An Overview of How Machismo Culture Still Affects Women's Lives
A look back at history shows that women have made great strides in the fight for equality, however, despite the tremendous progress made in history for the fight for gender equality, many women still face violence, discrimination, and institutional barriers in their everyday lives due to existence of machismo culture. There are five types of violence against women: physical, psychological, economic, sexual and symbolic. This study explored and applied two disciplines, Sociology and History, to further examine female oppression in today's society.
Gender violence is described as violence that often serves to maintain structural gender inequalities, and it includes all types of violence against women, children, adolescents, gay, men, transgender people, and gender non-conforming. 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either sexual, physical, mental, or emotional abuse in their lifetime. Most of the violence usually comes from someone close such as their romantic partner or family. Worldwide, one-third of women have reported sexual or physical violence while being in a relationship with their male partner. As many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a significant other. Violence against women is a serious public health issue and a complete violation of women's human rights. The United Nations describes violence acts against women as 'any act of gender-based violence that results in mental, sexual, or physical harm or suffering to women. However, it is one thing to describe what defines violence against women, but quite another to be able to answer the more concerning question of 'Why are women oppressed in the first place?'
Gender-based violence is not a new issue, it has existed in various cultures, religions, and societies since ancient times and it is still a problem for some cultures, like Columbian, where machismo is a needed character trait for 'being a man'. In fact, the International Women's Movement to fight against gender-based violence did not begin until the 1970s. The movement focused specifically on patriarchal societies and tried to bring attention to the system that favored heteronormative men. It is no surprise, that the most common gender-based violence crimes are done towards women. In a study conducted by Margaret Newman, it was noted that there was a very high rate of violence crimes against women in Argentina, specifically a type of gender violence that is described as 'Any conduct, action, or omission which, directly or indirectly, in both the public and private spheres, based on an unequal relationship of power, affects the life, freedom, dignity, physical state, psychological state, sexual state, economic state, or patrimonial state as well as personal security of someone'.
The number of femicides in Argentina is increasing every year, it is estimated that an Argentinean woman is killed every 30 hours, implying that a femicide passes almost every day, which also highlights the severity of this problem and shows that it is a problem that is faced globally. Group therapy, group activities, and subprograms have been created in Buenos Aires to aid towards those women who have suffered from such violence and maybe experiences mental health problems; they take place in the Integral Women's Centers (IWCs) weekly or monthly depending on the specific service. Newmans' study explored mental health services in Buenos Aires, focusing on IWC's work to prevent violence against women. The specific objectives were to explore the centers' treatment strategies towards mental health issues and analyze the result. Conclusions drawn from the research determined that the IWCs' mental health services are reliable and beneficial options to help women currently in violent situations or that have been victims in the past.
However, although these services can help victims emotionally and mentally, they cannot completely change their specific situations as the abusers would also need to change and adopt new attitudes for assurance that the situation won't occur again. Only one of the five subprograms at the center aimed at stopping violence against women by promoting a gender-inclusive perspective and eradicating violent tendencies in men in the Buenos Aires area. Since it is difficult to change their patriarchal attitudes and machismo upbringing, this environment can cause women to feel pressured to satisfy the ideal woman's stereotype or image created by society even though it is completely unrealistic. It is important to realize that violence against women is not only a problem between the victim and the abuser but also a serious problem for society, especially when that society maintains or promotes the idea of machismo. Machismo refers to the idea that men are superior to women and this idea can be seen today all the time through control violence which occurs when a man feels he has the right to control some aspect of a woman's life.
Women's oppression is evident in the political arena as well, they face many social penalties and challenges when they run for a political position. A study conducted by Tyler Okimoto and Victoria Brescoll examined the impact of backlash toward women running for a political position or already in a political office. Okimoto & Brescoll organized a study that requested participants to select their favorite political candidate (between male and female) who were described with identical qualifications. Both candidates were described to also have power-seeking intentions and the results showed that the sample of participants expressed bias against the female candidate.
These results reveal that women are judged for things that a man would not be judged for because of inherent 'communal standards. There is a very high expectation for the typical female in society, they have to abide by made up societal norms that are typically made by men and that men don't have to experience. This is a result of cultural stereotypes that depict women as being communal because women are stereotyped as sensitive, dependent, caring, and emotional beings so they are expected to act a certain way. In contrast, men are seen as agentic, dominant, assertive, powerful, and competitive and are not judged for having rigid gender roles.
Did you know that approximately 70%-90% of women in Pakistan face some form of domestic abuse? A case study was conducted on Muhktar Mai's, a girl from a small village in Pakistan who experienced horrific violence due to her gender. Mai’s brother was accused of sexually abusing a woman from a wealthy family and as retribution, the village council decided that his sister Muhktar should be gang-raped by four of the men from the family clan. The consequences of this decision resulted in Muhktar being shunned from her village and dishonored by her family, which was followed by her suicide.
Muhktar was the first woman to ever take the case to court and shed light on the matter. Not only did she receive recognition for being the first woman to win but she brought attention to something very common in their culture. Many women are punished when they've been raped because it is believed that they are bringing dishonor to their families. In another case, a 12-year-old girl was raped by a teenage boy in a field. The tribal council ordered that as retribution the teenage boy's 16-year-old sister would be raped in return. The mother of the 12-year-old girl begged the family of her rapist to marry her to cover up the shame but they refused. In retribution, the tribal council ordered that the rapist's 16-year-old sister got raped as well. The family took this to the police which encouraged the 12-year old girl mom also report her daughters' rape to the police. When asked why she reported it after begging the rapist to marry her daughter? Her response was that she didn't understand why the family went to the police about their daughter being raped when her daughter was raped as well. Many of these cases occur in rural areas of the country where the future of a family relies mainly on arranged marriages. In these rural and underdeveloped areas, the majority of people believe firmly in the tribal council who make decisions based on tribal customs that predate Islam.
To conclude, the oppression of women in the 21st century is more developed than it has been historically. For centuries the labor of women has been exploited and devalued through unappreciation, lower wages, and violence. The oppression of women is due to the historical status of women viewed as private property and their unequal partnership from the beginning of times. When discussing women's oppression, it is easy for people to ignore the social and cultural manifestation of this oppression. The cultural manifestations are the sexualization of women in popular cultures; the attitude that women are products that can be used and that women are physically inferior and submissive to men. These aspects of our society continue to be reinforced which have resulted in detrimental effects. As violence against women became more and more of an issue, it will be necessary to establish laws that will ensure the protection of women from acts of violence.
