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El Machismo: A Lethal Construction of Masculinity
El machismo is a colonial mark, a permanent stain on the once rich and equal cultures of the Americas. It is at the core of the violence, mistreatment, and murder we have witnessed erupt over the past few years. Machismo is about weakness and power, the dichotomy that exists between the two, and how we who exist in gender binaries fit into it. It too transcends class and racial boundaries; it condemns all things not male, white, or wealthy. It lives in the collective unconscious that has gone unchallenged and uncorrected for years.
In her paper “ Machismo y Violencia ”, Carmen Lugo defines machismo as:
“... the expression of the magnification of the masculine to the detriment of the constitution, the personality and the feminine essence; the exaltation of physical superiority, brute force and the legitimation of a stereotype that recreates and reproduces unjust power relations. "
“The expression of the magnification of the masculine to the detriment of the constitution, personality, and the feminine essence; the exaltation of physical superiority, brute force, and the legitimization of a stereotype that recreates and reproduces unjust power relations. "
It manifests in many different ways and truly is a global model of oppression. Better known in the West as “toxic masculinity”, machismo is simply a product of a patriarchal system that governs the basic and complex systems and societies we all exist in. Waxing and waning in the background of our interactions, breeding slowly but surely a culture of hating women.
Art by Lara Solis
And how then might we liberate ourselves from this inescapable model? How can we extricate ourselves, as women, from this transcendent oppression? Even if we can reject this system within ourselves, how do we go about unearthing the patriarchy from our country, from the men in our lives, from our systems of justice and education?
These are questions that feminist collectives have been endeavoring to answer for decades. LASTESIS offers one answer, through protest. When you are unheard and unrepresented you must take to the streets, voice your opinions so loudly they can not be ignored.
“El patriarcado es un juez
que nos juzga por nacer,
y nuestro castigo
es la violencia que no ves.”
These opening lines to the feminist song that electrified the streets of Santiago, Chile. First performed in front of La Moneda by a crowd of hundreds of empowered and enraged women, the now-infamous piece “El Violador en Tu Camino” has since been performed in countries half a world away. Its lyrics transcending time, place, and circumstance.
The sounds of this feminist anthem give us goosebumps, the fond and unfamiliar sensation of being fully expressed. Originally written in Chilean Spanish, the lyrics resonate regardless of understanding, regardless of culture or borders. Distance is not the defining factor. It is that widespread appeal that is eerie and encouraging.
“The patriarchy is a judge
The judges us for being born
And our punishment
Is the violence that you don’t see”
It captures the very soul of what it means to be a Latinx woman right now, to be oppressed - to be hunted.
Chile is often touted as one of the “best” countries in the region, being one of the wealthiest with the lowest homicide rate. But we often forget the other side of the narrative, that the nation is also the most unequal, that crimes that do occur are brutal and violent, and that all of this disproportionately impacts women.
A country that seems almost perpetually on the brink of revolution Chile, has been no stranger to the scourge of gender-based violence that has swept the continent. And these murders are becoming increasingly graphic. They seem less like apathetic killings and more like performance pieces. Warning signs, sirens that scream: your womanhood is dangerous and our manhood is predatory
A study done in 2017 proved that nearly 40% of women ages 16-65 have or continue to experience domestic violence. In 2019, the nation saw 45 women fall victim to the government’s strict definition of “femicide”. There is a threat looming in the background of this seemingly peaceful society. While the Chilean government overlooks these issues, women are dying from a culture that long predates the independence of the nation.
El violador eres tú.
Son los pacos,
los jueces,
el Estado,
el presidente.
El Estado opresor es un macho violador.
These, the most notorious lines from the epic performance piece changed forever the way some women came to understand the nature of their oppression.
“The r*pist is you
It is the police
The judges
The state
The president
The oppressive state is an (aggressive) male r*pist”
Protests are the language of the unheard and unwanted. They are meant to uplift the oppressed and shine a light on our oppressors. These lines are awakening women a world over to realities that they have known but never acknowledged before. Helping them realise the all too present truth: there is a system of men who work against us.
It is about more than just the aggressor in these crimes. It is also about the police who fail every year to actively seek out justice and shame women out of even trying to report. The judges who go against the best interest of the victim and prioritize the future, safety, and happiness of the men who violate and desecrate these women’s bodies. The state that narrows its definition of femicide and does the bare minimum to protect women. The president who seems more preoccupied with furthering inequalities than with saving the nearly 40% of women who are suffering in obscurity.
