6 Folklore as a Tool for Analyzing Gender and Creating Social Change
lavr2023
If you grew up in Mexico or Central America, or even the southwest United States, chances are you’ve heard the story of La Llorona. She stalks the night, searching for her lost children, wailing: “Ayyyyy mis hijos. Dónde están mis hijos?” You might have been warned not to go out after dark, because La Llorona is so crazy with grief and shock at her own actions, that she might mistake you for her children, and take you away forever or drown you in the river. Similar to many western fairytales, La Llorona seeks fulfillment from a heterosexual marriage and as a maternal figure. When she loses these aspects of her life, she goes mad with grief and is cursed to roam the mortal realm forever. This narrative is seen in many different stories from many different cultures: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella- all of these characters spend their lives dreaming of a happily ever after, but can only gain their happiness and security in life after being rescued by a man. Furthermore, their fulfillment always comes from being in a heterosexual marriage, with female characters who do not conform to this standard portrayed as villains. When stories are introduced at such a young age and repeated over years and years, reinforced by the media and society, the ideas that they present are (consciously or not) ingrained into our minds. The roles that people are expected to conform to based on their perceived gender are often reflected in the way society tells stories; in folklore.
Folklore is defined as the whole of oral traditions shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture (What is Folklore?). This includes tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. Folklore tends to be associated with peasant or rural groups, as well as with people from the past. However, folklore is very much alive and all-encompassing, constantly being created and recreated to reflect the change in urban groups, rural groups, and everyone in between. Folklore is an important part of culture- the process of creating and sharing stories brings people together and builds community. The stories that are created can act as a mirror, reflecting the values and ideas of the people who made them.
Machismo and its Origins
One major social construct that we can gain insight on through folklore, and one which I will mainly be focusing on in this essay, is gender. A society’s understanding of gender can be seen through their portrayals of men and women in their stories, myths, legends, and other forms of folklore. In many parts of Latin America, machismo has been a prominent aspect of the traditional understandings of gender and gender roles. Similar to its anglicized counterpart, toxic masculinity, machismo is “the set of ideals and beliefs that support the notion that men are superior to women.” (De la Morena). Like many structural inequalities currently in place in Latin America, the problem of machismo and sexism was exacerbated by European colonialism.
While stereotypical ideas of gender might have existed in pre-colonial times, European colonization cemented those ideas, ingrained them into systems of being, and in some ways exacerbated the problem. In her article about machismo, femicides, and child’s play, Ines de la Morena points out how the imposition of European legal systems on Latin American countries cemented the notion of women as inferior by listing them as dependents of men in all aspects of life, from the law to finances (De la Morena). She also mentions that psychologists suggest that the idea of a mestizo caste (a mix between European/white and indigenous blood) creates a condition where mestizos envy their Spanish father and despise their indigenous mother. Not only did the history of the conquistadors’ violence against women create trauma for them, but it helped create a world in which women (particularly dark skinned/indigenous women) are seen as inferior and despised.
By understanding the historical origin of machismo, we can understand the traditional views of gender that exist and are being challenged today- men with a dominant role in society, where they can show little weakness and must protect the vulnerable, usually by exercising control over women. Because of this, women have been forced into a subservient role in society for generations, excluded from many aspects of the public sphere, and subject to stereotypes, discrimination, and violence.
In The Sociological Imagination, Wright Mills supports this idea that understanding these historical factors can help free us from the grief and struggles we face every day. “The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals.” (Mills). Much of the strife we face in our everyday lives is due to deeply ingrained structural inequalities, so by learning about them we learn that it is not simply our own shortcomings, but rather society failing us, and we can begin to break down these harmful structures. By understanding the historical context for the social issues that we face today, we are better equipped to challenge those issues.
The Case: Gender Norms in Latin American Folklore
Gender has historically been and continues to be viewed through a very rigid lens, imposing a strict binary with limiting characteristics for each gender. According to recent studies from UNICEF and the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media, harmful gender norms and stereotypes are present in advertising in Mexico and four Caribbean countries – Jamaica, Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago (UNICEF). Although men and women appear in advertisements at similar rates in these countries, women are often depicted as caregivers and objects of sexual desire, while men are depicted as the breadwinners and leaders. When people are bombarded with these advertisements online, on billboards, and on TV, their messages become internalized and their ideas become the norm.
