Latin Women, Machismo, and Vocational Empowerment

Introduction: Female Empowerment in Historical Context

Women have achieved great strides in modern societies, especially when compared with the historical role of females in ancient societies and even in relatively recent historical eras. One of the most important aspects of female empowerment relates to the incorporation of women into the modern workforce. The greatest documented increase in female empowerment in this area occurred in American society immediately after the Second World War, mainly by virtue of the extent to which female labor was required during the war effort to fill the positions vacated by men involved in overseas military conflict. That conflict was, in retrospect, a watershed event in the progress of women during the 20th century.

In Hispanic societies, specific social and cultural attitudes, beliefs, and values have always played important roles in shaping male-female relationships and the position of women in society. In the United States, the other most significant factors responsible for female social and especially vocational empowerment since World War Two were the introduction of oral contraception for birth control and the evolution of reproductive rights and autonomy following the legalization of abortion in 1973.

Generally, Hispanic women have progressed at a slower rate, largely because prevailing cultural attitudes and beliefs contradict the increasing independence of women from men. In that regard, the interplay between two competing components is especially important: specifically, the concepts of machismo and familism within Hispanic societies and communities.

Statistical Data on Latin American Family Life

This paper provides background on family life in the Hispanic world, drawing mainly on research conducted in key countries such as Mexico and Colombia, with special focus on how the struggle for economic survival affects family life. It has been reported that 40% of families in Latin America have insufficient income for essential needs, and that another 28% can be categorized as "working poor" (David, 1987). In 1980, 41% of the population was under fourteen years of age. Population growth in the Western Hemisphere, and Latin America in particular, has exceeded that of the Old World for some time (Stycos, 1968). With this trend continuing, poverty is the way of life for most Hispanic children.

Drawing on census data, Elsa M. Chaney (1984) provides the following snapshot: across twenty different countries, the most common minimum age for marriage for females is fourteen. Colombia and Mexico have set eighteen as the minimum for both sexes, but other countries range from twelve to sixteen for females and fourteen to sixteen for males. Other research indicates that the average age of marriage for women is approximately eighteen, and that these young brides will give birth to an average of more than five children over the course of their married lives (Balakrishnan, 1976).

Marriage and Social Status in Latin Communities

Chaney also points out that childrearing remains the highest social status available to women in many Latin communities. Because of the costs involved, many of the poor cannot afford to marry, and legal divorce is usually difficult to attain. Thirty percent of households are headed by females — a figure similar to that in the United States — and the typical household has between 3.5 and 5.3 members. Among the lower classes, consensual unions may significantly outnumber formal marriages. For instance, among poor Black communities in Venezuela, 57% of couples are not married, despite the widespread influence of Catholicism.

Furthermore, these families tend to be matrifocal — that is, mother-centered — and are characterized by early motherhood, migration, and poverty (Pollak-Eltz, 1975). Despite the fact that the mother is primarily responsible for fulfilling all of the children's needs, the father remains the final decision-maker, even when he is regularly absent from the home. This pattern also holds true in Mexico, where traditional patriarchal values and social norms make it much more difficult for women to support themselves independently (Chant, 1993).

When the Spaniards came to the Americas, they worked to impose their family ideals on the indigenous populations. That ideal was a patriarchal, monogamous, nuclear family (Munoz, 1983). Prior to this pressure, there had been significant variety among local peoples, including polygamy, cousin marriages, extended clans, and more familiar patriarchal power structures with strict separation of tasks by gender (Boremanse, 1983).

One of the most important factors in understanding the Hispanic family is migration. Males often migrate to the United States or other regions in search of work in order to support their families (Weist, 1983). In some respects, this allows the family to live better; in others, it places tremendous strain on marital relationships. As in many other cultures, there are strong biases and socially accepted gender-based expectations within Hispanic communities regarding extramarital sexual relations (Schaefer, 2006). Generally, married men are expected to support their families but are not necessarily held to a standard of sexual monogamy, even within marriage.

Married men frequently maintain girlfriends, and as in many other cultures, such transgressions are often condoned — at least tacitly — by society. Moreover, it is not uncommon for married men to father children outside of wedlock and even to support two different families simultaneously. The additional factor of long-term separation and geographical distance resulting from the pursuit of work by married men only greatly exacerbates this tendency.

Meanwhile, the same social mores and norms that are permissive of male infidelity are far less forgiving when it comes to female infidelity, regardless of circumstances (Schaefer, 2006). Wives rarely have affairs because, if their infidelity is discovered, they risk being severely beaten by their husbands or abandoned entirely. As is often the case across different cultures, unfaithful males routinely escape significant negative social consequences, while females known to engage in similar behavior suffer lasting reputational damage throughout their communities and are subjected to intense public shaming from which males are almost entirely exempt. Furthermore, in some Latin cultures contraceptives are withheld from married women, even when the family is already experiencing great difficulty supporting existing children. This is not primarily the result of strict religious convictions, but rather reflects concerns among men that any form of birth control could tempt married women to have extramarital affairs (Haffner, 1992).

This double standard has undoubtedly been a feature of human societies since long before the earliest recorded history. While female infidelity no longer legally justifies murder in most modern societies, that is not the case in some others — most notably in certain wealthy nations in the Persian Gulf region. In Latin communities, contemporary civil law protects women from such reprisals; however, social mores and the persistence of so-called "traditional" patriarchal rules still operate to make life considerably more difficult for women than for men in this and many other situations.