Hyun-Joo's ESR098: April 2011

(Reading Journal #5. Check the Blackboard for the electronic file)

Taming Macho Ways
By Elvia Alvarado
When I started working with the mothers' clubs in the Catholic Church, it was the first time I realized that we women work even harder than the men do.
We get up before they do to grind the corn and make tortillas and coffee for their breakfast. Then we work all day - taking care of the kids, washing the clothes, ironing, mending our husband's old rags, cleaning the house. We hike to the mountains looking for wood to cook with. We walk to the stream or the well to get water. We make lunch and bring it to the men in the field. And we often grab a hoe and help in the fields. We never sit still one minute.
It's true that there are some jobs that require a lot of strength and that women can't do as well as men. For example, when we have to clear a piece of forest, it's the men who go out with the axes and cut down the trees. Other work we consider "men's work" is chopping firewood and plowing the land with a team of oxen. These are things that men do better than women, because they're stronger. I don't know if it's a physical difference from birth, but the fact is that here in Honduras women are usually either pregnant or nursing, and that takes a lot of energy out of you.
Men may be out working during the day, but when they come home they usually don't do a thing. They want their meal to be ready, and after they eat they either lie down to rest or go out drinking. But we women keep on working - cooking the corn and beans for the next day's meal, watching the children.
Even when we go to sleep, we don't get to rest. If the babies wake up crying, we have to go take care of them - give them the breast if they're still breast-feeding, give them medicine if they're sick. And then if our husbands want to make love, if they get the urge, then it's back to work again.
The next morning, we're up before the sun, while our husbands are still sleeping.
In some families, like the workers in the city, I've seen men help women in the house. But I've never seen it in a campesino home. Even if the man has no work and sits at home, he won't help out.
I have a friend in the city who works in a factory. If he comes home from work and the meal isn't ready - maybe his wife is busy watching the children or washing clothes - he just grabs the pots and pans and gets to work. I've seen it with my own eyes. He actually cooks the meal for the whole family. You'd never see that in a campesino house!
I don't think it's fair that the women do all the work. Maybe it's because I've been around more and I've seen other relationships. But I think that if two people get together to form a home, it should be because they love and respect each other. And that means that they should share everything.
The problem some campesina women have is even worse. Not only do their husbands refuse to help, but they don't even support the family. They don't give her money to put food on her children's plates.
Another problem women have is that their husbands often beat them. Say a campesino comes home late after drinking or sleeping with a woman he has on the side. If his wife yells at him, hi hits her. Sometimes he leaves her all black and blue or with a bloody nose, a black eye, or a busted lip.
The neighbors can hear everything. But since it’s a fight between the two of them, no one interferes. Unless the woman starts to yell, “Help! So-and-so’s trying to kill me.” Then the neighbors come over and tell him to stop hitting the poor woman.
“No,” the campesino says. “This no-good woman is yelling about things she has no right to stick her nose into. I’m the man in this family, and nobody tells me what to do.”
He usually stops hitting her when the neighbors get involved. But if no one comes to help her, she wakes up the next morning all black and blue.
The woman never says what really happened. She’s too embarrassed. So she says she fell down or had an accident. She doesn’t even tell her friends or her own mother what happened. Because if she tells her mother, her mother says, “You knew what he was like when you went to live with him. So shy did you go with him in the first place?” Or if the mother tells her to come home and live with her and she does, a few days later they get back together again and the mother’s the one that looks bad.
If the woman can’t take it any more, she leaves him. But even after the woman leaves, the man usually follows her and keeps harassing her.
We know it’s against the law to beat someone like that, but the police don’t get involved in fights between couples. They say it’s none of their business. They say its’ something for the man and wife to figure out by themselves.
Machismo is a historical problem. It goes back to the time of our great-grand-fathers, or our great-great-grandfathers. In my mind it’s connected to the problem of drinking. Drinking is man’s worst disease. When men drink, they fight with everyone. They hit their wives and children. They offend their neighbors. They lose all sense of dignity.

How are we going to stop campesinos from drinking? First of all, we know the government isn’t interested in stopping it, because it’s an important source of income. Every time you buy a bottle of liquor, part of that money goes to the government.
That’s why the government doesn’t let the campesinos make their own liquor, because the government doesn’t make any money off homemade brew. So a campesino can go into town any time, day or night, spend all his money, and drink himself sick. But if he gets caught making choruco – that’s what we call homemade spirits made from corn and sugar – they throw him in jail. The government wants the campesinos to drink, but only the liquor that they make money off of.
If we’re ever going to get campesinos to stop drinking, we first have to look at why so many campesinos drink. And for that we have to look at what kind of society we have. We’ve built up a society that treats people like trash, a society that doesn’t give people jobs, a society that doesn’t give people a reason to stay sober. I think that’ where this vice comes from.
I’ve seen what happens when campesinos organize and have a plot of land to farm. They don’t have time for drinking any more, except on special occasions. They spend the day in the hot sun – plowing, planting, weeding, irrigating, cutting firewood for the hose, carrying the produce to market. Most of them are very dedicated to their work and their families.
So I’ve noticed that once the campesinos have a purpose, once they have a way to make a living and take care of their families, they drink less. And they usually stop beating their wives, too. And I’ve seen that once the women get organized, they start to get their husbands in line.
I know that changing the way men and women treat each other is a long process. But if we really want to build a new society, we have to change the bad habits of the past. We can’t build a new society if we are drunks, womanizers, or corrupt. No, those things have to change.
But people can change. I know there are many things I used to do that I don’t do any more, now that I’m more educated. For example, I used to gossip and criticize other women. I sued to fight over men. But I learned that gossip only does fighting over men. So I stopped doing these things.
Before, whenever I’d see the slightest thing I’d go running to my friends. “Ay, did you see so-and-so with what’s-his-face?” I’d go all over town telling everyone what I saw. Now I wouldn’t say anything. That’s her business.
If someone is in hanger, then, yes, we have to get involved. For example, I heard a rumor that a landowner was out to kill one of the campesino leaders I work with. I made sure to warn the campesino so he’d be careful. That kind of rumor we tell each other- but not the idle gossip.
I also used to flirt with married men, just for the fun of it and to make their wives jealous. Now I’m much more responsible, much more serious. That doesn’t mean I don’t joke around and have a good time. I just make it clear that we’re friends.
We all have to make changes. Campesino men have to be more responsible with their women. They have to have only one woman. Because they have a hard enough time supporting one family, let alone two. Campesinos who drink have to stop drinking. And campesinos who fight with their wives have to stop fighting. Our struggle has to begin in our own homes.

Reading Journal #5

1. Summary
2. The part that you liked/agreed and why
3. The part you didn’t like/disagreed and why
4. Vocabulary
5. Two discussion questions that came to your mind when you were reading this article
6. Reflection: Pick one question from 5 and write an essay.

Hyun-Joo's ESR098

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Reading Journal #5

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