In the Latino culture, we have all heard it before…”Aguántate como hombre!” Or in other words, “Be a man!” People often fail to see how damaging sayings like these are—especially since they are reinforcing gender norms/stereotypes and making men as the dominant humans. Latino culture often gives the power to the man, but women are often seen as submissive, so they can’t do anything except for going along with their significant others because that is seen as “correct.” When looking at Latino literature, we can see that these gender norms are also shown in these works; these books don’t enforce the idea of gender norms, rather they bring to light the issues that many relationships deal with. Primarily looking at When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda
…show more content…
“My parents probably argued before Héctor was born. Mami was not one to hold her tongue when she was treated unfairly. And while Papi was easygoing and cheerful most of he time, his voice had been known to rise every so often, sending my sisters and me scurrying for cover behind the annatto bushes or under the bed” (Santiago 21). At this point, we can see the aggressiveness factor that comes with dominance and masculinity; we see that Mamí tries to fight it, but in the end Papi asserts his dominance and yells over Mami—which scares the children. Families are set up with both internal and external aspects of functioning; families can acknowledge the interactions that happen inside a family, but they are also structured in a way that individual family members can interact with the outside world (Rueschenberg). We see that Papi has to be the one with the final say, which is how we are trained to think because men are "supposed” to be the head of household. Usually every family has the head of household because a family is structured that way, and usually, the male dominant partner is the one that is the head of household because that’s the way culture says it has to be; outside in the real-world we don’t question this because that is just the way the family sees it as—normal. Male dominance in culture (and in society) is seen as normal because they are usually the ones that are seen as strong enough to support a family, and because of that, we continue supporting this theory, which causes the attitudes many people have
“My parents probably argued before Héctor was born. Mami was not one to hold her tongue when she was treated unfairly. And while Papi was easygoing and cheerful most of he time, his voice had been known to rise every so often, sending my sisters and me scurrying for cover behind the annatto bushes or under the bed” (Santiago 21). At this point, we can see the aggressiveness factor that comes with dominance and masculinity; we see that Mamí tries to fight it, but in the end Papi asserts his dominance and yells over Mami—which scares the children. Families are set up with both internal and external aspects of functioning; families can acknowledge the interactions that happen inside a family, but they are also structured in a way that individual family members can interact with the outside world (Rueschenberg). We see that Papi has to be the one with the final say, which is how we are trained to think because men are "supposed” to be the head of household. Usually every family has the head of household because a family is structured that way, and usually, the male dominant partner is the one that is the head of household because that’s the way culture says it has to be; outside in the real-world we don’t question this because that is just the way the family sees it as—normal. Male dominance in culture (and in society) is seen as normal because they are usually the ones that are seen as strong enough to support a family, and because of that, we continue supporting this theory, which causes the attitudes many people have