Marianismo: Challenging Traditional Mexican-American Gender Roles for Women

Voiceover

Presenter(s)

Clarissa Montalvo

Abstract or Description

While plentiful research has examined Machismo as a gender role norm for Mexican men, little has examined the role of Mexican women’s traditional Marianismo roles. Research identifies 5 “pillars” of Marianismo: familismo, virtuosity, subordination, self-silencing, and spirituality.  We were interested in whether adhering to some traditional pillars of Marianismo allow women to break away from other, more oppressive pillars (i.e., self-silencing and subordination), especially when the other pillars are threatened (e.g., family).  In a preliminary study with college-educated Mexican-American women (N = 86), we tested whether acculturation impacts women’s traditional Marianimso beliefs and general mental health. We found that women largely rejected beliefs about self-silencing and subordination, but that rejecting these beliefs is related to lower anxiety for these women. Acculturation was not related to anxiety or belief in Marianismo, although the large majority of the sample scored at the mid-point of the acculturation scale.  Interestingly, factor analyses indicated a strong single factor compromising both items from the self-silencing and subordination pillars.  We are currently working on the second stage of the study, which will explore whether differences in traditional Marianismo and Machismo beliefs influence the degree to which both women and men support movements to advance social change in a larger, more representative sample.   Specifically, we hypothesize that acculturation may influence the degree to which women accept the pillars of self-silencing and subordination, particularly when other Marianismo pillars are threatened.  We will ask participants to watch videos of current social movements in Mexico that challenge some (e.g.,  femicide), all (e.g., reproductive rights) or no (e.g., police brutality) pillars of Marianismo, and then experimentally test this exposure on  traditional Marianismo beliefs, mental health, and support for the movements presented in the videos. This study will highlight the relationship between U.S. acculturation and the views of Mexican-American women and men on the topic of gender norms, and their impact on the perception and support of social movements in Mexico. 

Mentor

Dr. Brittany Bloodhart