinas don’t have it too bad compared to women in other parts of the developing world.

I even wonder how much more discrimination women face in Latin America than they do in industrialized nations. While In the Land of God and Man sometimes portrays the United States as the promised land in terms of women’s rights, in some respects Latin Americans are no more sexist than Americans and may in fact be less so. One Gallup poll, for instance, showed Colombians to be more accepting of non-marital childbearing than American respondents. Although opposition to out-of-wedlock pregnancy is not necessarily anti-woman per se, in reality because only women get pregnant, it is they rather than their male partners who suffer in any society with punitive sexual attitudes. It is true that unlike their North American and European sisters, Latin American women - other than those in Cuba - lack access to legal abortion, at least in their own countries (rich women can usually terminate their pregnancies elsewhere). But the right to abortion in itself is hardly a guarantee of women’s equality. Abortion is legal in India, for example, yet the status of women in that nation is very low.

In the Land of God and Man downplays the accomplishments Latin American women have made in traditionally male domains. For instance, Paternostro only cursorily mentions the fact that half of all university graduates in the region are women. When speaking of women in government, she points out that they are usually assigned to specific ministries, such as education, tourism, culture, and family and women’s affairs. She never explains, however, why these positions are minor or subordinate compared to, say, the ministries of health or defense. Even more significantly, female politicians are criticized for not being “feminist” enough. Colombian presidential candidate Noemí Sanín’s statement that “abortion should not be penalized by law or with prison: the woman who aborts suffers so much that it is punishment enough” is characterized as “pro-life” (a four-letter word in Paternostro’s vocabulary). In a country where women face jail sentences for ending unwanted pregnancies, Sanín’s remark might be considered a step forward, but according to Paternostro, Sanín is just another cog in the patriarchal wheel.

Paternostro’s tendency towards overdramatization might make readers take her valid points less seriously. She is right to say that women in Latin America (like, I would add, their counterparts in North American and Europe) do experience oppression and have a long way to go before they achieve full equality in society. The book’s other strengths include the author’s ability to sympathize and at times empathize with her subjects as well as the informative portrait she paints of Latin American life. For these reasons, In the Land of God and Man is recommended reading for anyone who wants to learn more about women’s issues, Latin America, or both.

©2001 all rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part prohibited without
the express written consent of Interracial Voice.