I would like to begin this blogpost with a correction or two for certain assumptions I have been making about the early history of Mexico and Latin America. I have put forth a blanket assumption that Cortes and his goons were all likely illiterate. Not true. Cortes was well-educated and frequently was employed as a kind of free-lance secretary. I cannot speak for members of his crew. I would still assume that even if they were functionally literate they weren't likely great readers.
I have also assumed that none of the sexual contact between Spanish men and indigenous women was consensual. Perhaps some of it was, within the social norms of Spanish and indigenous societies of the day. But if there was consent on the part of the women it was very limited within the questionable norms of the times. Perhaps some, maybe even many, of the women were quite willing to be traded off in marriage, and perhaps even were willing, even enthusiastic sexual partners to their husbands. But this all happened within the context of conquest. They were the new overlords. How could they possibly be refused? How could consent possibly exist without social equality?
So, whether wives were given in marriage or whether they were violently raped, they still had little choice in the matter. It was still, without doubt, collective rape and with such an inauspicious beginning to the Mexican people how could anything really healthy result?
Of course, the sexism and patriarchy continue in Mexico, no matter what advances in feminism have been made in other parts of the world, or even in Mexico City, always the progressive outlier in that country where gay marriage was legalized just four years after it was legally recognized here in dear, progressive Canada.
Here is the reply I wrote on a conversation forum, Quora, to a comment from a Mexican reader. He was remarking on how Mexicans perceive other Spanish speaking countries. I got a little annoyed that he remarked on how beautiful the women are in Colombia in Venezuela, really betraying the kind of heterosexist, homophobic and chauvinistic sexism that is still so strongly featured in Latin American males:
"When I read comments about “beautiful women” I can’t help but read sexism into the comment. It’s sad that so few straight men feel safe about commenting on beauty without having to specify gender. It’s perfectly okay to say great-looking, or beautiful men as well as women (I find Colombians in general, regardless of gender, to be incredibly good-looking people), and no one is going to think you’re gay, and even if you were gay (and you probably aren’t) what difference would it make, because really it doesn’t matter."
This is of course from the sad legacy of the totally toxic approach to sex that the Catholic Spanish brought to the New World and it festers still, especially in the minds of Mexican and other Latino males. It is also a lingering holdout of the subjugation and exploitation of women. I might add here that Mexican women have much bigger balls than the men do and that any Mexican woman could easily kick a Mexican man's ass all the way to Argentina. The men are incurable momma's boys and the women undoubtedly had to become strong while coping with all the machismo and other idiocy that the men cop in order to remind themselves that they have a penis.
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