Machismo and Me

I was out the other night with a group of dental students at a local bar. My Spanish remains spotty and add loud rock music to the background with everybody else being Guatemalan and I was understanding close to nothing. I was greatful when the boyfriend of one of the dental students started speaking to me in slow Spanish and English. We talked for awhile about his life. He´d spent some time in the US, studied engineering, been with his girlfriend for five years. Then he tells me that since I´ll be here for awhile, he´ll let me in on a few Guatemalan secrets.

¨It´s like this,¨ he says, ¨when your woman is starting to get pushy, saying things like ´take out the garbage, go out and buy milk, ´you say, ´okay honey, but pórtate bien,´¨ which is the equivalent of ¨behave yourself,¨ or ¨be good. ¨ Then you give her a little tug by the hair at the nape of her neck (he demonstrated the correct form on his girlfriend). To this I thought, oh, if that´s how it´s done, I definitely have a lot to learn. At the time, I thought he was making a joke along the lines of the jokes that get told around the Thanksgiving dinner table in my family. I was later informed that he was actually completely serious and felt that he was truly imparting valuable information and life skills unto a an unlightened foreigner.

Machismo is definitely prevalent down here and comes up at least once every day in clinic. Women can´t get jobs, can´t leave the house, get abused, get sexually harrassed, all stemming from Machismo. When I ask people where this comes from, the most common answer is ¨who knows.¨ I´ll currently searching for a book that could give me some insight.

When I shared the story of the machista in the bar with one of the women from the US that live in my house, she turned to her boyfriend and informed him that if he ever tried the hair tug move she´d fucking beat him to death. And the cultural exchange continues.