The Emasculation of President José María Reyna Barrios: Manliness and Economic Crisis in Fin-de-Siècle Guatemala City

Abstract

Displays of ostentation were regarded as manly faux pas in nineteenthcentury Guatemala City, a perspective shared by men of different ethnic and class origins, though gender norms were seldom uniformly enforced. When the Guatemalan export economy collapsed and a social crisis ensued in 1897, critics of the government blamed the excess and luxury of President José María Reyna Barrios for the economic turmoil. They argued that the president lacked manly self-restraint and had succumbed to his own vanity and sexual licentiousness. The emasculation of Reyna Barrios demonstrates how the boundaries of permissible gendered actions were constrained during a period of upheaval.