There is a debate in academia concerning two very different ways of looking at the modality of Latin masculinity known as “machismo”. One view, expressed in the work of Mirandé6 and Gutman7, considers “machismo” to be something “positive”. However, others such as Lewis8, Paternosto9, Carrier10, Lancaster11 and Díaz12 perceive it as a “negative” institution. The positive vision tells us that machismo is a phenomenon of Latin American culture that reveres courage, the defense of the family, a sense of communal responsibility and honor: “ethical, modest and concerned with the honor and protection of the family”13. The negative view considers machismo as an accentuated form of masculinity that despises the feminine and emphasizes the masculine, and is associated with physical strength, aggression, sexual infidelity and violence against women and sexual minorities. To be macho is to be “violent, irrational and a dominator of women”14.
Lewis, Paz15, Aramoni16 and Goldwert17 belong to the “essentialist” current, and believe that the macho phenomenon is generalized among Latin men and that it has been part of their culture since a very early period. Others, such as Mirandé, Gutman and Lancaster, regard it as a historical construct that varies in time and space, one that has an origin and will possibly have an end. For the constructionists, there is no category that is common to the whole region. There is no constant in time either. Their studies are aimed at pinpointing the historical changes in different Latin societies with respect to gender, particularly masculinity.
These visions appear to be so opposed to one another that it would seem we are not looking at the same “animal”. The non-academic public observing the debate “from the sidelines” would not understand the reason for all the brouhaha over such a familiar beast. However, university intellectuals tend to create these categories to ensure that they remain entertaining and productive to magazines and publishers. It is hardly surprising that these discussions go unnoticed by people whose feet are firmly on the ground.
The first “school”, to give it a name, believes that machismo is Latin cultural baggage characterized by an accentuated masculinity. In his study on Latin men living in the United States, Mirandé concludes that being “macho” has a different connotation from the one usually associated with it:
The findings point to a distinctive Mexican cultural attitude towards humanity, masculinity and the role of the father, an attitude that is particularly strong among men from the lower and working classes. This attitude dictates that a man’s success as a father is measured not only by external qualities such as wealth, education or power, but also by internal ones such as being honest, responsible and hardworking, sacrificing himself for his children and, above all, by not being selfish18.
It also questions the rural origins of machismo and the notion that it springs from more primitive stages of development, since the poor are those who least define themselves as “machos”19.
The minority that does define itself as “machista”, and that tends to be from the middle and professional classes, does not do so from a perspective of contempt and domination of the feminine, which has been the traditional view of the term. Those who describe themselves as such, interpret the term as a “code of ethics, honor and decency”20. In other words, for those studied by Mirandé, to be “macho” is to be honest, honorable men who are responsible for taking care of their families. According to him, the fact that being “macho” is equated with being brave and honorable, does not exclude women who may also be regarded as “machas”.
Gutman agrees that the perceptions created by anthropologists about Mexican working men are “erroneous and harmful”. They have lost sight of the fact that not all Mexican men are “hard-drinking philanderers”, and of “the activities of fatherhood in the lives of millions of Mexican men”21. In other words, they have forgotten that Mexican men also perform “feminine” activities such as being good parents. In fact “fatherhood” is so important that the author searched all over Mexico City for the model who appeared in a photo of a man holding a baby in his arms, in order to use it as the cover of his book and to show us that Mexican machos can also be nurturers (this despite the fact that in real life the man in the photo is not the baby’s father. The model turned out to be a vendor who was asked by a woman to take care of the baby for a few moments).
Gutman believes that the male inhabitants of Santo Domingo, a shantytown in Mexico City, no longer consider themselves as “machos” and those who do, the older men, share Mirandé’s definition that has to do with being a “man of honor”22. The young men do not regard themselves as machos or “mandilones” (effeminate or homosexual men) and consider that being macho is something negative. In other words, in Santo Domingo there is no culture that defends traditional machismo.
The author is aware that there is a tradition of subordinating women and upholding the masculine values as superior. However, for him identities are “processes that change historically” and live on “relationships with each other”23. If economic conditions, for instance, change and women obtain greater opportunities, gender relations will be modified in their favor: “There is an awareness inherited from the past that is accepted without discussion and an implicit one that arises from circumstances and that unites them to transform the world”24.
