How Machista Is Mexico?
This blog is bound to get me in trouble. Most of my blogs are are backed up by research, informed by evidence. This is not one of those blogs. It is completely subjective, based on nothing other than personal feelings, experiences and direct observation. In other words, by the instruments whose guidance I trust the most.
Certain situations that exist in the U.S., such as internet trolls who viciously attack women bloggers online and even elements of the Me Too movement, have made me think about the fundamental differences between men and women’s relationships in the U.S. and how that relationship appears different in Mexico.
No question, Mexico has a machista culture. Domestic violence is a big problem in Mexico. Rape figures are lower in Mexico than the United States, but one can’t help but wonder if fewer rapes are reported given the level of police corruption and their lack of training to investigate all types of crime, including sexual assault.
Attitudes about women in business are behind ours too. My business associate, The Intrepid Elise, has frequently had to deal with contractors in her property management business who did not feel they should be answering to a woman. Want-ads can still legally request that only young, single females apply to a job. Women are expected to be the family caretakers and that does not seem to be changing regardless of how many jobs they have.
Studies indicate however that to what extent you will encounter machismo in Mexico, as in many cultures, depends on socioeconomic background, region, age, religiousness of the man, and whether his influences are urban or rural. In my interactions with Mexican couples in my own social circles, I don’t notice any more efforts at male dominance than I do at home. Relationships seem about the same in terms of power-sharing.
I can’t speak for other expats’ experiences. Granted, if I were were a younger, perhaps my encounters with men in Mexico would be different. I’m also not looking for a husband and trying to ferret out machista qualities in dating partners. My interactions with the opposite sex in Mexico are exchanges based on friendship, work needs, shared interests like book clubs, and conversations at social gatherings.
In the U.S. mature women commonly complain about feeling invisible rather than being a victim. The prospect of going unnoticed in society has never bothered me. (Every age has its pleasures, is what my brother always said.) I can see real potential in arriving to the age I can shoplift my way though Denver’s Cherry Creek Mall and go into restaurant kitchens and bars to prepare my own meals and cocktails unnoticed.
I will not be able to do those things in Mexico however. One thing I noted early on was that women in Mexico aren’t invisible. All women are seen, regardless of their age (although at a certain point, being seen might mean being seen in order they can help you cross the street). I won’t have to shout, wear purple, or don a red hat in Mexico when it comes time to start casing the local T.J. Maxx when I’m back home in my country.
Think about your experiences at wedding receptions, where everyone dances. Mexican society usually feels like an ongoing wedding reception. I see more women of every age dressed up and dancing regardless of whether they carry a few extra pounds or if they are 70 years old.
A Mexican woman typically loves displaying her femininity, which receives a gentle nod no matter what age she is. There is a duality in the culture, machismo countered by a gentle acknowledgement of women of all ages, that I’ll admit, is pleasant.
Why is that, you might be asking. Why is there that feeling of being seen, regardless of age? Based on those feelings, instincts and experiences I told you about, here’s my personal take.
Mexicans have close knit and extended families. While recent generations have fewer children, it’s common for members of previous generations to have many brothers and sisters. (One of my best Mexican friends has 11 brothers). This makes for many older aunts and uncles. Typically, the family makes up the core of a Mexican’s social circle. Children are generally very close with relatives from different generations from early on.
Family members tend to be together a lot. Extended families take vacations together. Then there are the birthdays, posadas, Day of the Dead picnics at cemetaries, birthday celebrations (also at cemetaries, don’t ask) and quinceaneras that are all part of a regular Mexican annual social calendar of gatherings that could almost be called family reunions by U.S. standards.
Mexican mothers drag their children, even teenagers and young adults, around with them a lot more than mothers do in the U.S. Children get to know their parents’ friends socially, not just give them a wave as they pass through. By the time they become adults, they have spent enough time with older people; uncles, aunts, and all their parents’ friends, to appreciate and feel comfortable around them.
I have gone to concerts in Mexico where people of all ages were singing the same songs, multiple generations attending the same concert (not unheard of in the U.S., but it takes a rare performer). Children and teenagers in Mexico don’t find it near as mortifying to be seen out with their parents. In fact, many seem perfectly fine with it. This consistent integration between the generations is the balm of growing older in Mexico. No ice flow awaits you.
Mexican men also have extraordinarily close relationships with their mothers, and frequently their grandmothers (to the extent it can be a sticking point being married to a Mexican man) I believe that some of those habits of being comfortable with women of all ages carries over to any woman that a properly-raised Mexican man encounters. I used to be surprised by the rather easy familiarity I’m often shown by younger Mexican men. I think foreign women tend to misread that.
After attending many social events, I notice the same easy familiarity between nephews and aunts in Mexico. Extended family members from different generations in Mexico are not near-strangers. They have in a sense “grown up” together.
Their aunts and uncles were at one time were much younger, probably more candid people. Just like men who have a lot of sisters, a man with grandmothers and lots of older aunts will better understand older women, perhaps even like them at that age more than men who have not.
I remember my own uncle, who is in his eighties now, when he was a 42 year old. He took me skiing and to my first-ever dive bar (the infamous Little Bear in Evergreen, Colorado). He will never be an “old man” to me. I imagine that is much how Mexican men feel about their female older relatives, and in turn older people in general, contributing to a less ageist society.
One of the disturbing aspects of living in the U.S. right now is that rather than being the melting pot we always aspired to, studies indicate that we are spending less and less time with people unlike us, who are of different religions, political leanings, or race. I’d be willing to bet that extends to age. Large swaths of our population are “the other’ to us in ways I do not see in Mexico, including older people.
An interesting example of one group’s successful fight against being “the other” is the gay rights movement in the U.S. The gay community pressured members to come out. That led to people having to openly acknowledge their gay family members, friends, or neighbors - people whom they already loved for who they were. It was one small step for us to transfer that acceptance to the overall gay community.
People become comfortable with one another by spending time together. Whether it is age, race, politics, sexual orientation, or gender, the more we interact socially, the better we understand and can acknowledge each other appropriately. The more we care.
{For a humorous take on punctuation and machismo, try this cortita article (in Spanish)
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About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of If I Only Had a Place is about how to rent luxuriously in Mexico and what realtors cannot or will not tell you about renting in Mexico.
Her third book is The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico. This is the only instruction manual out there that won’t leave you numb. Most recently she wrote a cookbook for expats, snowbirds and travelers with food blogger Fabiola Licona, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico.