Machismo: The origins of the word and what it means today

For our week-long series of conversations about modern masculinity, we look at a specific word: machismo.

It’s been used a lot recently, but Nicole Guidotti-Hernández, professor of English at Northeastern University, says there are two distinct origins of the word. Guidotti-Hernández says one of those origins comes from the 1930s when a man named Oscar Louis did several ethnographies in small, rural villages in Mexico and Puerto Rico.

“Lewis basically tried to identify key characteristics of what kept Mexican and Puerto Rican families impoverished both materially, morally and culturally," Guidotti-Hernández said. "And so, the conclusion was that men of these persuasions are demasculinized by socioeconomic conditions, and that the way that they prove their pluck and metal as men, is by exerting the dominance of patriarchy within the home.”

Guidotti-Hernández says that was part of the social science conversation through roughly the 1950s. She says the second origin for machismo is in a more Latin American context, in particular in Mexico in the 1920s and '30s.

“This term really emerges in the post-revolutionary, context of Mexico with working class masculinity and the figure of the Pelado, which is essentially a working class guy of the street, and it is a way for elites to distinguish the different characteristics between uneducated and educated populations," Guidotti-Hernández said.

Guidotti-Hernández joined The Show to talk about it.

Full conversation

NICOLE GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ: I am really not a fan of the word machismo because I think it basically simplifies an idea of masculinities, that are context and historical with historical specificity, but that instead create a pathology that sort of defines Latinx masculinities throughout the hemisphere, right. Which is if you're excessively violent, excessively patriarchal, you know, a misogynist, but somehow that that gets attached to a racialized body. I think is the idea that travels up and down the hemisphere.

MARK BRODIE: Do you find that this word is applied to different people differently?

GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ: Absolutely, 100%. When we're talking about Latinx men, especially Afro-Latinx men, it's dismissive, right? It's both racial, cultural and sociological, which is to say, like, “oh, that's just machismo, that's just how this population is inherently. They don't respect women, they don't, you know, they value the family, but only in the context of their privileges. The capacity to move around in the world where women and daughters are policed and kept at home,” which doesn't mean that that's not true. It just means that it's a typology that rests on a stereotype.

But, if we look at other ways that machismo becomes a different kind of political critique, when we talk about something like “feminicidio,” or the systematic murdering of women and girls and trans women included, my feminist colleagues here in Mexico — which I happen to be here right now — would say “que machista.” Which is a way to name misogyny, violence, gender normativity and, essentially, a disregard for women and girls, trans women included, as subjects of their own making. And instead resorting to femicide as a way to control those who act outside of the boundaries of womanhood.

So I would say that whenever you hear those words crop up, you wanna ask yourself the question: “What does this person mean in the context?” Versus, “Oh, that's just the way that X is, let's move on.”

BRODIE: What about when white people, white men are described as acting with machismo or displaying the tendencies of machismo? What do you make of that?

GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ: Well, I mean, there's one primary example in the media that I feel like we can't hide from right now, and that would be the president. And, for me, when people call him macho or they say that he's participating in, you know, the tropes and tried ideas of being masculine, it's pretty farcical from a historical standpoint. Because, I think that the word is being used to cover up white frailty, to apologize without apologizing for white rage or making misogyny by white men against women of color, queers, women, you know, anyone not a white straight man, less than.

So, for me, when I see people talking about Trump as macho, there's a few things going on there. It's an expression of white racism. It's an expression of white masculinity, as the dominant masculinity. It is a linchpin in justifying misogyny. And it is a way of exhibiting power in the diplomatic sphere, as well as in the domestic sphere. And when I mean the domestic sphere, I don't just mean internal national politics, I mean within people's homes and hearts and minds.

BRODIE: Well, do you think there's maybe a certain irony in terms of when a white man is referred to in the context of machismo? It's often done sort of respectfully or glowingly like it's a compliment, whereas, you know, men, you know, men of color are often when that word is used to describe them, it's often not in such positive terms.

GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ: Yeah, I mean, I agree with that 100%. And even butch, Latinx, and ... Black Afro-Latinx queer folks, when somebody says, “Oh, they're trying to be very macho.” It's about a false masculinity, a false Mexican masculine prowess. It's a slur, but when it's attached to white men, it does indeed become a compliment. But I would argue that the compliment is about covering up deficiencies more so than it is about — and it's, it's about white anxiety, right? Because somehow if individuals are not macho, if they're not exhibiting prowess in the public sphere, then what are they doing?

BRODIE: What do you think the discourse around this word and sort of what it means and its concept says about how we see masculinity across different cultures?

GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ: So, I am always a proponent of gender as a spectrum, and this idea that there is no one way to be masculine or feminine or non-binary or trans or intersex. The idea for me is that it's flexible, it's situational. So, all of these ideas suggest to us that there is a real, I would say, dialogue between what we perform as masculinity in public, what one's my biology may have been, could have been, is, and how we want to be seen in the world.

BRODIE: With all the talk over the last number of months about masculinity and, you know, what it means, and how it's evolved and sort of its role in society right now. Do you see any of that changing or evolving the meaning of the word machismo or the concept of machismo going forward?

GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ: Well, as an educator and intellectual, I would say that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the real barometer of what is and what is to come. And so the place where I see the most change, especially in the classroom, has to do with young people coming to the table with a critical idea that gender and sexuality are not fixed.