Similarly, folklore is an important medium through which social and political messages can be conveyed. In “Folklore and Fakelore: Some Sociological Considerations,” William Fox writes: “… the folklore component of folk cultures are associated with certain dimensions of the social structure. These dimensions are neither arbitrary nor universal, but rather are rooted in the historical experiences and are shaped by the social organization of the particular society within which folk cultures are embedded.” (Fox 247). His statement emphasizes the importance of the historical context of folklore, similar to Mills’ idea of the sociological imagination and the importance of understanding the larger context of modern issues. This quote also asserts that folklore is shaped by the social organization of a group, and therefore implies that folklore can evolve with the changing values of a society, making folklore a powerful tool for social change.
Historically, many folk tales in Latin America have portrayed men and women through the narrow lens of machismo. One such folk tale that I will focus on in this paper is that of La Llorona. These harmful stereotypes portrayed in folklore and the media manifest in very concrete, real ways. Violence against women is still a persisting issue, and so are things like the wage gap, access to education, access to healthcare, and access to economic opportunities. Clear inequalities and injustices like these are why it is so important to understand these perceptions of gender/gender roles and work to change them. In my essay, I will focus mainly on how these ideas are embedded in traditional folklore and how modern, revisionist folklore has been used to shift away from these tired narratives, thus expanding and remaking our views on gender.
Archetypes in Folklore
The view of gender through the lens of machismo can be seen in many stories in Latin American folklore. Female characters tend to be boxed into certain limiting archetypes, such as the virgin, the whore, and the mother. Like the advent of machismo as a widespread, institutionalized force, these archetypes were created largely due to Spanish Catholic influence, with these archetypes stemming directly from figures such as the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene in biblical literature (Barrows). According to Barrows, Latin American female characters are categorized into the Virgin or Mother archetypes according to their sexual activity. If they never have sex at all, they fall under the Virgin archetype, which places upon them a societal expectation of certain characteristics related to sexual purity. If women are sexually active but are married with children, they then fall under the Mother archetype. The Mother category is an extension of the Virgin category in that they are both founded on the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, whose immaculate conception makes her both a virgin and a mother. These stories serve as a lesson to women, teaching them to act in a certain way in order to achieve a happy ending. By doing so, these stories reinforce and ensure the continuation of the very ideas that created them, ingraining them deeper into the psyches of members of society.
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” demonstrates how deeply ingrained into society these ideas are. The way that Kincaid writes gives the impression of a mother speaking to her daughter, or some relationship of that nature. Lines like “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk bare-head in the hot sun…” and 
“…on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming…” feel like instructions or criticisms; a long, overwhelming list of what to do and what not to do. But as Kincaid goes on, it starts to feel more like a survival guide: a mother passing down what she knows to her daughter, hoping that she will escape without harm. Because to not conform in this society, to not follow the rules, to not exist in a way that pleases someone else, some man, is dangerous. And if you are harmed in some way, it is your fault- you made them treat you badly by not acting the way you are supposed to. Kincaid powerfully highlights the ways in which internalized sexism and ideas of gender manifest in people’s daily lives, and why it is important to change these perceptions.
Other examples of stereotypical female archetypes within Latin American folklore include the woman riddler. Harriet Goldberg breaks the woman riddler archetype into two categories: the riddler maiden and the riddler princess. Both types use their mental dexterity in a courtly setting, but the princess’ riddling abilities are often actually her father’s, making the extent to which the talent and intellect required to prevail in a riddling contest are associated with women unclear (Goldberg). Instead of their intellect being a respected trait that the women fully possess, it is just another obstacle for the man to break down and win the prize. Although this archetype is less directly related to Spanish Catholicism, it still limits the autonomy women have in their lives and their stories, and often feeds into male fantasies of heroism and sexual desire, again correlating a woman’s worth and role in life with her sexual activity.
