Machismo and Mia Hamm

So, I’m sure you’re wondering, what is machismo? Why do I care? and what in the world does it have to do with Mia Hamm? These are all valid questions, and I’ll start with the first. My first month in El Salvador has been characterized by the juxtaposition of beauty and suffering, seen in the deep and loving hearts of Salvadorans but also very real problems– from alcoholism and gang issues to lack of opportunity and machismo. Machismo is an element of culture that exists in much of Latin America, but it makes a prominent appearance in the daily life of Salvador. An amazing Salvadoran woman at my praxis site described machismo as the maltreatment of women by a man who believes he is superior in some way. This is possibly an oversimplification on my part of a deeply rooted cultural issue, but it lays out the basic concept. The embodiment of these feelings ranges from a man beating his wife, or not allowing her to leave the house (in the case that he is able to economically provide for the whole family), to the comments made in the streets by men as a woman passes by. It all appears to stem from this sort of need to subjugate women.

I spent the past weekend living with a family at my Praxis site, La Valencia, where I spend two days a week as a part of the Casa program. The community is about a quarter of the way up the San Salvador Volcano and a forty minute walk from San Ramon located at the skirt of the volcano. I was met in San Ramon on Friday afternoon by the woman I mentioned previously, her oldest son who is seventeen, and two little cousins. As we were walking through San Ramon on our way to Valencia, we walked through the market. This is usually a very uncomfortable experience for me, even when accompanied by Salvadorans and my praxis partner Greg. Everyone seems to be very curious, and many men seem to assume that it’s a good time to practice their English as the gringa walks by. The language the men use is something I’ll never get used to, but I also think it’s good to know how it feels to be objectified. It happens daily to Salvadoran women here, made into sexual objects, taken for granted as providers, and under appreciated as nurturers. In any case, I happened to look up one of the streets as we were passing by (probably hoping that there wasn’t a car coming), and noticed something very striking. While it is not uncommon to see Barcelona soccer jerseys, I saw this young boy of perhaps twelve walking up the street in none other than a Mia Hamm jersey. The irony was overwhelming. In a place that struggles so much with machismo, there was this young boy wearing the jersey of an inspirational female athlete– the heroine of many young girls, including my childhood self. Who am I kidding, she was the reason I wanted to go to UNC Chapel Hill for a couple of years. I seriously doubt that he knew of Hamm (it was probably just a fútbol jersey to him), but she represents the opposite of what machismo says a woman should be. She has been a professionally successful woman, and even more unheard of, a successful woman athlete.

While many men may see a young woman coming to the cancha to play fútbol as a search for a boyfriend, there are also signs of hope. The woman with whom I stayed has three teenage sons. If only all Salvadoran men were like these young men. They help their mother and respect her, and when they aren’t studying they are helping their father in his work. They even told me the other day not to take to heart the things men here say to me, and to not let it affect the way I view myself, not to let it affect my autoestima. We played volleyball and soccer much of the weekend, and they never treated me any differently because I am a woman. I was simply a player to them, and they respected me as a good player at that. Placement based on capacity not gender, I would have to say, is progress. Young men like these give me hope that even in a country plagued by machismo, maybe there is some truth in the idea that the Mia Hamm jersey belongs here. That it is not completely ironic.