Gutman considers that the integration of women into the job market, feminist ideas and an erosion in labor divisions are some of the circumstances that have changed the world of Santo Domingo, and therefore of traditional machismo. This creates a “contradictory consciousness”, a kind of discrepancy between what people have learnt about the meaning of being macho and what it means today. Since men can no longer dominate women as they did before, the definition of masculinity has changed. Machismo as accentuated masculinity is no longer possible in a more integrated, democratic world that respects women’s rights. It is therefore replaced by a concept of courage that does not necessarily exclude women.
Thus, the men of Santo Domingo are no longer machos in the traditional sense of the word. They have had to adapt to new circumstances in which women have gained a greater freedom through their insertion into the workplace, their awareness of gender discrimination and their political struggles to obtain land and housing. The machos of old have been forced to watch their territories being invaded by women (bars, sports, the workplace, clothes, etc. are now mixed), their prerogatives slowly eliminated (now they are expected to help with domestic chores and child-rearing), and also their monopoly of public life (women have managed to occupy elected posts).
This new reality has led men to define themselves not so much by what differentiates them from women, who appear more and more like them, but in relation to “mandilones”, who represent homosexuality and the effeminate. It is ironic that the definition of being a man in a Mexican slum is increasingly based upon the way that men who are not “men” supposedly are. If we take Gutman’s theories to their logical conclusions, being a man nowadays in Mexico is the first duality to become independent from its binary opposite.
The authors of the other “school of thought” take a different view. They do not share the idea that machismo or the masculinity of the Latin male is divorced from their dominant relationship to women. Oscar Lewis (1961) was perhaps the first to make famous the stereotype of the macho as a bully who accentuates the masculine traits to an absurd degree:
In a fight, I would never want to give in or say “enough”, even if my opponent were killing me. I would want to go to my death smiling. That is what we mean by being “macho”, by being manly.25
In her study of homosexuals in a Mexican neighborhood, Annick Prieur agrees with Gutman that homosexuals help to define the macho man: “In many societies, he (the homosexual) is a cultural symbol of the opposite of the masculine man”26. She concedes that while homosexuals help define macho or masculine men as she calls them, this cannot be separated, as Gutman believes, from the feminine, since “masculine domination, feminine subordination and the degradation of homosexuals, are related.”27
In his work on homosexuals and homophobia, Carrier also believes that machismo is closely linked to hyper-masculinity, in other words an extreme differentiation between being a man and a woman: “The distinct boundary between male and female roles in Mexico appears to be in part due to a culturally defined hypermasculine ideal referred to as machismo” 28. For the author, this hypermasculinity is associated with courage, domination, power, aggressiveness and invulnerability 29. Díaz regards it as “an excessive, abusive and perverted display of masculine traits” that sometimes results from the very insecurity of feeling like a man: “Deeper doubts and insecurity about one’s masculinity and a „non-masculine’ feeling of helplessness and fear predict a strong display of machista attitudes and behaviors.” 30
Carrier does not believe that things are changing radically, as Gutman adduces. For him, the world of the macho male excludes women: “Social relationships of Mexican males tend to be all male in character, both before and after marriage. Men feel free to spend a lot of their spare time with their male friends rather than with their wives.” Unlike Gutman, he does not even detect any progress in the „cantinas’: “drinking establishments in Mexico – cantinas, bars, nightclubs - are popular locations where Mexican men spend their free time away from their families”31.
