El Macho Mas Macho

Machismo is a topic we American women living in El Salvador NEVER get tired of. We're fascinated by it, by how its perpetuated, how we might combat it and how it effects every aspect of family, professional and social life. Machismo and the notion of all that is "macho" isn't a new fixation of mine, I certainly thought about it long before I came to live in the Savior.

The best hair cuts I ever received were from a woman named Sherry who trimmed and taimed my fro for the greater part of my adolescence. A special thanks goes out to her at this moment, because if it wasn't for her I think the teen years would have been much more painful than they actually were.

Sherry was an interesting character. In her chair I felt like an adult because she spoke to me like one. She listened to me, made me feel important and smart, but the greatest deed she did in our time together was taking an interest in my life. Part of her magic was that she also shared information about her life with me. Sherry was a lesbian, not a born-and-bred lesbian, but a woman who had been beaten and mistreated so much by men in her life that she simply decided to cut them off. And out. This part about Sherry intrigued me because up to that point in my life I understood that the gay rights movement intended to make it clear that being gay wasn't a decision, it was something you were born feeling. I believed it.

I met Sam the summer after I turned sixteen at HOT AUGUST NIGHTS in Reno when I pulled behind him on the strip in my Rangoon Red '65 Mustang Fastback. Hot. The mustang, I mean. Sam was from a town a few hours away from Fremont and it was probably the most rural place I had ever visited at that point in my life. Sam was a bit of a cowboy, drove a pick up with huge tires and a lift, and loved country music. When we began to date, I carried a picture of him in my wallet where he was hunched over a bale of hay dressed in head-to-toe denim. Hot.

Sitting in Sherry's chair one afternoon, feeling very adult and very sophisticated, I pulled out Sam's picture so she could take a gander. She squealed in delight at the man in denim. "Oh, he looks so MACHO. I've always had a soft spot for macho men!" Imagine my confusion at hearing my decidedly lesbian hair dresser fawn over my macho man. It got me thinking.

Is MACHO bad?

Growing up Seoane means growing up surrounded by all things macho. My adolescent years were spent in the garage with Dad and Johnny watching them build a kit-car Cobra, then refurbish my Mustang and then rebuild Johnny's Chevelle. I could (and still can) speak fairly intelligently about big block engines and the benefits of Flow Masters and Glass Packs. Dad patted me on the head one night when I could decipher the different codes engraved on the door tag of the Mustang. Bri-Bri knew her factory Ford paint codes.

Sports dominated our lives growing up, and not a single one went "untested." I played a little bit of everything, mostly soccer, and did pretty well at them all.
I remember clearly the day Dad told Johnny, "if you had your sister's aggression, you'd be unstoppable." I felt proud that Dad thought I was tougher than Johnny--at least that was my interpretation of the comment.

Knowing muscle cars and excelling at sports are decidedly male, or macho things, right? I mean, at least that's what society tells us. So what happens when a
girl is good at them? Is she, ahem, MACHO?

Damn straight she is. I am. I'm freakin' Macho...y que?

Recently, I've come to terms with my macho-ness. I've learned to recognize it, if not celebrate it. After all, isn't the term "alpha female" just pop culture jibberish for macho?

Here are a few cases in point.

My friend Sara was a cheerleader at the high school she attended in a suburb of Waco, TX. Yes, Waco has suburbs. Sara swears it. She kind of still is a cheerleader, at least in spirit, and when she wants to challenge someone to something she's sure to win cheerleading is usually the subject. Over a long weekend we were gossipping with a group of friends in the pool at a beach house. I'm not exactlty how the conversation started, but soon enough Sara challenged me to a "toe touch"-off and swore she could "kick my ass" at cheerleading. My answer?

"Oh yeah, I could bench press you!"

What?!?! Where the hell did THAT come from? The scary part is that I believed it, I believed that I could seriously bench press her. I said it louder, asked for wagers, and made sure all of our friends heard that not only was I going to out "toe touch" Sara, but I was going to bench press her too. Yeah, I'm a freakin' SEOANE and I was going to bench press her.

So the next day, after much trash talking my bluff was finally called and I threw a towel on to the sand and called Sara over to, well, bench press her. It was a disaster. I couldn't even SUSTAIN her, let alone bench press her. The entire affair was caught on film by my good buddy Eric who, with much excitement, shared my videod failure with me that same afternoon.

Last week a group of us celebrated Pedro's 27th birthday at a local watering whole called "Barbaro," which ironically enough is somewhat of a synonym for "macho" in Spanish. Things got a little rowdy as they usually go when these folks get together and I... well, I got macho. Before long I'm challenging folks to stupid tasks and telling them what to do. I was intense, over the top, really freaking macho. This behavior was amusing to my friends because well, I'm the most macho girl they know. It fascinates them.

My friend Eric, the one with that horribly mortifying video, told me once that if I was a guy, I'd probably be in jail. I was disturbed by this comment at first, assuming it was a commentary on my inability to control my impulses and outbursts. Mulling it over quite a bit, I hoped it was actually a compliment and that Eric, an alpha male and macho in his own right, recognized in me a strength that perhaps most women don't have. Or maybe he was just trying to say I was a bully.

So call me macho. I wear like a badge of honor. It means I'm tough, and honest, and can defend myself. Like Sherry my abused hair dresser, I recognize "macho" as a positive, not negative. I can be in favor of the macho and anti-machismo just as she was. It means that in a place like El Salvador where MACHISMO and men dominate every aspect of life I, with my macho alter ego well in tact, can carve out a little piece of respect and wave it like a flag.

And if nothing else works, I'll just freakin' bench press 'em.