The Meaning of Marianismo in Mexico Essay

In several cultures, women are seen as archetypes more than men. The proposition of women are instantly idealized and glorified and instantaneously ignore the true complexity of a woman. Countless of these superficial images can be seen across various cultures where the societies within these cultures define what it means to be a female and what type of behavior is and isn’t acceptable within those parameters. The persistent restatement of these stories throughout these generations reinforces the gender system. Women who step out of the norm in these societies are then held punishable for their actions. Alicia Gaspar de Alba pinpoints the three archetypal roles that are given to the women in the Mexican and Chicana cultures. These are,

An assumption that the authors make towards their audience is that cared about wealth and presentation. Overall, calling the audience highly judgemental. The living styles for “tortilleras” were very different from La China. The poor inhabitants of Mexico city lived in houses, divided into many rooms and shared with many people. The most impoverished lived on the floor, which I'm sure you could imagine was extremely uncomfortable. The woman would walk around barefoot covered in poor ugly clothing, they were not well kept whatsoever. They all slept together side by side on the floor along with their families. Their earnings were low and their lives very much depended on their workload. These were the real woman who held down Mexico. These were the real representations of women in latin America. Hard working woman who had to sacrifice for the well-being of themselves as well as their families.

Although there were not many women in the film, those who were portray held important roles. The first being Dona Isabel or Tecuichpo, the interpreter for Hernan Cortes and sister of Topiltzin. She is first introduced when Topiltzin is brought in front of Cortes. As is stated in the film, she is the replacement for La Malinche or Dona Marina. As is stated in Socolow’s The Women in Colonial Latin America, “She (La Malinche) showed her gratitude to the

a city where an eagle with a snake in its beak rested on a cactus. This

The Lady of Guadalupe is a huge part of the Mexican tradition, and how many people look up to her in a very godly way. She is important, because she reminds people of their appreciation for their own cultures, along with the other cultures that are all over the world. The Lady of Guadalupe is someone that is the exact replica of the Virgin Mary. But, the only difference is, is that the Virgin Mary is a saint that is represented in the European culture, and the Lady of Guadalupe in the Aztec and Native culture of Mexico. The lady of Guadalupe is a positive influence on different religions, especially Christianity.

This highlights that Chicanas prefer Chicanos more than they prefer each other; they perpetuate gender hierarchy by constantly placing males above females. Chicanas fear the criticism they will endure if they defy gender boundaries. Joan Riviere addresses this phenomenon in her essay “Womanliness as a Masquerade. Her essay explores the discomfort that woman feel when they act outside of the boundaries established by a male dominated society. In one example, she describes a

During the Mexican Revolution, Mexico as a nation torn in many directions, people gave up simple farming lives to take up arms against causes that many of them did not fully understand. Gender roles during the period in Mexico were exceptionally degrading towards women. Having little more rights than slaves and treated as trophies or property more than human beings, women role in society was nothing near that of a man’s. In The Underdogs, Mariano Anzuela highlights the issue of gender roles by continuously illustrating the punitive role of women and their mistreatment. Augmenting Anzuelas work with citations from Oscar Lewis and Stephanie Smith will paint a picture of the degrading gender roles for women during the Mexican Revolution. Highlighted points brought up by Azuela are how men speak with and treat women, women’s place in society, and general disregard for women’s feelings.

During the Spanish ruling, the Spanish mentality of conquest is that the role of women is to be a housewife and take care of the children while men’s role is to be the provider, worker, and protector of the family. Women were not given the right to work, own property, or attain jobs, without the permission of their spouse. The purpose of life for a woman is to marry and establish an alliance, ultimately creating a peaceful situation at home. Catalina vows to go against deeply ingrained gender norms; implanted in every society lives distinct gender roles for both men and women, with that there are specific ways that those roles can be violated or subverted. Catalina attempts to threaten the social order, as she asserts her power by dressing up as a man as it allows her better opportunities than appearing as a woman. Catalina's gender presentation of herself as a stereotypical male, being abrasive and quick to anger when anyone challenges her masculinity, demonstrates the minimal opportunities for women in Spanish society. Erauso assertion that the “nun’s habit becomes useless and I threw it away, I cut my hair and threw it away” demonstrates that the trappings of womanhood are not working for her. By becoming a man, Catalina succeeds more, due to the fact that men were granted better opportunities such as the right to join the armada where she sets sail for Spain, or the right to go to Madrid and meet with the King, or the right to gamble in Charcas.

We live in a society where for decades we have been socialized to believe that there are only two genders: male and female. The idea of gender is socially constructed. Society and culture create gender roles and through those roles we all learn to enact our specific roles. With this in mind, this essay will seek to examine how gender shapes the structural and lived experiences of Chicanxs and Latinxs in the U.S. This essay will draw from Abrego, Acosta, Ocampo, and the documentary “No mas bebés” to see how gender affects an individual’s experiences in the U.S.

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

While dealing with the hardships of being Mexican, a woman also had to face the burden of being a female. A social hierarchy was clearly in existence. While the men were inferior to the Spaniards and Anglos because they were

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the way women have been represented and characterized gives us an idea of how the female gender are treated differently from the male gender as well as children in Latin America during the 1950s. The husbands were given all the authority, also known as machismo, whereas women weren’t allowed to take charge of anything, and were portrayed as weak and impotent.

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

The picture of pre-revolutionary Mexican women was of a woman who had to lived her life constantly in the male shadow. These women were consumed by family life, marriage, and the Catholic Church, and lived silently behind their dominant male counterparts (Soto 31-32). In 1884 (prior to the revolution) the government passed the Mexican Civil Code. It dramatically restricted women's rights at home and at work (Bush and Mumme 351). Soto states that the code "sustains an almost incredible inequality between the conditions of husband and wife, restricts in an exaggerated and arbitrary manner those rights due the woman, and…erases and nullifies her personality" (qtd. Bush and Mumme 351).

Women of Latin American culture have incessantly ensued the potent gender roles that have become a social construction of their society over innumerable decades. The profound author of Insurgent Mexico, John Reed, imparts his experiences with the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution, like Pancho Villa, and was able to witness their culture and more specifically the roles these Mexican women were forced to render by their chauvinistic counterparts. This period of revolution, started to grant women new mantles usually reserved only for men, like participating in fighting for the success of the revolution; any preeminent changes would soon approach, but in the meantime Mexican society run by men enjoyed the regulated traditional