UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

09/02/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/03/2024 04:30

Machismo hit men and they started changes for creators, economy and safeguarding of embroidery in Yucatan, Mexico

"Men and women have the same rights to go out and pursue a dignified life," says Cándida Jiménez or Candi, artisan embroider from the municipality of Maní and member of the collective U Najil Chuy (House of Embroidery), one of the problems shared by women embroiderers in Yucatan, Mexico, the main creators and guardians of a living heritage that also provides sustenance to many families, mainly in rural settlements.

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

Women embroiderers usually also do unpaid care and domestic work in their homes, which in Mexico is estimated to be more than 12 hours a week, contrasting men. However, some had to negotiate with their mates or male relatives to leave the house to sell or exhibit their creations. This established the basis of the UNESCO project for Economic and social development with a gender perspective through textile art in Yucatan, where there are an estimated 100,000 women embroiderers according to the Yucatecan Institute of Entrepreneurs.

Like many women throughout history, Candi has built her strategies: she offered to take and sell her fellows' garments and creations, negotiate with their husbands or gather more women to facilitate "approvals." A problem that, she says, should be discussed:

If necessary, shout until they hear us.

Besides gender-based inequalities and prejudices, they are facing problems such as the cheapened and intermediary sales of their creations, competitive disadvantages due to the digitalization of commerce and the massive industrial production increase of clothes, which are also sold in a dishonest manner as artisanal.

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

For these reasons, the UNESCO project not only considered intangible cultural heritage and finance and business models action fields but also an axis on masculinities to encourage reflections in men who interact with female creators, including in production chains, public spaces and public administration, through significant learning workshops.

Over one hundred men from 12 municipalities and students from the Universidad de Oriente in Valladolid participated in the workshops. The workshops allowed the gathering of gender-based prejudice data to create a guide to promote responsible and free-violent masculinities, a new tool currently piloted in Yucatán.

Candi shared her pleasant surprise. She says that she invited the husband of one of her colleagues to the workshops. Distrustfully, she warned him that she would be waiting for him at the door. When he arrived with more men she went into shock. She did not expect it. Much less that the man even asked for more sessions to organize his schedules because he had already told many others.

UNESCO/Luis Felipe Romero Hicks Murakami

Some of the prejudices addressed during the workshops were the assignment of jobs, tasks and practices as merely to men or merely to women, the undervaluation of women's actions that benefit the cultural heritage and the economy of both the family and their communities, the underestimated contribution of unpaid care and domestic work that women do, which the men participants calculated by themselves from 15,000 to 50,000 pesos per month, among others, such as everyday sexism (machismos cotidianos).

Julio César Cámara, a Police Officer in Muna, talked about his work and what he learned in the workshop, and synthesized his experience with the phrase:

Don't cross the line against women

It hit you

Juan Manuel Canto, a specialist consultant on masculinities for UNESCO in Mexico, explains that men are and continue to die younger, among themselves and by themselves, including due to neglect of physical and emotional health, due to years of dysfunctional learning to deal with emotions, especially those that involve recognizing themselves as vulnerable. In contrast, femicide violence is systematically exercised by men against women.

The life expectancy of men in Mexicois six years less than that of women, except for transgender women, which is 35 to 37 years. Men also record more violent deaths: 44.4 homicide deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 5.8 for women in 2022. In addition, they record eight out of 10 suicides, despite not reporting their previous situation: only 9.1% of men reported feeling depressed more than half or almost all days of the week in the 2021 National Self-Reported Well-Being Survey, while more women admitted to feeling depressed (16.3%).

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

For Rodrigo Morales, a workshop participant and teacher from the municipality of Muna, it is an urgent reflection that should be taken to the greatest possible number of men, especially young men and adolescents, and encourage behavioural changes. He says that after the workshop he identified that the idea that a man should not express or talk about feelings has been set hroughout history.

If we do not feel that machismo is bad, we will do it again in our lives, with our children and this cycle will not be broken

The first challenge for men is to recognize the negative ways taught and reproduced related to what we think should be a man, such as practising or allowing unequal power relations and exercising violence, which is primarily against women but also against men. The second is to recognize that there are different forms of masculinities so take responsibility and actions for equality, caring, and peace, adds Luis Felipe Romero Hicks Murakami, Specialist for the Social and Human Sciences Sector at UNESCO Mexico.

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

Being ownself

Gender-based stereotypes also impact commercial dynamics and safeguarding of living heritage, like embroidery in Yucatán, which has 38 different types of stitches of nearly 300 registered worldwide, such as the xmaniktéor xmanikbe'en, which is endemic and can be only found there.

Julio Cab Cahuich, an embroiderer with more than 15 years of experience and Director of Culture for the Municipality of Teabo, shares that he sought employment at age 17 to support his family -his mother and four younger siblings- when his father fell ill from a rattlesnake bite and was bedridden in a hammock.

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

The young Julio was not hired as a bricklayer, cattle keeper, or for work in the field due to his age and because people believed that he did not have enough physical force, even if labour can be learned and strengthened with practice. So his mother taught him the xokbil chuuy(counted thread or cross-stitch) and the double stitch, and he began embroidering clandestinely, behind closed doors, because it was considered a practice just for women.

People who came to buy knew there was a young man embroidered, but they never met the young man.

In contrast, Candi says her brothers sometimes iron the embroidery and garments in the atelier. Once, when she said she would close the door, one of them said: "Open the door! So the girl who sees me could say: I'm going to marry him." Candi replied: "If you want, doors will be wide open."

However, the story contains a hidden side and reaffirms one type of masculinity as the norm. Julio comments that it was common for male embroiderers to be targeted as homosexuals because they performed work considered exclusively for women, continuing stigmas and discrimination against sexual diversity.

What is more, the artisan shared that tagging a man as homosexual is used as commercial warfare to undermine a competitor and reduce his sales or promotion opportunities. These biases must be acknowledged to achieve true inclusion, foster a fair economic competition environment, and counteract economic damages even for an entire community.

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

On the other hand, Francisco Canche Pat comments that embroidery is done by both men and women in Kimbilá, in Izamal. He says he learned from an aunt, but another uncle and his father also embroider. He believes that gender-based barriers and prejudices are due to outdated mindsets that need to be transformed because he says:

Work has no gender

UNESCO/Juan Luis M. Acevez

Maya-Yucatecan embroidery has been practised since pre-Hispanic times and was recently declared Intangible Cultural Heritage at the state level by the Yucatán Congress on May 18, 2024. Candi notes that the embroiderers feel safer and more protected because they have found support through the actions of UNESCO in Mexico, which were possible with the Banorte Foundation's funding. However, it is necessary to continue mechanisms that guarantee its safeguarding and promotion, which also requires a comprehensive gender perspective.

We are losing our fear

Candi

The UNESCO project linked guidelines and international implementation of their programs such as the Priority on Gender Equality, the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Culture Sector, and MenTalities of the Social and Human Sciences Sector.