Machismo and marianismo

Abstract

" I f your wife asks you to jump out the window, pray God that it's from the first floor," is a popular Latin American witticism. Does this sound l~ke the realm of machismo and op;~ressed women? SociaI scier:tists and feminists in the North have expressed a larm over the plight of Latin American women. It is t ime to set the record straight: from the Rio Bravo south to Patagonia it is at least 50 percent a woman's world, even though the men don' t know it. Latin American men and women have unequivocal conceptions of their roles and they play them out, if not in harmony, at least in counterpoint. The interpersonal dynamics of the existing social structure afford each sex a complementary sphere of influence that satisfies basic personal and social needs. The inference we draw from the available material on Latin American women is that they do not want a change of sIatus. While the), almost ur~arJmous]y complain about their sad tot, their suffering and the unfairness of male domination, they seem to enjoy their mar tyrdom, and make few concrete proposals for even minimal changes in the status quo. Certainly there has been no movement comparable either to the nineteenth century feminist movement or the twentieth century one in the North Atlantic industrialized nations. Such efforts as have been made were limited almost exclusively to the question of female suffrage; once that was attained, public discussion declined precipitously. Because much of what has been written about machismo is either moralistic, f ragmentary or disguised boast-