McGinn also shares the idea that machismo, for men, is related to differentiation from and contempt toward the feminine: “ The young Mexican boy may be severely scolded for engaging in feminine activities such as playing with dolls or jacks. Parents verbally and physically punish „feminine’ traits in their male children”32. Paternosto also considers that the Latin machismo that “permeates all institutions and sexual relations”33, established itself by contrasting the masculine and the feminine. “In Latin America, a woman who expresses her sexuality is a whore and the man who does so is a god.”34
Stevens agrees that machismo is defined in opposition to the feminine, and that the second (Marianismo) is subordinate to the first:
It is ubiquitous in every social class. There is a near universal agreement on what a “real woman” is like and how she should act. Among the characteristics of this ideal are semi-divinity, moral superiority and spiritual strength. This spiritual strength engenders abnegation, that is, an infinite capacity for humility and sacrifice. No self-denial is too great… no limit can be divined place to her vast story of patience with the men of her world…She is also submissive to the demands of the men: husbands, sons, fathers, brothers…35
In his study on machismo in Nicaragua, Lancaster agrees with the view expressed by the above authors that machismo is subject to contrast with the feminine. However, not being an “essentialist”, the author considers this to be a social construct and believes that machismo and its feminine opposite can be created in men and women:
Those who consistently lose out in the competition for male status, or who can be convinced to dispose themselves to the sexual urges and status plays of other men, or who dissent from the strictures of manhood, or who, in spite of the stigma, discover pleasure in the passive sexual role, lose status: these men are made into „cochones’. And those who master the rules of conventional masculinity, or who derive pleasure through the use of another, (stigmatized by that very pleasure in a sexual position defined as subordinate, are made into machistas.36
How are machismo and its opposite constructed, according to this author? Well, for him women are trained from childhood to subordinate themselves to men and to be “submissive, loyal, ingenuous, fragile, understanding, dispassionate, incapable to initiating sexual intercourse and trained to obey”37. With respect to homosexuals, Lancaster gives us the example of a 12 year-old boy who is small but not effeminate. However, weakness is associated with the feminine and the boy is forced to become “effeminate” through insults (he is called „queer’). Others throw themselves on top of him and pretend to sodomize him. In this way, the author believes, machos turn the weakest into cochones.
There are different explanations concerning the origins of machismo. One of these is put forward by Paz, Aramoni and Goldwert who believe it arose in Latin America for psychological reasons inherited from the Conquest. Others say that machismo is an historical construct that changes in time and space. In his study on machismo in Santo Domingo, Gutman sees it as just another social construct that changes in time and space.
If this were true, we would have to conclude, as Mirandé does, that there is no generalized phenomenon in the region:
Perhaps the most significant conclusion that can be drawn from the latest study is that Latino men do not constitute a homogeneous, monolithic unvarying mass, as was depicted in the traditional model. This suggests that there is not one masculine mode, but a variety of modalities and masculinities that are not only different, but often contradictory.38.
According to the author, the existence of a traditional and essentialist view of machismo as a characteristic of the Latin American male has occurred because the studies have been carried out by “white men who lacked a genuine knowledge of the culture they studied”39
.
The “essentialists” fix their attention on the roots of the phenomenon and, although a search through history should not necessarily lead them to regard it as something static or fixed, they have a tendency to describe machismo as something universal in the region that has common causes. Some, who are more focused on psychology, interpret it as an age-old trauma that remains unresolved and that therefore lives on in the unconscious of all Latins.
In El Laberinto de la Soledad, 40 Paz suggests that the Conquest was seen as a “rape” of the indigenous culture and that Mexicans associated the feminine and „openness’ with submission and defeat. The Mexican male, then, opted to “close himself” and defend his manhood from the supposed penetrations suffered by the weak and by women. Thus, he made it part of his definition of nationality until our times. Ramos sees it as compensation for feelings of inferiority after the trauma of the Conquest41. Aramoni also interprets it as a defense against feelings of inferiority: “The expression of exaggerated male characteristics, ranging from genital prowess to towering pride and fearlessness. It is also a counterphobic attitude towards women.”42.
Goldwert believes that the cult to virility is common throughout Latin America and that its origins lie in the perception of the Conquest as the sodomizing of the Indians by the Spaniards. This mixture was perceived as a “metaphysical bisexuality”, in which the conquistadors subjugated the Indians and turned them into passive, feminine victims:
The Conquest was, then, a time of kairos, a time of trauma shaping all ensuing human relationships. Stemming from the Conquest, there now exists in every Mexican male a culturally stereotyped polarity in which „masculinity’ is synonymous with the active/dominant personality and femininity is passive/submissiv e43.
Others, such as Valdez, consider that machismo is not the result of the conquest or of some psychological trauma, but rather is the direct legacy of the Spaniards who were “fifty foot caballeros with golden huevos”44. In other words, the cult of masculinity, war and domination arose from a culture forged over several centuries of struggle, in which the Spaniards battled against Muslim invaders. Paz himself acknowledges that it is “impossible not to notice the resemblance between the figure of the macho and that of the Spanish conquistador”45. Goldwert also believes that the Spaniards were the first “machos’46.
