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.
History of Catholic Mariology
The baroque literature on Mary experienced unforeseen growth with over 500 pages of Mariological writings during the 17th century alone. The Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) was the first theologian, who used the thomist method on Mariology and is considered the father of systematic Mariology. Other well known contributors to baroque Mariology are Lawrence of Brindisi, Robert Bellarmine, Francis of Sales. After 1650, the Immaculate Conception is the subject of over 300 publications from Jesuit authors alone.