Germaine Greer once said the following: “The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.” In other words, living up to this standard will never be enough but a man will follow it on for forever in hopes to uphold the characteristics of being a man. Machismo is defined as a strong sense of masculine pride, or exaggerated exertion of masculinity, or male-like qualities. It is derived from the Spanish word macho, literally meaning male or masculine, and through time it has come to be the defining characteristic for males in Latin America (dr1, 2009). Machismo is evident in Latin America. It has been a cultural cycle that has been hard to break. Machismo places heavy emphasis on gender roles throughout different cultures. It is expected of women to maintain the household and be soft while the husband is to be the dominant force and support the family financially (Kupper & Zick, 2011). This places an inequality throughout households and anywhere else there is interaction among men and women. Machismo is not always a negative concept that many associate it to be. It can have some beneficiance to it depending on the situation.
Machismo in Dominican Republic
Like many other behaviors, machismo is learned. It is passed on from generation to generation like a tradition. Once a behavior is learned and practiced for so long the cycle is hard to break resulting in the passing on from generation to generation (Kumar, 2014). In Dominican Republic, machismo came in to play through Trujillo. The dictator strongly displayed characteristics pertaining to machismo. This concept came about after the colonization of the Spanish and Portuguese (Mendoza, 2017). He reigned for 31 years prolonging his effect on the people. Although the people may not have wanted to follow his belief they had no choice but to. It became a mere habit to follow what Trujillo wanted from the people. Trujillo would make the people of Dominican Republic address him as papá which translates to dad enforcing that they, the people, would have to follow whatever he taught them. Also, the people would have to have his image in their home.Trujillo’s image was inscribed upon every aspect of Dominican society (Karczewska, 2009). Out of habit, the people began to follow Trujillo and give him what he expected. Trujillo first married in 1913 to a peasant girl named Amita. He said she was a great wife but felt as though that she would interrupt his status because she was a peasant.. After her, came a women with a better social status, Bienvenida. This shows us that he believed that women were disposable enticing his macho sense.
The fall of trujillo came after the assassination of the Mirabal sisters. It is believed that Trujillo wanted to conquer Minerva, one of the mirabal sisters, and she declined which is unheard of because no one declined Trujillo (Radeska, 2017). It hindered his manly ego. There were three sisters, las tres mariposas, “the three butterflies,” whom were against Trujillo. They, alongside their husbands, enticed a revolutionary movement against Trujillo. Making them go to jail and trujillo having them killed once they were released (karczewska, 2009). This contributed to the international day of violence against women.
Domestic violence and machismo
The high rate of domestic violence in the Dominican Republic can be clearly connected to the idea of machismo, and highly aggressive male behavior. Every two days, sometimes each day a woman is killed in an act of violence. For an island nation of nearly ten million, more than a thousand women have been killed in the past five years (dr1). Many of the women do not speak out against their husbands out of fear. The women tend to depend on their partner financially and emotionally so it makes it hard for them to leave. Even if they were to speak out, the likeliness of them receiving any kind of justice were slim. In 2010, 62,000 cases of violence against women were reported in the Dominican Republic. Of that, just four percent went to trial (kumar, 2016). That is a major gap between the persecution of men who commit these acts and the reports filed. These are also just of the cases that are reported we have no idea what goes on to the cases that are not reported. A popular most recent case is of Emely Peguero. She was a sixteen year old girl who came from a family who did not have a lot of money. Her boyfriend of four years was wealthier than her and lived near her. When she became pregnant, Marlon, her boyfriend made it clear that he did not want the child to be born. She was missing and then they found her body and her uterus had been cut out with some remains of the fetus left behind even though abortion in Dominican Republic is illegal. The boyfriend and his mother are currently undergoing trial (Diaz, 2017). This is one of the four percent of cases that have gone to trial. According to aljazeera, cultural prejudices hinder the ability to get justice for the victims which are women.
The United Nations has created this Hear Me Too movement. This movement is to help those women that are not able to speak out against their abusers. Violence against women takes many forms: physical, sexual, and psychological. There's also different forms of violence against women which is intimate partner violence, sexual violence and harassment, human trafficking, genital mutilation, and child marriage. Each of these acts against women take a toll on their victims and those who are around especially children. According to the Joyful Heart foundation, victims develop Post Traumatic Stress disorder, low self esteem, begin to question their sense of self, begin to abuse drugs and alcohol, among other things. According to WHO international it may also affect their physical health by getting sexually transmitted diseases as a result of rape. For children, the effects of violence within the home can cause the children to develop behavioral issues it is also been associated with higher rates of child and infant deaths (2018).
Gender roles
Machismo also entices gender roles. Gender roles are what society has expected of each gender. About one-quarter of the lower-class people are unemployed. Among this group, women tend to find jobs more easily than men, especially in rural areas, and are paid less. Women often support their households, but do not make enough to bring them out of poverty (mendoza, 2017). This plays a key role in the disparity between genders. The discussion of wage gaps and which gender is more qualified for jobs that come up. Women, being softer, tend to be considered for sek jobs and things that require little to heavy lifting. Men on the other hand being the more aggressive gender, work better in the more rigorous jobs like construction. Recently we begin to see more women in jobs as such like construction and even taxi drivers which is dangerous because of the ability to defend oneself incase anything occurs.
Solutions
While conducting my research I learned a lot. Most of this history is unspoken. I discovered this book, The Wondrous life of Oscar Wao. This work of literature covered brief Dominican history with the use of fiction. It begins discussing Trujillo and machismo then rolls over to break apart oscars family and tell each side of their stories. Beli, oscars mom, lived in Dominican Republic throughout the trujillato, the reign of trujillo. While reading, you sense the division amongst the genders especially the lower class which Beli was. She went to a prestigious school in bani on a scholarship where she met a boy he and his family had a high social standing so him getting involved with beli hurt his image and the image of his family. He was later sent to military school in puerto rico while beli suffered the name calling and persecution from her neighborhood. Although the book is fictional we can connect the stories to real events that occured during that time. Throughout the novel, Junot Diaz the writer, footnotes and gives a brief history and importance of each name or event that occured. He talks about the Mirabal sisters, Trujillo and his men, the neighborhoods, the impacts it had on his family, and others while simultaneously telling the story of Oscars life.
Machismo is something that has been prevalent among hispanic culture for the longest of times. Systematically oppressing women and forcing them to tend to the desires of men. As a society we must help break away from this way of life. We can start by holding men accountable for their actions. Saying boys will be boys after a young man does something wrong enables him to think his actions will always be dismissed because he is a boy. We also need to make it okay for men to not be men sometimes meaning allowing for them to be vulnerable to cry and let out their frustrations. This begins as the boys grow, saying things like “crying is for girls” entices that the only emotions that boys are allowed to show is anger or being stern. This isnt a healthy environment for men. It promotes the bottling up of emotions to then be later released in negative ways like abuse of their partners. Also, help women develop voices for themselves. This is easier said than done but if enough people start stepping up and speaking up for those who can not speak up for themselves then we can begin to change the narrative of battered women. We also have to take assist the government of the Dominican Republic in helping those women who have been victims. Stepping in to teach them how to handle battered women and fix their corrupt justice system.