Machismo is the belief that some men have that men are superior to women. This was very common in the 1960s and 1970s in Mexico and for Mexicans living in some parts of the United States. In the novel titled "House of Mango Street" a girl named Esperanza experiences the hardships of machismo and the abuse that comes with it. “House of Mango Street” is a novel written by Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican writer. You have implied various themes in this novel, one of the main ones being machismo. It's about a girl named Esperanza and how growing up she just does things and suffers from machismo. Esperanza, the protagonist, is a poor girl but not that poor. She and her family moved from one apartment to another. Until he moved into a house, the house on Mango Street. That's where he started to see machismo impact his way of life. Machismo is the belief some men have that they are superior to women. This causes men to overreact and abuse women in a variety of ways, causing the abused women to get hurt, sometimes physically, other times mentally and other emotionally, their feelings are destroyed and their minds corrupted. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One type of abuse women experience due to machismo is physical abuse. Physical abuse can be done by hitting the other person or even rape or sexual abuse in this case done to a woman. To start with an example, in the book there is a girl named Sally. Her father is overprotective so when he sees her with boys he beats her. This is because he thinks he can do something like this to her because he is her father and has the right to do so. This is due to machismo. Evidence of this is when Sally in one vignette says "he doesn't hit me hard", she uses it as an excuse to accept her father's beatings and was so used to the beatings that it doesn't hurt as much now. This shows that she has an abusive father and is physically abusing her daughter, she thinks this will stop her from meeting boys. This is because he uses machismo as a lifestyle and implies it to his daughter because his sisters made a mistake in life and he doesn't want Sally to make the same mistake. Another example of physical abuse was Esperanza. She was also raped, sexually abused, in other words she suffered harsh physical abuse; he said "... you lied to me Sally, it wasn't like you told me it would be...", meaning he was blaming Sally for what had happened. This shows that Sally told her that having sex was very good and that it felt good to do it; it also showed how she felt Sally was at fault for making her wait to lust after her and that's why she (Esperanza) was raped. This is because being raped and having sex are totally different because rape is forced and sex is voluntary, so obviously it wasn't just like Sally told her it would be. However, even if the two abuses were of a different nature and type, they both fall into the same category, that of physical abuse. Machismo can also lead men to commit emotional abuse against women. Emotional abuse happens when someone plays and messes with another person's feelings and emotions. In this case it is women who are abused in this way due to machismo. However, the fact that Esperanza was raped represents yet another type of abuse, an emotional one. She said “…the red clown is watching…” which meant she was ashamed of herself because she felt she was being watched. This shows that she was worried about her surroundings and remembered them while..