les, 1980, p. 235).
[This is manifest as] the inferiority complex of the Mexican... the pelado, a universally familiar social type in Mexico, and the distrust so predominant in the Mexican psyche... the pelado (is) a result of Mexican history, which gives the Mexican a feeling of insignificance. Because of this feeling, the Mexican seeks power in the only suggestive force assessable to him - that of the male animal. When a Mexican compares his void with the character of a civilized foreigner, he consoles himself in the following way: "but... we are very manly" (Gonzales, 1980, p. 242).
This "pelado" form of subjugation results in the Mexican man granting himself more rights than duties in both family and social situations. At the same time, pelado distortions insist upon a man imposing more duties than rights upon the women in his life. The traditional Mexican woman, instructed by the Church, accepts it (Wieser, 1980, p. 180). To the male cult of machismo, then, there arose the corresponding female marianismo:
Marianismo is just as prevalent as machismo but is less understood by Latin Americans and almost unknown to foreigners. It is the cult of feminine moral superiority, which teaches that women are semi-divine, morally superior to and spiritually stronger than men (Stevens, 1973, p. 91).
As can be imagined, this social stratification of society and the machismo/marianismo gender split leads to immense pressure upon Mexican women.
The Mexican "male animal" takes a schizophrenic view of woman: as virgin or prostitute, mother or mistress (Gonzales, 1980, p. 231). Noted in discussion of the pelado complex earlier, this point of view can be traced back to the history of oppression suffered by the Mexican nation - and in the "historicity" of modern Mexico. "Historicity" in this context is used as a combination of historical fact and contemporary mythologizing of those facts for the purpose of shaping a fu...