Masculinity Challenged?

TL;DR: Conversion of (ex)convicts into Evangelical churches in Piura and Lima challenges traditional notions of masculinity and gender roles, yet reinforces existing social religious imaginary.

Abstract:  This article aims to present some of the results of our investigation on prisoners’ conversion into Evangelical churches, amongst (ex)convicts in Piura, a Peruvian Northern city and in Lima. Our objective is to research highly debated and understudied topics about this type of process of conversion: whether it is an individual process or a strategy to gain protection from the church in a dangerous surrounding (Algranti)? Which changes do (ex)convicts undergo through conversion, especially in ways of enacting virile masculinity, a very important feature of gang members and of Evangelical churches? Many (ex)convicts’ religious careers oscillate between extremes, from delinquency to strict church discipline, until some of them may stabilize. We argue that in spite of conversion and apparent changes in behaviors, the social religious imaginary (Morello), especially in terms of ideals of masculinity, remains almost unchanged, based on relations of power, fights and domination. (Ex)convicts pass from a “perverse” version of masculinity to a “virtuous” one (Fuller). For them, the ideal of femininity remains rooted in submissive women.