La Llorona as a Folklore Icon
The intersection between ideas of race, religion, social and economic class, and gender often influence how women are portrayed in folklore. La Llorona is one of the most famous legends in Latin America, and I will mainly be focusing on her in order to demonstrate how gender is expressed in folklore. The story of La Llorona is traditionally told throughout Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. She is often portrayed as a darker skinned woman, sometimes indigenous, of lower socio-economic status. Although there are many variations to the story, La Llorona is generally said to have killed her children to 
prevent her aristocratic/European lover from taking away her children to live with his new wife, and later herself from the grief and horror of what she had done (Simerka 1). By portraying an indigenous woman of lower economic status as an immoral character and a bad mother, the idea that indigenous people (especially women) do not conform to the “ideal” standard of whiteness and by Catholic standards and are therefore morally inferior is ingrained in a widespread narrative. Folk stories in particular are such an effective way to plant certain ideas into people’s minds because they are so seemingly innocuous. They are also mainly told to children, who more easily subconsciously internalize this narrative without realizing. According to Ibrahim Hefzallah, author of Critical Viewing of Television: A Book For Parents and Teachers, children do “confuse fantasy with real life situations..” making the gender stereotypes portrayed in fictional folklore accepted as a normal part of reality. Further studies have shown positive relationships between increased viewing of television and more stereotyped beliefs about gender roles (Green 24, 25), so it is reasonable to assume that there is a similar relationship between reading, hearing, or watching folklore and having those beliefs. Their readiness to subconsciously accept these narratives makes it much more difficult for those children to recognize the structural biases in the world in which they live, and harder for them to unlearn the perspectives they have been taught, thus ensuring the perpetuation of these harmful stereotypes and ideas.
Revisionist Retellings
La Llorona is a prime example of how patriarchal ideas are ingrained in the folklore of Latin America. But folklore has always been a fluid means of expression- it can be molded, twisted, created, and recreated to reflect the changing values of ideas of societies and individual storytellers. A rising field is that of revisionist mythography, which aims to challenge and debunk the gender stereotypes embedded in and perpetuated by myths and fairy tales, by revising and retelling them from a female perspective. For example, three contemporary Chicana authors- Sandra Cisneros, Monica Palacios, and Angela de Hoyos have created their own narratives through retellings of La Llorona’s story, thereby challenging the patriarchal models of femininity in folklore and expanding the role of women beyond the traditional role of motherhood and marriage (Simerka 1).
In Palacios’ retelling of La Llorona, she rejects the narrative that asserts that a woman’s most important role is as a mother. Instead, she is a lesbian whose sin is the murder of her unfaithful lover. Palacios’ “La Llorona” is named Caliente. She is an important woman in town, and unlike many other women in folk literature, she is completely economically autonomous. Caliente is described as being in a happy and successful relationship with La Stranger, until one day, La Stranger reveals that she has had a sexual relationship with another woman in town, and that she now plans to leave Caliente, seeking constant movement and change in her life. Caliente’s reaction consists of a downward spiral of stereotypically male aggressive behavior. First, she degrades the woman that La Stranger had a relationship with, calling her a “puta” and a “sleazeball.” Then, she turns to physical violence, first slapping La Stranger, then drowning her. Upon realizing that she had committed this horrible act, Caliente starts crying uncontrollably until she faints into the river and dies.
The tragic ending is similar to the traditional La Llorona tale; however, the masculinization of the “La Llorona” figure, Caliente shifts the power dynamic and makes La Llorona the conventional “masculine” figure, thereby subverting the gender roles. However, the nature in which this subversion takes place makes it more complex and somewhat problematic. By projecting stereotypically male behaviors onto one woman and projecting the image of a helpless, passive, victim on another, Palacios keeps in place the reductive gender dynamic of violence between masculine and feminine figures. An example from class of this possessive behavior is Esteban from Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits. “He wanted Clara to think of nothing but him, and he could not bear for her to have a life outside that did not include him (Allende 142).” In line with this stereotypical masculine behavior, Caliente becomes possessive & obsessive after La Stranger announces her intention to leave. As Simerka points out in her article analyzing the works of Cisneros, Palacios, and de Hoyos, Palacios demonstrates the “dark side” of revisionary approaches to oppressive ideology in which the goal of a marginalized group is merely to gain access to the existing power structures and to benefit from that power, rather than trying to dismantle those oppressive structures of power and rebuild more equitable modes of interaction (Simerka 4). While acknowledging that Palacios does in some ways reinforce traditional gender dynamics, she still manages to subvert traditional gender roles in other ways. Through her use of language and tone, she takes a humorous, ironical stance toward the patriarchal conventions expressed in folklore. Most notably, she creates an alternative femininity centered around lesbian erotics rather than heterosexual and maternal bonds. This is a marked shift from traditional tellings of La Llorona, in which her role as a mother is central to the plot and themes of the story. By allowing a female character to exist outside a narrative of heterosexual relationships and motherhood, Palacios helps expand the roles of women in folklore beyond their traditional bounds.
