Though times are starting to change, machismo still reins in Mexico as firmly as the tortilla staple diet and devotion to la Virgen de Guadalupe.
Threaded into the national identity of modern Mexico is a strong tradition of sexism, homophobia, and adherence to strict gender roles.
This is the country after all that embraces its bravado breakfast of "huevos rancheros" and its male-dominated cowboy traditions.
Whether and how this predominantly Catholic country of 109 million people moves past such institutional and cultural biases promises important lessons for the rest of Latin America and, indeed, the world.
Slowly, progress is being made. Speaking at the International AIDS Conference's opening plenary, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa mentioned the word homofobia for the first time. The national government sponsored a groundbreaking campaign to mitigate homophobia in targeted neighborhoods of Mexico City. And a longstanding legal prohibition against a woman's right to choose was recently, and narrowly, repealed in Mexico City, though anti-choice laws prevail in most regions of the country.
Mexican women's groups, including Salud Integral para la Mujer (SIPAM) whose members bared it all for women's reproductive rights, fear recent progress in Mexico could be reversed. They also want to see more focus on women's rights as a central component of anti-AIDS efforts.
Mexico Exports More Than Salsa
Inspired by Mexico's strict Catholic interpretations against contraception and family planning, U.S. officials announced in 1984 adoption of the infamous "Mexico City Policy." At a United Nations population conference - an event not unlike this week's international AIDS Summit - officials in the Reagan administration put in place a new, draconian policy to prohibit U.S. funding for any nongovernmental organization providing or promoting abortions, even with non-U.S. funds.
The policy had a devastating impact on global health. Around the world, the availability of reproductive health services declined, hundreds of thousands of women died from pregnancy complications, including unsafe abortions, and thousands more were denied valuable health information. The policy remained in force between 1984 and 1993, when newly elected President Bill Clinton reversed it. Republican congressional leaders, threatening to withhold $1 billion for the UN, forced Clinton to reinstate the ban temporarily in 1999. Immediately upon assuming power, President George W. Bush reinstated the ban - also called the global gag rule - in 2001.
On Wednesday, August 6, advocates attending the International AIDS Conference marched to the session on U.S. health policy and then to the media center to protest this longstanding and irrational threat to global health. Even the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on U.S. global AIDS efforts determined that more emphasize ought to be made on reproductive health services to help vulnerable women, including HIV-positive women, gain access to condoms, contraception, and other family planning services they may need as a viable HIV prevention strategy.
The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), SIECUS, and other U.S. organizations lamented the absence of family planning provisions in the recently enacted legislation to reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Others hope the next administration will guide implementation of the program on the IOM report and other science demonstrating the value of reproductive health in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
While PEPFAR programs have thus far been exempt from the global gag rule, its very existence hurts efforts to respond rationally to women's health around the world. In fact, among its most egregious shortcomings, PEPFAR may not provide family planning services, even for HIV-positive women.
Where U.S. Candidates Stand
In 2007, Illinois Senator Barack Obama cosponsored an amendment to repeal the Mexico City Policy. By contrast, Senator John McCain of Arizona voted against the repeal.
Subtle Machismo/Not So Subtle Homophobia
Mexican women report that times have changed and a previous cultural concept of women staying in the home have started to erode, particularly in large urban areas. More women are studying or in the workforce today, advocates say, and yet women continue to experience threats to their safety. Explotation of women in commercial sex and entertainment industries remains commonplace. Even among women not involved in sex work, the cultural tethers to their boyfriend/husband/brother/father who monitor their every moment via cell phone is considered a modern-day interpretation of machismo, manifest in subtle and overt control. And, while more opportunities open to women, they have not shed their traditional roles of raising children, preparing meal, and maintaining the home.
Machismo is not only outdatesd but helping to fuel the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Survey data reported by Flasco Mexico and the Colegio de Mexico this week showed that "the social norms of masculinity drive men to have more sexual partners than women." Heterosexual men surveyed were more likely than women to have multiple partners and one long-term stable partner. Increased risk-taking behaviors among the cohort were associated with younger age and work-related travel. Among MSM, steady partnerships were short-lived and the pursuit of sexual conquests was more intense and sustained over a lifetime. Women, particularly rural women and women with children, had lower rates of condom usage, which was predominately associated with family planning.
Gay Mexicans at the conference said the openness of the Zona Rosa is in no way representative of Mexico City where anti-gay violence, discrimination, and stigma prevail. In rural parts of the country, anti-gay prejudice is deeply rooted and often perpetuated by police and other civic servants entrusted to protect the public health and welfare.
Ending machismo, sexism, and homophobia is no easy task, and few replicable models even exist to do this work. Let us hope that the encouraging words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and President Calderón spark action in places around the world to begin to pave the way.
