Machismo

According to the dictionary, the definition of machismo is a strong or exaggerated sense of manliness; an assumptive attitude that virility, courage, strength, and entitlement to dominate are attributes or concomitants of masculinity. So my question is how did this word come about?

There is this saying “machos are not born; they are created.” If this is true, then the term machismo refers to a concept that has been invented and not to an ancient cultural trait of any particular group of people. However, U.S. scholars and feminists noticed gender oppression in Mexico and other Latin American countries and announced that machismo was a particular cultural trait among Spanish-speaking men. There was also a disagreement with the origin of the word. Some believed it had ancient roots common in all Latin cultures since Roman times, others thought it was an ideology that originated in Andalusia, Spain, and was carried over the Atlantic Ocean during the Spanish Conquest. And then there were those who thought machismo was indigenous to the pre-Columbian Americas.  In fact, the word machismo has only been around only a few decades in the twentieth century.

A troubling fact about the idea of machismo is that until recently the term was more widely used in the United States than many parts in Latin America. In other parts of the world, macho has always had a negative connotation when referring to humans. Macho originates from a term that designates the male of an animal species, but in Latin America the term has taken on a different meaning. It was not until the 1990’s that the term cam into fashion and was used widely throughout Latin America. In the contemporary United States, the machismo mystique is regularly used to imply that somehow Spanish-speaking heterosexual men are more prone than men from other cultural backgrounds to sexist language, actions, and relationships.

In Latin America, the term macho usually must be differentiated from that of machismo. Macho has different meanings in different social circumstances; it can refer to the male of a species, whether animal or plant. In other cultural contexts, “to be macho” can have contradictory connotations. For older generations, it can refer to something positive for men to emulate; in other words, “a macho man” is one who is responsible for the financial welfare of his family. On the other hand, for younger men it refers to culturally stigmatized behavior like beating one’s wife.  Therefore, men from the younger generations refrain from calling themselves macho.

In my opinion, machismo is becoming less evident in the United States as Latinas go on to have a higher education and become independent of men. However, Mexico still has some progress to make.  Even though it is quickly becoming a modernized country, it still tightly holds onto some traditional views.

References:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/machismo

http://science.jrank.org/pages/7838/Machismo.html

Negative and Positive machismo?

Machismo is a word that was made by Anglo men to describe Latino men, but machismo can have both a negative and positive meaning to it. According to Rosalie Flores in Chicana Feminist Thought, she desribes machismo as “an elusive Mexican value, inbred and fostered by parental anxiety for the males in the family to show manliness, virility, honor, and courage…”. A Chicano man can act machismo in a positive light, like refusing to take days off of work because he puts the pressures of  paying the bills, putting food on the table, and his families well being, on his back with pride. Such machismo actions can encourage males and females of the family to have the same great work ethic in life, as well as the same selfless values.

However, the machismo mindset can be negative for a Chicano if it is used to oppress women. ow their “machismo”. The “negative” machismo mindset that some men had towards the Chicana Feminist movement  has affected the Chicana feminist movement negatively. Majority of these Chicano men who exercised the “negative” machismo believed during the Chicana Feminist movement that it was the womens duty to  cook, clean, and take care of the children, and not have a voice in the Chicano movement. Some men felt women could only have secretarial jobs during the movement, and this lead to some men greatly opposing the Chicana Feminist movement.  When some of the Chicano men start seeing their wives go against the customs that have been embedded in their minds of women just being in the background, their first instinct was to “correct” such behaviors. Some Chicano men saw women and their wives overriding  their disapproval to join the Chicana feminist movements as truly wrong.  The way some Chicano men stopped the voice of their wives was to stop them from joining  the Chicana Feminist movement because of their negative “machismo” mindset and actions.

According to Machismo-Bibliography. “A person isn’t born macho”, it is taught, which means acting machismo is taught.  Chicano..The Chicano male who is acts machismo in the wrong way is stunting the growth of Chicano people as a whole in a way. The potential great acts and ideas by Chicana women can be suppressed forever if their voice isn’t heard. The great idea or act of a Chicana women can have for the empowerment of her people could encourage other Chicano’s, male or female, to expand on her work. A perfect example is the success that the Chicana Feminist movement had on the Chicano community as a whole. Their are groups such as the brown Berets that currently allow women to have a voice in their organization and the women have successfully helped provide food, counseling, and guidance for the Chicano community. If such women were silenced by men negatively using “machismo” then their Chicano community as a whole wouldn’t have been able to positively benefit from the ideas of these Chicana women.


References:

  • Garcia, Alma M., ed. 1997. Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. Vol. 1. New York , NY : Routledge. 21-24.
  •   Garcia. 48-50.
  •    Garcia. 119.
  • Garcia. 93.
  • Garcia. 113-116
  • Mirandé, Alfredo, and Enríquez, Evangelina. 1979. La Chicana. Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press. 12-13
  • Mirandé. 242.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicana_feminism

Perspective on Machismo through the eyes of Gloria Anzaldúa and Jeanette Rodriguez

Both Jeanette Rodriguez in a section of her book, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and Empowerment among Mexican-American Women, and Gloria Anzaldúa in Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza speak to the construction of machismo. For a long time Chicanas and Mexican (American) women been exploited and colonized by sexism (Rodriguez, 70). They have been relegated solely to household duties and rearing of children or to prostitution, completely dismissing the possibility of becoming scholars. Gloria Anzaldúa states, “[f]or a woman of my culture there used to be only three directions she could turn: to the Church as a nun, to the streets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother” (39). Thus is a product of the patriarchal system that enforces machismo and the subjugation of women. In the church as a nun they are not placed in an equal position as priests. In the realm of prostitution they are perceived as sexual objects utilized by men for their sexual inclinations. They are expected to be at home, cleaning, rearing children and cooking for everyone, every meal. These are traditionally the expectations for Chicanas and Mexican (American) women.

Anzaldúa declares that machismo was constructed by Anglos, but Rodriguez states it “is a response to the dominant culture’s oppression” (Rodriguez, 71). Rodriguez discusses machismo more as a response from the rape indigenous women experienced during the conquest and their inability to fight it thus resulting in “an overly masculine and aggressive response to their women” (Rodriguez, 71). Describing it in modern times, in terms of Chicanos exerting machismo, Anzaldúa says, it’s a “result of hierarchical male dominance […] [t]he Anglo, feeling inadequate and inferior and powerless, displaces or transfers these feelings to the Chicano by shaming him” (105). Anzaldúa describes machismo as a transmission from Anglos to Chicanos as a result of Anglos feeling substandard to the Chicanos.

Through the invasion of the United States in Mexico in 1821 to 1910, Mexicans increasingly began to be displaced from their own lands. The drastic industrialization that was happening in the United States in that period of time, the “Anglo-American conquest transformed Mexicans from a position of citizenship, owners of their own lands, to a colonized people” (Rodgriguez, 67). The more penetration of Anglo-Americans into Mexican lands, the more of an oppressed people they became. As a result of the transformation evolved the idea of machismo.

I think that both Anzaldúa and Rodriguez’s descriptions of the construction of machismo are reasonable. I would have liked to see Rodriguez give more of an in-depth historical analysis than what she is providing in the book. Anzaldúa mentions the need for a new masculinity, one that is not afraid to feel and be vulnerable and create equality between men and women.

Sources: