Machismo (II): its womens' fault

betoscopio, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Common

I asked a Venezuelan conversation exchange partner in his sixties about inclusive language.  

- Oh, no, he said, I don't use it.  

- Why not?

- It's a pain, 'pesante'.

- How so?

- Oh, all this stuff about amigos or amigas, saying both, Let's just stick with how we've always said it.

- Taking the masculine form of the pronoun, 'Todos estamos aquí' if there is say, a group?

- Of course.

- So you wouldn't say "todes".

- What?

- Todes.

- Todos, sí.

- No, todes, con "e".

- Oh, I thought there was a problem with your accent.  No, I wouldn't say that.

- But if you are a woman, not being well treated by a guy, someone patronising you for example, which is very common, the simple fact of someone, the woman or those present, using that language, making it normal, is a reminder that women have the right to be treated equally by men. The point is not to change every word, but to use certain words representing inclusive language to make a point about gender politics, about treating each other, as equals and with respect.   

- But 'lenguaje inclusivo' isn't going to change anything. It just annoys people.

I thought disconcerting some people was very probably the point.

- Do you think there's a problem with machismo particularly in say southern and eastern Europe, say and in Latin America? 

- Yes.

-What do you think is the cause of that?

- Well, it may seem strange to say, but it's the mothers.

- What?

- Yes, it's the mothers. In our culture, raising children is seen as women's work.  Men don't get involved.  

- Mothers want their boys to grow up macho? To not treat women well, to possibly hit them.

- Yes. Not to hit women necessarily, but they don't tell them not to. My mother was very strict on that point, that I must never lay a hand on a woman, but that's unusual.

- Why would women want their boys to grow up and not treat women well?

- I don't know.

He raised his shoulders and lifted his hands to express the fathomless female. 

- And what about fathers, don't they have any role or responsibility for these macho cultures? They are after all, the ones treating women badly.

- Yes, to a point.  The father starts taking an interest when the child is bigger, or an adolescent. He starts wanting to teach them to be men. So when the dad starts featuring in the child's life, it's around the age when the child is looking for a male role model and in walks a macho one. And so it is perpetuated.

And yet, this sounded startlingly familiar.  My own boys' father, who has spent more decades in this country than in his own in southern Europe, more or less disappeared for twelve years after they were born. I had a well paid career but I didn't want to hand the children over to a nursery and later, I wasn't impressed with the schools and I loved being with my children so he travelled and I raised the kids.  He always had a "grow up quickly, let's make men of you" attitude, wanted to pack them off to military school early (which hasn't happened). 

Still, I left the conversation with the Venezuelan, reeling.