Machismo


Machismo is the sense of being "manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1940s and 1950s and its use became more widespread in popular culture in the 60s. While the term is associated with "a man's responsibility to provide for, protect, and defend his family", machismo is strongly and consistently associated with dominance, aggression, grandstanding, and an inability to nurture. Machismo is found to be deeply rooted in family dynamics and a Hypermasculinity culture in Latin America and is exclusive to the region, that makes it prone to Toxic masculinity.
The word macho has a long history both in Spain and Portugal, including the Spanish and Portuguese languages. Macho in Portuguese and Spanish is a strictly masculine term, derived from the Latin mascŭlus, which means "male". It was originally associated with the ideal societal role men were expected to play in their communities, most particularly Iberian language-speaking societies and countries. Ser macho was an aspiration for all boys. As history shows, men were often in powerful and dominating roles thus portrayed the stereotype of the macho man. Thus the origin of machismo serves as an illustration of past history, the struggles that colonial Latin America faced and the evolution of gender stereotypes with time.

Depictions

The depictions of machismo vary, yet their characteristics are quite familiar. Machismo is based on biological, historical, cultural, psycho-social, and interpersonal traits or behaviors. Some of the well known traits are:
  • Posturing: assuming a certain, often unusual or exaggerated body posture or attitude. The macho must settle all differences, verbal or physical abuse, challenges, or disagreements with violence as opposed to diplomacy.
  • Treating their wife as a display of an aloof lord-protector: women are loving, men conquer.
  • Bravado: outrageous boasting, overconfidence.
  • Social dominance: a socio-culturally defined dominance; macho swagger.
  • Sexual prowess: being sexually assertive. Shyness is a collective issue for men.
  • Protecting one's honor or pride: believing in protecting the ego in spite of potential risk.
  • La calle : is a man's place. This is where men work and show off their masculinity.
  • Hardworking: Being able to provide through hard work and labor, often taking tough and demanding jobs.
  • A willingness to face danger.
In pop culture, machismo has been portrayed as violent, womanizing, and focusing on the traditional masculine roles of men.
From a Mexican-Chicano cultural and psychological perspective, the psycho-social traits can be summarized as: emotional invulnerability, patriarchal dominance, aggressive or controlling responses to stimuli, and ambivalence toward women. These traits have been seen as a Mexican masculine response to the Spanish conquistador conquering of the Americas. Before Mexico was colonized by the Spaniards, indigenous peoples, including the Aztecs, worshipped Xochipilli an Aztec God, associated with male homosexuality. The Spanish colonization led to the criminalization of homosexuality, causing the loss of many indigenous practices and traditions related to it. In contemporary, post-colonial Mexican identity, machismo ideals, introduced during the colonial period, have become prominent. It has been noted by some scholars that machismo was adopted as a form of control for the male body.
Some experts hypothesize, since there is a lack of empirical research on gender-role conflicts, that men might suffer from such conflicts because of their fear of femininity.
Professionals from several universities in the United States developed a model around this hypothesis with six behavioral patterns:
  1. Restrictive emotionality: restraining oneself from expressing feelings or not allowing others to express their feelings.
  2. Homophobia: the fear of homosexuals or the fear of being a homosexual, not limited to all the stereotypes associated with that.
  3. Socialized control, power, and competition: The desire for the authority of being in charge of the situation, commanding others, and to excel above others.
  4. Restrictive sexual and affectional behavior: Showing little to no affection or sexuality to others.
  5. Obsession with achievement and success: having an ongoing complex that accomplishment, work, and illustriousness constitutes one's value.
  6. Health problems: unhealthy diet, stress levels, and lifestyle.
The model was developed around the idea that these six patterns are all influenced by men's fear of femininity. This theory was then partially supported by a study done by five professionals. Some tools already created to measure gender-role attitudes include the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, and the Attitudes Toward the Male's Role Scale. Evidence suggests that gender-roles conflicts inflicted by machismo can lead males who were raised with this mentality and or live in a society in which machismo is prevalent to suffer high levels of anxiety and low self-esteem. Additionally, studies found that many males facing such conflicts are subject to experience anger, depression, and substance abuse.

Men and women

Gender roles

The idea of the male ego, where the male is symbolized as "hyper-masculine, virile, strong, paternalistic, sexually dominant, and the financial provider" is reinforced by the teachings of the Catholic Church, the main religion practiced in Cuba and Latin America in general. According to Catholic Church teachings, the female should be a virgin but it's less important for the male to be one. During colonial times, a female's chastity and demureness were linked to the family's societal standings , while the males were expected and sometimes pressured into proving their sexual prowess by having multiple partners. There was a duality in the expression of love. Men were supposed to express between physical loves, while women were expected to only express spiritual love and romantic love. Even after marriage, carnal love was frowned upon if the woman expressed it too vigorously, instead she was more delighted by the romantic expression of the love. Men and women in these belief systems are held at double standards, women, are quiet, clean, spiritual, pure and sexually conservative, whereas it is socially acceptable for men to be the opposite, loud, dirty, not religious, and sexually active and assertive.
The role of inside and outside spaces such as la casa, the house, and la calle, the street are crucial in propagating machista beliefs. This is because it separates men and women into two completely different worlds and social spheres.

Marianismo

The power difference in the relationship between men and women in Latin America not only creates the social norm of machismo, but by consequence also creates its female counterpart, the social concept of marianismo, a concept supported and promoted by women in which the idea is that women are meant to be pure and wholesome. It defines standards for the female gender role in Hispanic American folk cultures, and is strictly intertwined with machismo and Roman Catholicism. Marianismo revolves around the veneration for feminine virtues like interpersonal harmony, inner strength, self-sacrifice, family, chastity, and morality among Hispanic/Latina women. More ideals regarding the female gender role held within marianismo in Hispanic American culture include those of feminine passivity, sexual purity, and self-silencing. Evelyn Stevens, political scientist, states: "t teaches that women are semi-divine, morally superior to and spiritually stronger than men."
Marianismo derives its origins from the Spanish colonization of the Americas, as many social constructs from Latin America do. It emphasizes the perfect femininity of a woman and her virginity. The Virgin Mary is the ideal female figure, representing characteristics such as "semi divinity, moral superiority, and spiritual strengths all the which are expected from women under machismo and marianismo. The man is the head of the household while the "fragile" woman is submissive and tends to remain behind the scenes. This brings to focus the idea that women are inferior to men and are thus dependent on their husbands. As a result, they not only rely on their husbands for financial support, but in the social realm are put at the same level as "children under age 12, mentally ill persons, and spendthrifts". By way of tradition, not only are women given limited opportunities in what they are able to do and to be, but they are also viewed as people that cannot even take care of themselves. Getting married provides a woman with security under her husband's success, but also entails a lifelong commitment towards serving her husband and her children.
While social pressures and expectations play huge roles in the perpetuation of the mariana construct, this ideology is also taught to girls as they grow up. They learn the importance of performing domestic labor and household chores, such as cooking and cleaning, because this will be the role they will play in their future families. These gender roles are very strong due to them being seen as normal and natural in a passive way making it something much harder to question. They are taught that these must be done well so that they can adequately serve their families and avoid punishment and discipline by their authoritative husbands just like their mothers did before them. Men exercise their authority with their demand for respect and power in the house. It is a woman's place to respect the wishes of their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Thus, it could culturally be a norm to follow the rules of the man.