Macho – dictionary definition: manly, assertive, dominating.  Today the English equivalent would be an Alpha Male.

Machismo – dictionary definition: masculine, entitled, strong, courageous, dominate.  Google translates Machismo to Sexism, and I would stretch that to include the English/French word Chauvinism.   

As a teenager in the 70’s, growing up at the northern border of the United States, Mexico was a mystery and local Latin culture was non-existent.  Ashamed to say that my first taste of tacos, beans and rice came from driving through a Taco Bell 🤦🏼‍♂️ I grew up with Whites and Blacks, but not a single Brown person.  Leave it to pop culture to open our eyes to other worlds.  In 1978, “The Village People” topped the charts with the sappy, incessant tune Macho Man.  In the late 70’s Hector “Macho” Camacho was the up-and-coming world champion boxer from Puerto Rico.  And of course WWF Champ Randy Savage the Macho Man. Before we called it a pornstache, we called it a macho mustache.  The coolest word of the 70’s decade, aside from “Dude” was probably “Macho.”  It could be heard in the sitcoms, in high-school hallways and seen on products from T-shirts to muscle cars. Oh how I love cars 🥰

In 1977 a Phoenix auto dealership called Mecham Pontiac was customizing Pontiac’s sluggish factory TransAm and badging it the “Macho TA.”  Believe me, the ‘77 TransAm was a real racing dog because I happened to buy one from Mecham just a few years later.  The stickers were the most “Macho” thing about this bloated, under-powered, overly-emission controlled whale.  From ’77-’80 only about 300 Macho TA’s were sold, almost all in Arizona, but nevertheless I think the Macho branding was marketing genius.  The photo at the top is a Macho TA and the photo below is my personal TA.

OK so now you’ve had your refresher on the history and meaning of the words macho and machismo.  Living down here in Mexico I hear these words used almost weekly. They’re basically used interchangeably.  Usually by professors, journalists and politicians, and almost always by women.  I heard it yesterday at the Gringo Thanksgiving by a “Karen” from Vancouver. There’s a diehard constituency that believes the Mexican culture is still a machismo culture. 

Now, I don’t know everything about the Mexican culture, for sure.  And I can’t claim to be Mexican or even have been raised Mexican, but I have an opinion as an informed observer.  My opinion has been formed over 10 years of sitting in multi-generational homes of Mexican families and teaching to hundreds of Mexican men.  I have strong anecdotal research.  And my opinion is: Machismo, today, is a) not what it once was and has nearly died off completely, b) possibly “never was” and was as fake as a sticker on a muscle car, and c) is only used these days as a slang dig by women or a boast by men.  In other words I’m saying Machismo is a myth.

Again, my rather large circle of men is broad and diverse – in age, geography, urban/rural, north/south and economic strata.  I know men in their 20’s and in their 60’s, from doctors and lawyers to farmers and construction workers, from the Sonora border to Oaxaca in the deep south, with Guadalajara and CDMX in-between. In rural Oaxaca nealry all of the villages are run by women and the acknowledged head of the household is the wife – a complete role reversal from most of the world.  Oaxaca is an outlier but with regard to the country of Mexico and its male/female relationships, my view is that the country has come into the 21^st century to the same level as the United States and the modern world.  What exactly do I mean by this?

Well, diehard feminists in the US are still bitching about equal rights, inequality and discrimination – as if it were still the 1950’s.  I don’t buy it.  There are signs everywhere that American women are receiving fair treatment – presidential candidates and other congress members, CEO’s, Billionaires and college graduates (60/40 female).  If you want to argue the 70 cents on the dollar pay differential, hit me up with a DM and I’ll explain it to you. Try to stay focused here on chauvinism.  Where Archie Bunker demeaned Edith if his TV dinner wasn’t standing ready after work… where Darren Stevens belittled Samantha in Bewitched… where MadMan’s Don Draper demanded his secretary rub his back.  Etc., etc.  Days gone by.

So, as I’ve gotten to know a few men, women and families down here, I see no evidence of residual machismo culture.  And in fact – shock alert – I judge the Mexican males (on the whole) to be more subservient, more attentive, weaker, and in-general more respectful in their relationships, than American men.  This year Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum was elected president in a landslide.  In a machismo culture, really?

More tiny examples: nearly none of my male Mexican friends can spend a dime without obtaining permission from their wives.  They can’t accept an invitation to Happy Hour without a problem or a concession.  There’s no equivalent to golfing with the boys here in Mexico. They can’t lift a finger independently and they find it humiliating.  What I do see is women throwing their sandals at their men as they scold them out the door (search: Abuela chancla for the memes 🤣). I see men getting kicked out of their own homes after a marital spat. And I see Mexican men respecting and obeying women at every turn.  Some are what we would call “whipped” back in the States.  They are well aware of their lot in life and embarrassed when they have to face me and admit it.  In the Mexico that I know, the women are clearly the head of the household. BTW here there is a word equivalent to our word whipped: it is to be a Mandilón.

I’ll end on that note.  I’m not really passing judgement on good or bad here.  I hope you take away that I am neither Machismo nor Mandilón.  I’m not in a relationship and shouldn’t be! That’s not the point. It’s just that as far as I can tell, Mexican Machismo is myth.

Prove me wrong. Deuce