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Machismo

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(pronounced mah-cheez-moh or muh-keez-moh)  noun

Definition

1. a strong or overly assertive sense of masculine pride; an exaggerated or aggressive masculinity, often manifested by a show of virility, courage, and domination of women.   2. an exaggerated or elated sense of power, strength, toughness, or endurance.

Main Example

• Now that Vladimir Putin has announced he wants to be president of Russia once again, be prepared for many more years of TV images showing Putin as a he-man--riding a horse bare-chested, doing judo, wrestling with a tiger, harpooning a whale, and so on. The fact that Russians enjoy brandishing the machismo element in their leader suggests an almost primitive zeitgeist, one that is diametrically opposite to corporate titan Lee Iacocca's admonition way back in the 1980s that the "age of brawn" had been supplanted by the "age of brain."

Workplace Examples

• Pat, do you realize that our two vehicles present a sort of dichotomy? While your brand new Volvo has won admiration from car magazines for its "voluptuous curves," my 2012 Volkswagen Beetle is being touted for its maleness! Just the other day, I heard VW's CEO telling Diane Eastabrook of "Nightly Business Report" something to the effect that he expects men in particular to be attracted by the new Beetle's machismo-oozing front.
• To continue that conversation about China, I often wonder what's behind their massive military buildup of the last two or three decades, especially their sensational new weapons such as satellite-killer missiles. Do they really perceive a military threat from, say, the U.S., Russia, and India? Or is all this being pursued out of some national machismo?

Other Examples

• during one of his seminar modules on the vital role women can play in decision making, this author telling the audience: "In an edition of 'ABC This Week,' the famous Christine Lagarde, who knows a thing or two about leadership, told Christiane Amanpour, and very rightly so, that an organization has a much higher probability of success if women are involved in top-level decision making because, on their own, men tend to be unnecessarily combative and aggressive, not to mention egotistical, while making decisions. She was of course referring to the perils of unrestrained machismo in the meeting room."
• an employee saying: "My 28-year old sister, who is a self-described health-and-fitness-nut and has run several marathons, has a fetish for eating raw eggs, much against the advice of many medical professionals. I am no psychiatrist but I'm sure she's doing it out of some sort of health-extremist machismo."
• female fighter pilots--an occupation that became possible only in 1993 when the U.S. secretary of defense permitted women to enter fighter pilot training--challenging one of the machismo traditions of the U.S. Air Force
• some men and women driven to certain highly risky occupations or avocations, such as day trading, semi-truck driving, sky diving, or rock climbing, partly because of the perceived machismo that is associated with those activities
• some other non-phallic symbols of machismo: the late John Wayne; a bushy mustache; James Bond; the Super Bowl; a really stiff drink; the character of Don Juan (also known as Don Giovanni) who, according to Wikepedia, "takes great pleasure in seducing women and fighting their men"
• the late movie actor Burt Lancaster once telling an interviewer that because several of the characters he had portrayed seemed to exude machismo, "many people have the impression that I shave with a blowtorch or something"

© 2012 V.J. Singal
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