In another example of revisionist mythography, Cisneros creates a character, Cleófilas, who rejects the archetype of the “weeping woman” and her rigid, limited role in society. (Simerka 6,7) Cleófilas begins the story as a passive, dependent woman. Before she married and was handed over to her husband in Texas, she lived with her father and six brothers, spending most of her time watching telenovelas and dreaming of finding passion and love. Cisneros captures the feeling of a small town girl who dreams of escaping and finding her happily ever after. It is clear how inexperienced and naive Cleófilas is- she had no mother 
to teach her about the realities of being a wife and a mother, no experience in the US, and doesn’t even really know much about her husband- she is uncertain of what his job even is. Despite this, she is certain that they will lead a loving, happy life together, as seen in the telenovelas she so rapaciously consumes. When she gets to the US, she finds a very different reality waiting for her. Her husband becomes abusive, and it is implied that he is committing infidelity as well. Cleófilas becomes drawn to the creek running behind her house, called La Gritona, wondering whether she is hollering from pain or from rage. As the abuse continues, she feels as if La Llorona is calling to her. The writing gives the sense that she is going to become like La Llorona and commit an act of great harm to her child and/or herself, but instead she is able to break free from her husband and tedious life, with the help of two chicana neighbors, Graciela and Felice. As they drive across the creek towards a new destiny, Felice emits a loud holler, at first startling Cleófilas, but eventually prompting her to emit her own empowered vocalization, “… a long ribbon of laughter, like water.” (Cisneros 228)
By having Cleófilas laugh in such a powerful and joyful way as she finally breaks free from her life in Texas, Cisneros is able to subvert the trope of the “weeping woman.” Her laughing instead of weeping as she crosses La Gritona provides a very clear image of her breaking free from the confines of the weeping woman, who is a helpless and tragic victim of passion. Passion is what causes a heartbroken Llorona to drown her children in grief, and later herself, as she is completely overtaken by her lover’s decision to leave her. Passion is what Cleófilas initially desired, due largely to the influence of the telenovelas she grew up watching. One description in the story describes a telenovela protagonist as “having to put up with all kinds of hardships of the heart, separation and betrayal, and loving, always loving no matter what, because that is the most important thing…”(Cisneros 220). Women’s suffering in silence, with a pleasant smile on their face and an persevering, upbeat, loving attitude is a necessary requirement for their eventual happiness. This narrative teaches women to endure undeserved suffering, because they will be morally unworthy of happiness if they do not first suffer. It also idealizes a heterosexual marriage & romantic love as the ultimate achievement, worthy of being captured at whatever cost necessary- the cost often being higher for women. This limits women to only finding fulfillment and happiness through one specific, very limited path. We can see how Cleófilas has internalized these beliefs through her desires for passion and in her response to her husband’s abuse. She fears the judgement she will face from her community if she leaves. Aunt Chila from Mastretta’s “Women With Big Eyes” is one case that justifies this fear, as she faced ostracization, shame, and disgrace after leaving her husband (Mastretta 44). However, in making the active decision to leave with her son, she breaks free from the narratives of suffering that she had internalized for so long, and from the stereotypical role her character would be expected to play.
Conclusion:
Overall, folklore is an important lens through which we can view culture. It provides insight into the beliefs, values, and ideas of the cultures from which it originates, as well as the structures of power and interpersonal dynamics. Research has shown that folklore and the media in general are particularly effective mediums for reflecting social values, as they are so widespread and the ideas that they portray are so easily planted in our minds. The ways in which folklore reflects and can challenge understandings of gender are complex and nuanced. In parts of Latin America, La Llorona is an important social symbol in folklore that can represent how people understand gender dynamics. Contemporary writers such as Cisneros and Palacios have used revisionary approaches in order to challenge the patriarchal models of femininity and masculinity in folklore and expand the role of women beyond the traditional role of motherhood and marriage. By reframing the way that dynamics between the masculine and feminine are portrayed in folklore, we can begin to break down the reductive stereotypes that have existed in Latin American folklore and create a new, more inclusive narrative that can be passed down to later generations. In doing so, we begin to deconstruct the oppressive structures of power that dictate interpersonal relationships and determine how society functions as a whole.
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