 Gender is an additional overarching theme within dictator novels . National portraits in Latin America often insist on the importance of women ( and men ) that are healthy , happy , productive , and patriotic , yet many national literary treasures often reflect government rhetoric in the way they code active citizenship as male . Masculinity is an enduring motif in the dictator novel . There is a connection between the pen and the penis in Latin American fiction , but this pattern cannot be explained by machismo alone — it is far more complex . According to Rebecca E. Biron , " where we find violent , misogynistic fantasies of masculinity , we also [ find ] violent social relations between actual men and women . " Many Latin American works " include characters who act out violent fictions of masculinity , and yet their narrative structure provides readers with alternative responses to misogynistic fantasies of masculine identity formation " . 
