We Can’t Beat Toxic Masculinity Without First Taking on Machismo
Prizing masculinity — and punishing everything else — has persisted in Latin America, turning a colonial past into an oppressive present
Growing up, Eddie Bravo was taught to feel ashamed of his identity. Not the Guatemalan Filipino part — the queer part. “My father was very much in line with the machismo mentality,” he says. Bravo wasn’t interested in cars or repairing the roof — he’d much rather be playing with dolls or hanging with the girls around the way — but he learned to do those things, out of fear that he’d get punished.
He wasn’t alone. Bravo, now 30, says that for many boys of color, feminine traits are often met with the threat of punishment, particularly corporal punishment. “The idea that I’m going to scare you, or beat you, so you feel fear anytime you even have an idea that may be feminine — that definitely played a role in my socialization,” he says.
While women are undoubtedly affected by machismo, men who deviate from conventional masculinity are more likely to be categorized as feminine, or “other,” and subjected to gender violence. Those who exist as transgender, nonbinary, or elsewhere along the gender spectrum remain at higher risk, especially in Latin America and the…
