In recent years, questioning gender roles has become part of a global movement to fight inequality. Building positive masculinities, that is, those that do not replicate stereotypes about what it means to be a man in various cultures, is key.

This is especially important in Mexico and Latin America. In this region, a sexist culture −referred to as machismo− which involves a series of beliefs, behaviors, norms, and practices that discriminate against and oppress women or what is considered feminine, has predominated for a long time.

Living an hegemonic masculinity causes –among other things– men to suppress all emotions beyond anger, to neglect their health, to distance themselves from caring for their children, to not get involved in domestic chores and be violent.

Thus, machismo not only affects women, but also men by not allowing them to live a full human experience in an open and peaceful way.

“In machismo there is a tendency to be violent towards other people and very often towards oneself,” says José Carlos Vázquez, professor at the School of Humanities and Education (EHE) and researcher at the Institute for the Future of Education (IFE), in an interview with TecScience.

Fortunately, for years now there has been an attempt to redefine traditional masculinity and find new ways of exercising it.

However, defining exactly what positive masculinity is and studying it in an academic context is not as simple as it sounds, since gender roles involve many aspects of humanity.

“The term has evolved to what it is today, which generally refers to male behaviors that question patriarchal and hegemonic gender norms,” explains Vázquez.

How to Measure the Presence of Sexist Attitudes

For some years now, José Carlos Vázquez has been part of a group of researchers at Tec de Monterrey who seek to understand how masculinity is manifested in Mexico and to find a way to give it a new meaning.

This line of research was conceived by Florina Arredondo, researcher at the Department of Philosophy and Ethics, and Luz María Velázquez, professor at the Department of Humanistic Studies at Tec de Monterrey, both experts in gender studies.

“Unfortunately, both of them passed away, so the articles we have published are a recognition of them and an effort to continue their legacy,” says Vázquez.

In the first study, they developed the Scale of Machista Attitudes and Perception of Positive Masculinity Attitudes, a tool that allows for the identification of the prevalence of macho behaviors, as well as the presence of attitudes associated with positive masculinities in different groups of people.

To do this, they listed thirty statements, some of them related to sexist behaviors and others to positive masculinities, which can be answered on a Likert scale (from completely agree to completely disagree).

An example of a statement associated with sexism is, “if a man adopts changes promoted by a feminist woman, I consider him weak”; one associated with positive masculinities is, “I recognize that men suffer from sexist attitudes generated by other men.”

The scale was applied through surveys on Google Forms to five gender experts and 128 students, half men and half women, aged 17 to 23, from science and technology-related courses at a Mexican university.

Complex Thinking and Positive Masculinities

Once the scale was validated, they applied it to different contexts to analyze how masculinity is expressed in the country. For example, they applied it to male and female students at a public university in Sinaloa, a northern state in Mexico.

They found that: “the more sexist attitudes a person has, the less open they will be to a vision of new masculinities and vice versa,” explains Vázquez. Although this association may sound obvious, their study demonstrates it with evidence.

To their surprise, another of their findings was that, among these students, there is a high rate of women with sexist behaviors.

In a third study, they analyzed the relationship between complex thinking and the presence of sexist behaviors. Complex thinking is a set of cognitive skills that allow us to solve problems or real-life situations by connecting different aspects of reality.

“In it, scientific thinking, argumentation, innovation and creativity are used to question what we have been taught and see things in a different way,” explains the researcher.

In the study, they used both their scale to measure machismo attitudes and a tool to measure complex thinking in students. They found that both men and women who showed a low level of complex thinking were those who had a higher rate of sexist attitudes.

This idea was confirmed in another study where they measured the relationship between complex thinking and positive masculinities, finding that those who showed more complex thinking were more open to positive masculinities.

“Complex thinking is a valuable skill not only for our professional development, but also to help us build our identity,” says Vázquez.

Towards a Future of Equality

For now, their studies indicate that the country still has a long way to go to achieve positive masculinities for the population.

To broaden the scope and fully understand the phenomenon, Vázquez invites other interested research groups to collaborate with the team to continue studying the prevalence of machismo in different states of the country.

A key aspect to advance towards equality is to promote critical thinking in schools, in order to move together towards a more prosperous future.

“In Mexico, these gender norms are very rooted in society, which in turn impact the vision of what it means to be a man and a woman,” he says.

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