Finally, Aramoni47 tells us that Aztec society was patriarchal, that the men were warriors and the women were submissive and dedicated to domestic chores. Machismo, then, would be pre-Hispanic. However, June Nash48 does not share the idea that machismo is part of the indigenous heritage. According to her, Aztec women held important positions in the economy, religion and in civil society. In his study of Nicaraguan artisans, Field49 endorses the idea that it was the Spaniards, in the eighteenth century, who displaced indigenous women from positions of power50. Oviedo tells us that indigenous women in the Lengua Mangue region of Nicaragua held political posts before the arrival of the Spaniards51.
Many forms of machismo, emotional machos
So-called “constructionists”, such as Mirandé and Gutman, believe that despite the origins attributed to it, machismo is not static and does not remain unscathed by historical legacies that are impossible to alter. In other words, Latin machismo is associated with productive forces and changes with them. Thus, it may be a phenomenon of a thousand faces. Mirandé does not believe that historical traumas such as the conquest could continue to have an emotional impact on generations so far removed from the events. It is difficult to believe that entire nations endure some psychological trauma for having been born of the union of two different races, one that militarily dominated the other. If this were so, the whole of Europe would be plunged in a similar trauma.
Mirandé is of the opinion that machismo may have originated in the Spanish culture but has changed to the point of divorcing itself from its sexist character. In the United States, it is now associated with a concern for defending the family and Hispanic culture, which has become a cultural minority. Mirandé’s machos are not emotional paupers, like the Saxons, nor do they refuse to cook and perform other tasks that are associated with women in the United States. In other words, they turn out to more androgynous than the North American Saxons on the famous Bem scale52 (which evaluates masculinity and femininity).
Gutman, for his part, believes that machismo is a legacy of the past but that it is transformed by the social reality in which it evolves. He thinks that this affects theory and practice. Therefore, it is of no interest to know what men say about things (cultural heritage) but what they do in practice. If we look at it in this way, machismo would be disappearing because Mexican men themselves regard it in a pejorative manner and increasingly perform tasks that were previously considered feminine. Nowadays it is more common to see men buying vegetables, tortillas and helping with the household chores53. The community of Santo Domingo has been exposed to new ideas about sexual roles dictated by more developed societies. Many of the men have gone to work in the United States. This not only brings in more modern ideas but also empowers the women, who have to fend for themselves and their children on their own.
Machismo is not in decline in Latin American countries. Nor has it become dissociated from the oppression of women, or been transformed into a cult to the family and honor. Although it varies from country to country and over time, it is a phenomenon that remains sexist. None of the hypotheses that we have seen, then, is mistaken or correct. The problem is that the “animal” has been looked at from different angles.
One of the problems with studies such as Mirandé’s, for example, us that they are based exclusively on the interviewees’ answers to a structured questionnaire and on in-depth questions posed by academic researchers. Mirandé criticizes those who postulate that machismo is a phenomenon endemic to Latins, based on “stereotypes” and “subjective” observations of a culture they do not know. His view is endorsed by Americo Paredes, who tells us that many of these researchers did not know Spanish and were unfamiliar with the complex dialects used by many of the subjects in the studies54.
However, Mirandé is guilty of the opposite. He is so imbued with the Latin culture from which he comes that he forgets his interviewees are accustomed to defending the discourse of Catholicism in public while subscribing to another in private, that has never been official. The current Christian discourse does not welcome machismo and preaches a gender equality that does not occur in practice.
Many of the ideas the interviewees express about men as fathers and protectors of family honor come from the Christian discourse on sexuality, which is as old as machismo in Latin America. The fact that the individuals he interviewed deny that they are machos and that they despise women is not necessarily proof that this is the case in practice or that they do not harbor such ideas in other mental “compartments”. What happens is that Latin sexual culture is more compartmentalized and populated by different sexual discourses than the Saxon culture. If we introduce ourselves as academic researchers to any Latin male population, the interviewees would have no qualms about reciting the principles of love and supposed gender equality preached by the Church. Things would be very different if we were to tape these same interviewees chatting with their friends in a bar or a brothel.
There are many factors to explain this Latin compartmentalization. Just as some blame the Spanish colonists for having established a macho culture, we can do the same with respect to the polarization between official discourse and sexual practice. Where sexual matters are concerned, under the colonial empire, Latin culture learnt to say one thing and do another. This polarization meant that sexual discourses changed according to the interlocutor and the context in which they were expressed. If we had asked a group of Latin men in the seventeenth century about what they thought of women and sexual fidelity, we would not have found signs of a double standard, or of machismo.
