By Christine Boswell
I come from the Texas border. Ironies and combinations are distinct and proudly thrust into your life (whether you want it or not). The Spanish is “pocho” (a tex-mex mix of English and Spanish), the food always includes hot chile and flour tortillas (flavors not commonly part of the diet of the interior of Mexico or the United States). Also, “time” along the border is a different rhythm of work and rest. The joke is when someone says to you I will do it “mañana,” it doesn’t mean “tomorrow,” it just means “not today” (and certainly not in the morning). For the most part, the U.S. side of the border is moving right along with the rest of the country (as it should), but like the language, food, and definitions of time, the values of America are combined with Mexico along the border when it comes to the treatment of women. One in particular is the incessant control over women and our ideas, desires and contributions to society, and making men the most important centerpiece of whatever is going on, interrupting everything women do, bulldozing and upsetting our everyday lives. There is one very unique difference, however, on the border, these needs are micro, amounting to nothing more than series of unimportant tiny needs women are expected to fulfill. These tiny “needs” are comingled in women’s everyday lives, leaving them fighting for their own development.
The term is “machismo.” It is why men are so needy because it is also a way of life. It starts when you are born. Don’t get me wrong, “White America” has it too. They call it “male chauvinism.” However, along the border, the tapestry is more on the micro level of thought, rather than the macro level. For example, in the United States, I hear right-wing supporters constantly trying to put women back in the kitchen (as opposed to keeping their careers), or are in opposition of women attending college. This is macro level thought because you are trying to change “back” what has already been fought and won. It is not embedded at birth in everyone. Along the border, however, women fight to go to college still (even though it is encouraged by “White America” for all Americas to go to university) and not for lack of opportunity but because the machismo embedded in the male psyche adds a layer of guilt to women having needs, such as getting a higher education. In other words there’s nothing to “change back” because it has never changed to begin with! This is the micro level of machismo.
It is called the, “You are always gone, who is going to take care of me?” layer of guilt. And I am not speaking about general household “second shift” duties, but a deep, “madre” need. For example, I have witnessed women literally stand over their husbands and children at the dinner table just to “wait” on them hand and foot. They eat alone every day. My aunt would constantly remind me how she would “apapachar” (stroke the ego) my uncle daily in order to show him love. “Mija, they need it or they have no reason to live if they are not feeling important.” I have a friend who recounted to me, rather nonchalantly, a story of her husband screaming for her from the next room, while she was grading papers, just so she could get a blanket to cover his feet…and she did it! “Well who else was going to do it?” Well, I don’t know, and maybe I’m just spitting in the wind here, but perhaps they can do it? Oh no!! Not them!! They might not feel the floor beneath their frozen feet, fall and hit their head on the table and become brain damaged…and it would be all my fault! The guilt of taking care of them is now tied into their very survival, from their head (ego) to their feet! All for tiny needs?
The machismo is encouraged in my culture. Visions of Pancho Villa or Emiliano Zapata, riding on their horses, wearing their full “mariachi” suit stir romantic visions in women’s hearts, bringing on thoughts of “being rescued.” The truth is, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata were fed and kept clothed by the female soldiers in their army. These women were used for sex as well, particularly by their husbands, or the men of whom they companioned. I know. My great, great grandmother died while serving in Pancho Villa’s army, riding alongside my great, great grandfather in order to care for him…”Who else was going to do it?” She left behind her twelve year old daughter, whom she had to smuggle from Mexico in a crate to America in order to keep her safe so she could take care of her husband in battle. It is this micro-level guilt that eventually killed her in the end. In other words, it was women who saved them, not the other way around. And for what? To do their laundry? Feed them? Give them pleasure? What about their needs as women?
Why am I writing about this now? I am back in working in Laredo (Texas) during the week. Needless to say, being away (not totally, but for the most part) for twelve years has given me a different perspective. Feminism and all its new definitions have taught me how to take care of “me.” It has taught me that I matter. My needs are not only important, but valid on every level. This guilt in women to take care of not just their men, but all men, is still quite real. My mind actually recognizes this, goes into automatic and starts “caretaking” every male. And if you don’t do it, and whether women choose to respond with screaming, crying, fighting, or staying silent, little can be done until mothers teach their daughters to turn off the guilt. Of course in order to do that an entire paradigm shift, equal only to the earth reversing its axis, will have to take place in the culture. I know, this guilt is in me, and now I’m feeling guilty for letting go of the guilt. Wait…is that the earth rumbling? If I stop to care for myself, will I be responsible for the demise of all human kind?