¡DEJA TU MACHISMO FUERA DE LA FEMINISMA!: exploring Mexican feminist advertising 

When I was a kid, there was no feminism. I’m sure it existed as a concept– absolutely the icons of activists Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis, their mission and vision, predate my youth– but in my household, a Chicano household, their images and ideals were not praised, let alone known. There is a chunk of the world gripped by hypermasculinity and patriarchy. I think we, in the urban bubbles of the United States and Europe, forget this. Our feminism and their feminism look entirely different. 

I was raised within a context, stuck in a time, where women and men have roles, surrounded by lines that ought not to be crossed. Most times these roles were so engrained, so implied, there was no point in saying them, they were known because they stood. Bred into us. Las tias cooked in the kitchen, and los tios drank Budweiser and watched television. It was that kind of thing. And while I’ve grown up and gone away to college, moving into the modern era to adopt feminism as a value– and maybe to some extent a trend– much of my family still exists in that space, in that mindset. 

Most Latinos know el machismo, where men are men only because women must act as women so men can feel manly enough. Mexicans will know el feminicidio, and its presence in the Mexican news cycle. Feminism fighting femicide in a machista society is a different type of feminism than one fighting equal artist streaming on Spotify. 

As author Banet-Weiser says, “We are living in a moment in North America and Europe in which feminism has become, somewhat incredibly, popular.” But for Mexicans, in a society largely still grappling with machismo, what does feminist advertising look like? 

I think most of us are desensitized to popular feminism, if not eye-rolling at it. We see it in billboards about beauty and representation, like Dove’s “Project #ShowUs”  campaign. Absolutely representation is needed and valuable, but why do companies have to be our main mediators for feeling seen? More than that, who do companies decide gets to look? As I looked at Mexican feminist ad campaigns, it became clear that who depends on the how. 

Looking at advertisements from Mexican beer, Tecate, and the CDMX Secretary of Women, it became very evident that the male gaze still had a hold on women’s rights campaigns. With systemic misogyny present in Mexican machismo, themes of preventing violence and sexual abuse became loudly reoccurring across the adverts. 

In Tecate’s campaign, the advert begins with hypermasculine depictions of “being a man” before switching to a scene of domestic abuse. The abused woman is shown on screen. The beer company remarks, “We are not for you,” if you hit women. The commercial ends with the statistic that “2 out of 3 women suffer from violence in Mexico.” 

The Mexico City (CDMX) Secretary of Women’s campaign to address sexual abuse on its public transport, #NoEsDeHombres, also recenters feminist talking points towards the male audience. In this advert, the bums of train-waiting men are broadcasted across platform CCTV screens. Their reactions of embarrassment are also shown. The broader message of the advert is to capture that this is the type of humiliation and objectification women go through daily on public transportation. 

The contrast between American popular feminism to Mexican feminist ad campaigns is stark. As Banet-Weisner writes, “Political intentions are marshaled by institutions and structures.” This helps to make sense of how social contexts give weight to different forms of visibility, and therefore, feminism. 

I’m not a fan of hashtagged feminism. I find the female beauty campaigns run by multimillion-dollar marketing teams headed by men to be counterproductive and performative. But analyzing these Mexican feminist campaigns makes me realize, that while there is power in being seen, it is the one who gets to look that has the control. I hope to see more feminist campaigns geared toward female audiences coming from Mexico. I’m sure there is a lot more work and re-education that needs to be done on that front. Maybe the greatest change will come from companies when Mexican markets start to recognize women as valuable audiences. 

To the United States, get your capitalism out of feminism!

To Mexico, get your machismo out of feminism!