The reason for this cultural compartmentalization was simple. When Spain discovered America, its power was in decline and it was unable to compete with England in providing the New World with manufactured goods. Latin Americans supplied their own basic needs and acquired luxury items mainly through contraband. As a result of this, the Spanish Crown was prevented from imposing its rule in the region. It learnt to compromise and to look the other way when it saw that the gold and silver were being siphoned off to its enemies. Native populations were allowed to trade with the emerging powers and the mestizos – the population that resulted from the racial mix – were allowed to administer and obtain power through bribery and economic pressure55.
This created a culture that followed the principle “I obey but I do not comply”. In other words, a system where the local economic élites did not challenge royal authority, pretending to oblige. This meant that although they were forbidden to trade with England or Holland, they did so through contraband. They were forbidden to hold political office but could buy political favors. They were able to exert influence over the Spanish Crown, thereby obviating their need to break with the empire. The independence movement arose precisely when the Napoleonic Wars disrupted this system and prompted the Bourbons to attempt to re-conquer Latin America, forbidding contraband and clamping down on political and economic corruption. Only then did the new élites of Latin America decide to support the wars of independence56.
What does this have to do with sex? A lot.
In Latin America a fairly radical form of Christian sexual morality prevailed, imposed by a Spanish Crown that emerged victorious after 800 years of war against the infidel, the Moslems who invaded the Spanish peninsula. As the war raged on, so did religious fanaticism. In 1492, the Catholic monarchs were the driving force behind the discovery of the New World and the expulsion of the Jews and Moslems from Spain. The colonization of the Americas took place in this climate of intolerance and religious fanaticism57.
Catholicism was imposed in the same manner as political and economic colonialism. People had to follow a series of principles unquestioningly. The Catholic ones were strict: sex was only acceptable within marriage. Infidelity and prostitution were severely punished. The Spanish Inquisition persecuted sex for pleasure. Sodomy was punished by death.
Given the Catholic Church’s position on sex, Latin America faced the same problems with spirituality that it encountered in the economic sphere: the impossibility of complying. The region needed to develop by exploiting and expanding the available labor force. In the absence of immigration, this could only be accomplished by relaxing sexual constraints, mixing the races and high fertility rates. The countries that were able to increase their workforce were the first to develop an export economy and establish links with world markets.
To expand the workforce, Catholic principles were set aside, as were economic and political ones. Sexual practice flouted Catholic dogma. Illegitimate children, infidelity and sex outside marriage were the norm. People were unable to comply with the demands of the Church, and the Church yielded to their needs. Many priests had illegitimate children58.
Given that Catholic principles were not faithfully followed and that the Church itself unofficially accepted the peculiar sexual reality of the colonies, there was no need for rebellion. People learnt to live with the contradictions between theory and practice. This is what I have termed the historical compartmentalization of Latin America59. Although traditional Catholicism has, for its part, gradually modified its sexist dogmas and its discrimination against women, the main discourses -- whether religious, sexual, economic or political – have outlived their usefulness and people’s loyalty without having been debated, questioned or abandoned.
However, compartmentalization occurs not only in the head, but also in space. Latin culture has created spaces for the different discourses. As Richard Parker notes in his book on sexuality in Brazil, sex is divided between the house and the street60. In the latter, men adopt principles and sexual lifestyles that are different to those they uphold in their private world of home, church and community. It is hardly surprising, then, that when Mirandé interviews his subjects in their homes, workplaces or community organizations, we hear a far more equitable discourse on sexuality.
Is it true that Latin men are no longer machistas?
Gutman is interested in proving that machismo is in decline because globalization, democracy, capitalist development and liberation ideologies have spread to every corner of the world. The author shows us how women have left their traditional role in the home and have gradually achieved progress in their relations with men. So much so, that masculinity has begun to be defined only as something different from homosexuality, enabling women to be accepted as “machas” when they are brave and courageous61.
These findings are so self-evident that they do not merit questioning. Latin women in Santo Domingo, Mexico, or in western Nicaragua, as Field tells us, have managed to change aspects of their traditional role. However, this should not lead us to the conclusion that machismo is in decline. Despite his constructionist vision, the author forgets to note how, once these women achieve certain advantages in their traditional role, new tasks are assigned to them. For example, women may receive more help with domestic chores from their husbands, but at the same time, their role as mothers may be complicated by expectations that they now fulfill the role of psychologist