Marianismo
""Marianismo"" originally referred to the devotion to Mary (). The term was first used by political scientist Evelyn Stevens in her 1973 essay ""Marianismo": The Other Face of "Machismo"". It was in direct response to the male word "machismo" and was meant to explain the phenomenon in Latin America in which women were either "saints or whores". It is the supposed ideal of true femininity that women are supposed to live up to—i.e. being modest, virtuous, and sexually abstinent until marriage—and then being faithful and subordinate to their husbands. In essence, marianismo is the female counterpart to machismo, and as such, probably originated during the time of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Machismo
There is controversy surrounding the concept of machismo as originally from Spanish and Portuguese descent. The use of Spanish and Portuguese produces historical colonial connotations through its promotion of Spanish and Portuguese masculine social construction, when the term should be used to describe specific Latin American historical masculinities. However, the word "machismo" does resemble words in Spanish and Portuguese language which is the cause why it is often associated with Spain and Portugal. In addition, by identifying machismo as a form of Europeanness, it offers legitimacy to the concept of a wicked formed of the same Western hypermasculinity known to Protestant Reforme-derived cultures and subjugates Latin America's understanding of itself and its cultural history and peculiarities.