Having a city tour in Guayaquil proved to be a very interesting and beautiful experience for me. The inspiration of the coastal economy is evident in the structure of the entire city. Everything seemed to be sea-themed, especially the boardwalk. Much of the decoration on the piers was relateable to sailboats or ships. I found the church one of the most intriguing places. I was brought up Catholic and have studied Catholicism and Christianity. In the church there was one depiction of God bestowing power unto Jesus. It grabbed my attention, though, because God was depicted as a man. Recently, I took a class in Catholicism. The first class we were all asked to draw God and most drew a depiction of Jesus or a man. Later it was described to us that God is defined as everything ¨other´. God technically has no gender in religious terms and is everything that surrounds us. I wonder whether this depiction has anything to do with the effects of a very machismo culture that gives a lot of power to the male gender or if this is a sign of the world still having a fairly masculine power stronghold. In the United States, there is still a differentiation between the sexes but I have never seen a work of art that portrays a gender-neutral idea or figure, in a masculine form (at least not in a religious setting). Personification of ideas is usually balanced between female and male expression. While English is inundated with references to the male gender when referring to the general population, depictions of people usually includes equally males and females. It was interesting to see the effect of masculinity even on the inner workings of religion in this culture.
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