'Being Carried Out': Women’s Bodies and Masculinity Inside and Outside the Capoeira Ring

Authors
Publication date 2014
Host editors
  • G. Frerks
  • A. Ypeij
  • R.S. König
Book title Gender and Conflict
Book subtitle Embodiments, Discourses and Symbolic Practices
ISBN
  • 9780815377344
ISBN (electronic)
  • 9781315583846
Series Gender in a global/local world
Pages (from-to) 175-192
Publisher Farnham: Ashgate
Organisations
  • Faculty of Humanities (FGw) - Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA)
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the practice of a male capoeirista carrying a female capoeirista out of the capoeira ring. It considers a subtle symbolic bodily practice that indicates gender inequality and conflict inside the capoeira roda. Black male slaves have created capoeira in the context of the racism and injustices of the Brazilian slavery society of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The masculine body and men's supposedly superior skills facilitate men's superior position in the group hierarchy. Masters who depend on the collective for their livelihood and social mobility defend their leadership fiercely, inside and outside the ring, with their masculine bodies, authoritarian leadership and social talents. The gendered outcome of the capoeira game is that men struggle among each other over leadership, while women's role is limited to supporting the reputation of the leaders.
Document type Chapter
Language English
Related publication 'Being Carried Out': Women’s Bodies and Masculinity Inside and Outside the <em>Capoeira</em> Ring
Published at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317130819/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315583846-9
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