Gender Stereotypes In Hispanic Culture

The Hispanic heritage is a beautiful and diverse culture that has brought many wonderful languages, dishes, and art to different countries around the world. Yet, while the Hispanic culture has many benefits, it is also negatively affected by oppressive views that objectify women in the cult of domesticity, and the traditional view that women belong in the home. These views then reinforce perceptions in popular media and expectations for men to be controlling over women, forcing Hispanic women to struggle to assert intelligence or independence that destabilizes this traditional views in Hispanic culture. Therefore, in this paper I will be arguing that the objectifying treatment of women as inferior housewives and second class citizens in Hispanic …show more content…
As explained before Machismo is an attitude, quality, or way of behaving that agrees with traditional ideas about men being very strong and aggressive (Luisa, Quiros, López-Vázquez, Ehrenzweig), but it’s also much more than that. Machismo is a form of masculinity that asserts the dominance and superiority of males in Hispanic society and are further legitimized by cultural values and norms. Machos believe in the superiority of men over women and adhere to conservative gender roles. The men, for example, can seek extramarital affairs while the women are expected to be faithful. Women do not have the right to participate in traditionally male positions in society and are expected to stay at home and attend to the needs of their husband and children, to take care of the housework, and to oversee other domestic needs. The main roles of women are to be mothers and wives. Marianismo, on the other hand, is the female equivalent of machismo and considered to be the embodiment of the feminine. Marianismo expects women to model themselves after the Virgin Mary (also known as the mother of Christ) and to accept their roles as mothers and wives. Women should be pure, humble, emotional, kind, compliant, vulnerable, unassertive, and enduring of suffering. Women live in the shadow of their husbands and children and should support them continuously even if what the husband wants is not always healthy for the family (historyworldsome). Women are encouraged to stand by the husbands side no matter what and divorce is usually not an option due to religion and the amount of embarrassment and shame it brings the women who decide to go through with them. I’ve seen examples of this within my own Hispanic family where I have watched my Abuelita support my Abuelito even when he was abusive to their children and