International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities
As synonyms for sexism, ‘machismo’ and ‘macho’ have a very short history. ‘Macho’, for example, first appeared in Mexico in the late 1930s and in the United States about a decade later. In Latin America today, the term ‘machismo’ still has a social science and journalistic ring for many people, and is less commonly used in everyday speech than is the case north of the border, despite the fact that many people in the United States assume that ‘machismo’ has a uniform and long sociolinguistic lineage in Latin America.
On the contrary, within Latin America, the terms ‘macho’ and ‘machismo’ have far more divergent meanings for different people than is the case in the United States.
‘Machismo’ must be viewed as describing more than simply sexist ideas: in most usages the expression refers to a whole network of (generally unequal) social relations between men and women and between men and men—relations that involve far more than mental constructs alone.
The semantic roots of the word ‘macho’ relate in part to what is genetically male in animals and plants, not cultural values. Some scholars trace the sexist notion of macho to the Spanish who conquered the Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica 500 years ago. Others claim that the Spanish encountered a sexist, macho Indigenous tradition upon their arrival. A brilliant essay by Americo Paredes (1967) demonstrates the clear connections between the advent of machismo and nationalism, racism and international affairs, between the peculiar history of US—Mexican relations in the nineteenth century and the individualist and self-sacrificing vaquero-cowboy. Americo chides those who let their imaginations dwell on the rape of Indian women and asks how Mexican is machismo and to what degree is it a Hispanic, a New World, or a universal manifestation.
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