In some cultures (political correctness), attitudes and tolerance of violence against women is quite different than it is in the U.S. Please see below:

From: LibertadLatina.org

http://www.libertadlatina.org/Crisis_La ... chismo.htm

LibertadLatina.org is a non-profit project that works to end the sexual exploitation of all women and children in the Americas. We focus on building effective defenses against the many forms of criminal impunity that threaten the lives of Indigenous & Latina women & children wherever they may be.

LibertadLatina.org is the largest source of human rights advocacy information available (with over 500 factual documents) on the Internet in regard to Latina and indigenous women and children’s exploitation issues. We continue to expand that important mission day-by-day and year-by-year.

Listen, Learn, Live! 1999 World AIDS Campaign
AIDS Information Exchange Newsletter
July, 1999

Excerpt from: http://www.cafod.org.uk/aids_news_July99.htm

Machismo (the risk-taking and often predatory behaviours with which young men are expected to prove their masculinity) typifies the role models that are particularly dominant in countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Machismo puts lives in danger not least the lives of the young men themselves. Young men are expected to demonstrate their virility with early and frequent sex, and multiple partners.

Macho attitudes can help to sow the seeds of violence. While the prime victims of male violence are other men, these acts rarely amplify the HIV risk directly (exceptions include cases of rape in all-male settings such as detention centers). However, women who are targets of male violence (often at the hands of their husband/partner) are put at risk of HIV...

...Machista [macho-ist] values influence legislation on rape. In 14 Latin American countries a man may legally rape his wife or fiancée and in some countries including Argentina and Chile-a rapist need only propose marriage to escape prosecution.

Legacy of Mesoamerica, The: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization by Robert M. Carmack(Editor), et al. University of Albany Paperback (August 9, 1995)

Today, in this same part of the world, machismo - "the ideology that places a high value on virility as a result of ‘conquering’ a large number of women - is widespread in the region," writes Rosenbaum. "Machismo shapes the region’s patriarchal system in specific ways, placing women under the control of men who may eventually abandon them."

Machismo (A Definition) Creatividad Feminista (Feminist Creativity) - Spain

Machismo...(macho-ism) is a collection of laws, norms, attitudes and characteristics of men whose finality, explicitly or implicitly, has been and is, is to produce, maintain and perpetuate the enslavement and submission of women on all levels: sexual, procreation, and in relation to work and love. The word machismo is used fundamentally in the scope of colloquial and popular life. The term most appropriate (above all at the ideological level) to express this concept is sexism, given that the first term (machismo) is used to characterize those acts, physical or verbal, by means of which are manifested in vulgar form the underlying sexism that exists in the social structure. On the psychological level, the difference between sexism and machismo is that 'sexism' is conscious and machismo is unconscious; that is to say, the believer in machismo acts like one without being capable of being able to explain or recognize the internal reasoning behind his actions, given that the machista (macho-ist) is limited to only imitating and putting into practice the crude behaviors of sexism of the culture to which he belongs by nationality and social condition. For that reason a macho-ist can feel comfortable being proud and conceited in regard to his being "very male" (muy macho).

Nevertheless if a man's personality does not have at its foundation misoginism (hatred/fear of women, very closely bound to sexism), he can try to self-defeat many aspects of macho-ist behavior.

The woman shares in machismo to the extent that she is not conscious of the power structures which machismo regulates in the relationship between the sexes, and to the extent to which she imitates those behaviors and/or contributes to men continuing to practice macho-ist behaviors.

"No, to machismo! No, to domestic violence!"
Honduras This Week Online By W. E. GUTMAN

In Latin America concepts of masculinity are encapsulated in the word "machismo." At its most extreme, writes the London-based Panos Institute, an organization dedicated to stimulating debate on global environment and development issues, machismo maintains a man's superiority and dominance over women, granting him the right to do as he pleases within and outside the family home and the authority to restrict the freedom of his wife, sisters and daughters. Machos subscribe to the saying: "Women are like shotguns; they should be kept loaded [pregnant] and indoors."

If machismo translates into strength, machista attitudes are no more than the armor men wear to hide their weakness and complex of inferiority.

According to Michael Kimmel, a specialist in gender relations, "most men feel ...impotent. Even though they know that the definition of masculinity is 'to be in power, to be the captain of my fate and master of my soul,' they feel trapped in old, suffocating roles, unable to make the changes they want in their lives."

This sense of impotence, exacerbated by unemployment, poverty, ethnic disorientation, and heightened by alcoholism and depression, frequently leads to violence, perpetuating a pattern in which men who were beaten as boys by fathers and who saw their fathers beat their wives react to challenges to their authority in the only way they know.

Additionally, the opposition of the Catholic Church to the liberalization of women's roles continues to place serious obstacles in the path of efforts to reduce the effects of machismo. In a country where 90 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, the Church wields enormous power and influence both on the government and the people. Playing the nationalist card, it claims that campaigns promoting women's rights reflect subversive political interests.

News for Women
Mexico City
June 7, 2006

Human Rights Group: There Is No Doubt That Police Sexual Assaults Against Women In Atenco Were A Form Of Torture

According to Felicitas Treue, a psychotherapist working with the non-profit group Collective Against Torture And Impunity, there is no doubt that the sexual assaults faced by 23 women at the hands of policemen during a police operation in early May 2006 were a form of toture.

As a participant in the round table session “The women of Atenco,â€