This oppressive state forces them to be victims in their own homes.
This song has changed the work of activists all over the region and has propelled femicide, sexual violence, and all other forms of gender-based violence to the forefront of activist political discourse. The awakening it has incited is shifting the sociopolitical landscape in which these women fight. Slowly tipping the scales in their favour.
In Chile, this has led to more laws intended to further the pursuit of justice. However, new policies like the “Street Respect Bill” lack enforcement and seem to be the government’s attempt to appease the international pressure to crack down on the issue rather than create systemic change. While the crime of femicide does carry with it a long sentence, Chile’s definition of the crime is decidedly narrow. Limiting it to exclusively intimate femicide, lowering their official numbers, and creating greater barriers to finding justice.
Art by Lara Solis
Many activists are quick to point out that laws don’t reform a macho society. There is no way to do that without first addressing that it is in fact a macho society. To confront that “el violador eres tu” (the rapist is you), to recognise that everyone is complicit and that their actions, culture, and mindsets need to be uprooted to make a change.
Machismo began in Latin America during the era of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism. Carmen Lugo says:
“La cultura indígena es destruida, sobre las ruinas de las pirámides se erigen ostentosas catedrales, se nos impone un idioma extraño, una religión ajena; el orden de valores, la cosmogonía indígena es destruida; aparece una nueva sociedad, una nueva cultura donde lo indígena y lo femenino son relegados, son inferiores. Esa ecuación inconsciente, lo índio-femenino, se transforma en aquello que le recuerda al criollo, al mestizo, su superioridad sobre el vencido.”
“The indigenous culture is destroyed, in the ruins of the pyramids they erected ostentatious cathedrals and imposed on us a strange language, an alien religion; the order of values, cosmogony of the indigenous [people] are destroyed; there appears a new society, a new culture where the indigenous and the feminine are relegated, are inferior. This unconscious equation transforms the indo-feminine into that which reminds the Creole [those of Spanish/Portuguese and African descent], the mestizo [those of Spanish/Portuguese and Indigenous descent], of their superiority over the defeated”
Much like racism, machismo doesn’t exist in the absence of the white European colonizer. The destruction of the indigenous cultures; the vicious slaughter of their people, the burning and destruction of their temples, and cultural artifacts were only superseded in brutality by the widespread sexual violence of the era. What they left behind was a societal structure that routinely demeans and dehumanises women.
How then does this same structure, that has yet to be deconstructed, parsed apart and rebuilt, claim to protect women?
Chilean society and by extension no Latin American society can’t claim to uphold the rights and interests of these women. They have a foundation that is specifically built upon the defeat of them to further the superiority of men.
Machismo is also about much more than systems, it is deeply entrenched in the culture. It is the casual and common dismissal of women. It is the constant jokes about their inferiority. Jokes and comments that seem small and insignificant are playing out in major ways. These minor, casual statements that stoke the flames of male egos and male violence.
It is about the life cycle of these ideas. Abusers hear jokes or throw away comments and they continue to abuse the women in their homes. These women hear the same jokes from ‘pillars of their community’ and instead of reporting it, instead of trying to seek out better, they remain silent. Convinced that they have no supporters, no allies, and no options. These pillars of the community continue to live in ignorance of the very real, violence that plagues their cities. We get no change and the simple fact is no law will break these cycles.
What these women need is to be freed from this sick oppressive culture. We cannot put another man on trial for these vicious crimes until we put this system on trial. We cannot seek out justice for another woman until we construct a system that will give it to her.
In understanding our complicity we might hope to educate ourselves. When we can finally comprehend the long previously untraversed road ahead, only then can we hope to bring change to the continent. To undo the centuries of suffering that began when Colon first tarnished Latinx soil with his flagpole. Only then can the region hope to heal.
LASTESIS finishes the song with these final lines, a mockery of the police anthem:
Sleep easy, innocent girl,
without worrying about the bandit,
that for your sweet and smiling dream
watch your carabinero lover.
Sleep peacefully innocent girl,
Without worrying about the bandit
Your dreams sweet and smiling
Are guarded by your carabineer [a type of 17th-century soldier] lover
To support LASTESIS check out their instagram and facebook pages.
Make a note of:
Today marks 47 years since the military coup that instated Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. The dictatorship is a huge part of Chilean history and has forever changed its political landscape and its effects are still being felt today . We want to encourage everyone to take some time to learn about the dictatorship, here are some links to articles and projects that might help:
An art project to remember The Disappeared
Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @ hayley.headley
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