Machismo

Italian immigrants: Archivo General de la Nación Argentina, via Wikimedia Commons

In the milonga I chatted to a guy from another Latin American country; we'll call him Geraldo. I had seen him for years but we had never danced.  I think neither of us had particularly wanted to but I could imagine the reason might be that our respective prides might be of such size as to never admit the possibility of an unequal desire to dance - in which case, the question of whether to risk it or not would not arise.

So it was with caution that I approached him one evening and asked if I could join him for a moment. This is not something you do to Latin guys in a milonga & would be unthinkable in an Argentinian milonga. Presumption of that sort is seen as a very British thing.  I recalled a British girl who'd earned the humiliating nickname "Toast" in a Buenos Aires milonga.  She jumped up too early from her seat when she thought a guy had invited her.   But this was an informal milonga in Britain and he more than knew our ways.  

He looked a little surprised, curious, amused. He is often in the milongas and those types don't give much away. He gestured towards the seats. I wanted to ask about piropos and chamulleros and discovered in him a lively intelligence.  He had an interest in and knowledge of culture and history, a depth of thought and perception, a willingness to discuss subjects not necessarily straightforward and a somewhat detached amusement. It was a great pleasure talking to him. I wished I had not left it so long.  

He said: 

G:  Tango can't be understood without understanding the history of immigration to Buenos Aires. It informs the music, the way it is danced. The immigrants who came, largely from the south of Italy were male, poor and proud. Brothels aside, their one chance in the week for intimacy with women was to dance. So the music that developed was about longing, sadness, fear, loneliness, anger and social criticism. 

F:  But what do you mean this story "informs the way tango is danced"? 

G:  Those men couldn't show how much they needed and wanted that intimacy. It would damage their pride, their self-respect. 

F:  I see that and the few girls who danced in milongas would have been protected by the male relations of the families and, in the less salubrious venues, by pimps. It was dangerous to try anything on. 

G:  Absolutely! So, tango became a very close, intimate but restrained dance. 

He made his hand into a fist, turned it towards him and pulled down, turning, at the same time his expression into a very Latin expression of machismo, and of strong feeling, repressed. He continued,

G:  It was about intense feeling but none of that could be visible to onlookers. 

F:  There are a lot of lonely people, lonely men today, I said. Over the years I have heard some men say they have no-one. Ever. "You have your children to hug" they say, "I never touch anyone." They have no affection in their lives. It is sad and a bit scary in a way. What does that do to someone?

G:  Are they dancers?

F:  No. Just ordinary people.

He speculated:

G:  That's why there is such a resurgence of tango today
.... perhaps meaning, it filled that chasm of loneliness, of lack of affection.

F:  But where did the link to 'chamulleros' come from? 

G:  The Italians are like that, great 'chamulleros'. 

F:  To survive as a very poor immigrant, I suppose it helped too, to have the gift of the gab. 

G:  But it is an arrogant thing, he cautioned.

He was echoing a New York times piece which early on claims not just that Argentines are arrogant: "Argentines have long taken pride in their arrogance" [my emphasis].  My new acquaintance said the same things: 

G: They think they can talk better than everyone else, they can get what they want. Argentininas think they are better than everyone else. There is a joke in Latin America: "How do you kill an Argetinian? Drop his ego from a great height." 

But he looked faintly conflicted or at least a little exasperated with these Argentinians.

I have lots of Argentines friends, he stated, not quite defensively. But Argentinians are known as the 'chamulleros' of Latin America. When you meet them you have this - he made a gesture with his chest, that machista attitude, a kind of physical fronting up, of being about to lock horns. It was an entirely male, primal gesture. You have to show them that they are no better than you.

But something in the gesture told me that if other Latins felt that need to prove themselves they had in some way, already lost. I thought of some of the nicer Argentine men I knew and said I had a soft spot for them. They are easy to talk to, often sweet, I said. He shook his head in "I told you so" fashion. He meant: You can't trust them.

I realised that perhaps this might go towards explaining some of the lack of trust that Juan spoke of and that I noticed is so evident even on the street in Buenos Aires. You will not find names on the buzzers of apartment block doors in central Buenos Aires. In the centre, ordinary streets like Chile and those around with bakers and small shops will have bars across the windows from which you are served.  Locals I chatted to on guided walks said the same thing, always with sadness:  No, there was no trust.  Yes, people were superficially very friendly but it meant nothing.  Soledad had also said just that.

Geraldo ran through a list of Latin American countries, saying how lovely their people were, finishing with the Colombians who he said were particularly special. And then he remembered the Mexicans who he said were the most hospitable. Argentinians were almost exclusively not on this list. 

Argentine-bashing, however, is according to that New York Times piece, a popular pastime in Latin American countries. It may not be entirely unjustified:

"The Argentine daily, 'La Nacion', recently published a series of axioms that are commonly believed by most Argentines: ''Buenos Aires is the only city in the world that has libraries open all night. Argentina has the best-looking women in the world. In Argentina, you just throw some seeds on the ground and they'll grow. Argentina has the best beef in the world. An Argentine can solve any problem with great genius.''

Geraldo had told me, earlier, that piropos were compliments and as I had already learned, that they could also be a form of street aggression. But, I said again, caving easily, It can be lovely to chat with Argentinians. They give compliments, which might just be ends in themselves, which might not turn into chamuyo. The chat isn't of any consequence but somehow it makes you feel feminine; it ignites that male - female energy. Dancing with some Argentines, some of these dangerous, Latin, chamullero types could be a sublime experience where the entire world drops away for the time that you dance together; where nothing else matters besides moving to this music with this man whose name you probably don't know and don't need to know. When Isabella talked about the milonga being her fantasy world, this is what she meant. When I observed that "possibly disreputable guys can be very nice to dance with", it was the same thing. 

I asked Geraldo, Isn't there a contradiction: the way women feel so wonderful dancing with some of these men and yet they are so machista? 
- No, he said immediately, shrugging his shoulders. We treat women well and with respect, with much more respect than the British treat them. Faint scorn twitched in his face.  I wondered if he was aware of it. Look at the dance, he said. It isn't equal. The man guides the woman. The roles are different. We respect women and treat them well, as long as they...obey us.

I stared at him open-mouthed.  Did he squirm ever so slightly?  The pause before he then said he was speaking about Latin men in general caused me to wonder if this was a deliberate provocation but it was impossible to tell.   The idea those men have of women isn't real, I objected. The women they are thinking of are on a pedestal, they are inventions. I switched to Italian, for examples: La mama, la fidanzata. These are idealised, easily stereotyped women.  I thought too of the women in Money by the great prose stylist Martin Amis in whose work, particularly the later work, the themes of freedom and control never seem distant.  Throughout his career he has been called misogynist in work and in life though he describes himself as a gynocrat.  But if you use stereotyped female characters to set off the unpleasant traits in men for comic effect, how different is it?

These women have no true equality, I said. They don't have the range of emotions, capabilities and limitations of real women. He looked both amused and uncomfortable.  That's a big subject for another time, he said.