Job Discussion Forums

[cangringo]

[Samantha]

cangringo wrote:

[TheLongWayHome]

[MELEE]

Machismo does not equal wife beater.

A working mother does not equal the absence of machismo.

Machismo is a way to view male/female roles and relations that is prevalent in Mexican culture. Just because NorthAmericans (and our British friends) look at male/female roles and relationships in a different way does not mean machismo does or doesn't exsist.

Machismo, like other aspects of culture is always in flux and different communities and individuals display these characteristics in different amounts at different times.

There, I hope that's clear--this will be on the test.

[veroax]

i hesitate in commenting on the machismo issue, since i think it's a complicated and nuanced subject. i've surely seen a fair number of guys who are the absolute stereotype. but i've met far more who are the absolute opposite. i see alot of guys here who seem to be stellar affectionate parents. and i also see a reasonable acceptance of gay people, which goes against the machismo image as i had understood it.

i think the key thing is to remember that an individual can't be directly equated with a culture. it irks me when people expect me to have certain personality characteristics due to my country and culture of origin. so i certainly try not to impute personality characteristics onto a mexican based on whether or not this thing called machismo exists. the bottom line is that there are good and bad people everywhere.

returning to the original question of misconceptions... people back home have commented to me that they think all mexicans would prefer to live in the US if they could. in reality...many, many people have told me that they would never go. i work with a mexican girl who had the opportunity to marry an american citizen and move to the states. she told him 'no way' and made him move to mexico.

[Guy Courchesne]

[notamiss]

I guess Matthew Gutmann was onto something in his book (see my previous post) when he wrote "A good indication of how shaky the ground is under the macho myth is how ill defined the term is in the first place." We've seen some evidence of it in this thread, with one person saying "yes, Mexican machismo certainly exists because X" and another person answering "to me, X isn't an indicator of machismo."

[cangringo]

Ok I will have to read that book for sure. I guess I am referring to the attitude and the level of acceptance of that attitude. I am sorry I didn't mean to say that staying home with the babies means you are an antiquated female...that one came out wrong. I was more referring to the attitude that women should stay home with the kids and love to take care of the house. The attitude that it's alright to hit a woman etc, etc. Yes many women are working outside the house but that doesn't mean they don't come home and do everything there too. There is also the attitude that men cheat because they are men and that's that. I'm not saying there isn't any of that in Canada, The States, Britain or anywhere else. I'm just talking about the title of the thread and the misconception idea that was brought up. Like I said, so many momma's boys...what sort of attitude do you think they grow up with??

BTW, they are very chauvinistic in New Zealand as well.

[chichifo]

I think women have been progressively abandoning traditional gender roles in terms of work and family expectations. This info is based on research carried out in 1990s; so the numbers might have changed in the last few years:
9 in 10 women do domestic work. Among men, it�s 7 in 10. But men do considerably less domestic work than women; 71% of them do less than 8 hours a week. Regarding the Mexican work labour, for every 2 men, there�s one woman that works.
Times are changing, and today the average household formed by parents and their children has 4.4 members while the number of couples w/o children has increased (2005 8.6%)

www.conapo.gob.mx/prensa/2007/prensa242007.pdf

http://www.economia.gob.mx/pics/p/p1379/documento03.pdf

[FuzzX]

[FuzzX]

Misconception #2

Mexican tacos are better than Taco Bell.

[Guy Courchesne]

[dixie]

[kosherpickle]

to me taco bell falls under another, slightly less delicious catagory then mexican or tex-mex.

[MELEE]

X,

Come down to Oaxaca, I will introduce you to our friend the taco--you will never be able to eat Taco Bell again.