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.
Catholic Mariology
The title "Mother of the Church" (in Latin "Mater Ecclesiae") was officially given to the Virgin Mary during the Second Vatican Council by Pope Paul VI. This title goes back to St. Ambrose of Milan in the 4th century, but this use was not known until its 1944 rediscovery by Hugo Rahner. Rahner's Mariology, following Ambrose, saw Mary in her role within the Church, his interpretation being based solely on Ambrose and the early Fathers.