The Difference Between Machismo and Marianismo in Latin America

This research paper has the intention of informing and exploring the difference between machismo and marianismo in Latin America. The research paper will explore the following questions: What is machismo and how does it influence men in Latin America? What is marianismo and how does it impact women in Latin America? What is the difference between both machismo and marianismo, how does this impact the society? As a Latin American women both topics are ones that are part of the culture in which individuals have not made progress in mentality in both machismo and marianismo even if we are in the 21st century.

Charles Hefling is an episcopal ordained priest and a professor who presents the ideas on the churches ideologies towards machismo, in the sense of how men are supposed to act. His book Our Selves, Our Souls, and Bodies: Sexuality and the Household of God inflicts the issues on sexuality for both men and women and how it is transcribed in a religious aspect. Men and women are to not meant to be part of the LGBTQ community as it goes against the machista ideologies, which inflicts a different viewing for individuals as men have to stay under the norms of society.

“Neither proponents nor opponents of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians supported a drafted resolution, which declared homosexual practice “incompatible with scripture” but also urged people “to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals” (Lambeth, 1998,1.10(d))” (Hefling, par. 26).

“A number of scholars address issues of sexuality, especially homosexuality, as it is currently debated in the Episcopal Church” (Hefling, par.5).

The book which is a collection of essays, will aid the research paper to analyze the way on how religion has affected the machista ideology and how they are confined into thinking and acting in certain ways. This will help in defining and comparing both marianismo and machismo in the Latin American Society, since the majority of the society is Christian.

John Hartwell Moore was a researcher and an anthropologist professor who wrote and edited the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. In this explaining what is machismo and how society forms individuals to be a certain way. The stereotype of a male in a Latin American house hold is someone who is unquestioned and someone individuals need to obey to. It indicates how gender reflects how individuals act and perform in a house hold, which reflects how the machismo stereotype affects certain circumstances.

“The cornerstone of machismo is the traditional Mexican family, stereotyped as having a patriarchal structure characterized by the unquestioned and absolute supremacy of the husband and the self-sacrifice of the wife. Within this family structure, major decisions and privileges flow from the male patriarch to all others, from whom he demands unquestionable allegiance, respect, and obedience” (Hartwell, par. 2).

“The magnification of gender reflects a family-ethnic community complex tied to structural features of the family, and to more general conditions of social solidarity that stem from Mexican Americans’ subordinate status. There is a complex intersection of patriarchy (male domination/female subordination) and machismo with class and ethnicity” (Hartwell, par. 12).

The section of “Machismo” from the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, will be used in my research paper to differentiate the stereotype of machismo and how it can be countered. It will also indicate how Latin American men, are impacted by this ideology and show how society perceives this. Also in comparing both machismo and marianismo, this will explain different views to these ideologies.

The article “Machismo and Marianismo” by the Oxford University Press, presents the ideologies and differences of both machismo and marianismo. Machismo is the ideology that men are superior than women, causing men to act aggressive, with power and with arrogance. While marianismo is stated to be a way for women to try and fit into a machista society, while being submissive and powerless.

“Among machismo's assumed variety of behavioral characteristics are the desire to prove sexual potency and male strength through boastful enforcement of power, aggressiveness toward other men and women, expectation of female submissiveness, and the belief of the superiority of men over women” (Oxford University Press, par.2) “Stevens claimed that marianismo helped women in Latin America to create for themselves a definite personal identity and to cope successfully with gender relations in a patriarchal society. With marianismo, women carve a special place in the home where their saintliness and moral authority help them to cope with male infidelity and enable them to remain powerful as the dedicated and self‐sacrificing mother.” (Oxford University Press, par.5)

I will be using this article to support the differences between both marianismo and machismo. It demonstrates causes towards why individuals act certain ways and how they are expected to act by the Latin American society. I will use this to divide and explain both terms, so readers can understand how women are impacted by these ideologies, why themselves believe in it and how the society acts towards it.

The site Psychology uses the references of RM Gil and CI Vazquez in The Maria paradox: How Latinas. While also using as a reference of. Stevens, E. P. called Marianismo: The other face of machismo in Latin America. It discusses the ideology of marianismo, its values and its norms for women in Latin America. Demonstrating the history behind it and what occurs to individuals who have these ideologies: how they think, how they act and how psychologists should take action on counseling. This ideology surfaced in the Spanish colonization in Latin America and women are to follow the role of the immaculate. Men are accepted to act a certain way, while women are not and if they act outside of the norms of marianismo they are observed as egotistic.

“Women are expected to be submissive to men and meet their every need in a passive and unassertive manner. They are loving, caring, and docile—completely devoted to their roles as wives, mothers, and life bearers. To accomplish this, women must renounce their own needs, acting in a spiritual and immaculate manner” (Psychology, par.1).

“Women are held in high regard by others if they have children and are caring mothers. Single mothers and divorcees are frowned upon, as they have acted in a self-serving and egotistical manner by disrespecting the sanctity of matrimony and placing their own needs before those of the family” (Psychology, par.4).

The article by Psychology will be used to help understand the concept of marianismo and the psychological aspect about it. It will provide context towards why women believe and act this way and how machismo differentiates from this. It demonstrates the history and what occurs if a Latin American women were to unfollow certain rules which this will be a key point in the research paper.

This article Religion and Gender Ideologies among Working-Age Latinas/os by both Andrea Ruiz and John Borkowski, presents the negative and the positive of both machismo and marianismo. John Borkowski is a professor of sociology in the University of Texas, whilw Andrea Ruiz is an assistant professor of sociology in the same school. They explain how machismo is comprised of males becoming the head of the family in all aspects, while controlling every decision and aspect of his family’s life. Marianismo comes from the Virgin Mary in the ideology that women are to be pure and submissive at all stakes. Women are to be unpowerful and her purpose is to procreate while taking care of children.

“They comprise a 'cult of virility' in which the 'chief characteristics... are exaggerated aggressiveness and intransigence in male-to-male interpersonal relationships, and arrogance and sexual aggression in male-to-female relationships”(Ruiz, Borkowski, par.7).

“The term derives from the Virgin Mary, the woman in Catholic theology who was both a virgin and the mother of the savior Jesus, and she serves as a model of femininity.”

“The woman who repudiates marianismo is characterized as the shameless, treacherous woman (Pefia, 1991). Her most notable characteristic is her promiscuity or lack of sexual faithfulness to one man and fraternizing inappropriately with men generally” (Ruiz, Borkowski, par.5).

This article will help the research paper in understanding the religious counter part of marianismo, why people follow and believe in it in Latin America. It explains the negative and positive views on these ideologies and how society implements it in their daily lives. It explains why Latin American’s believe in it as the majority are Catholics and why they want to stay immaculate through their whole journey.