Shaping the Spanish modern man: the conflict of masculine ideals through a court case in the 1920s.

IN 1872, TWO ENGLISH "ladies" visited Biscay, in the north of Spain. When they attempted to go for a walk down the central streets of the city unaccompanied, they were disappointed to discover that it was impossible. In their travel notes they complained: "The idle men of Spain have no respect for unprotected women." (1) In effect, women were restricted by the traditional male practice of publicly commenting on any woman who appeared in public without a male escort. The assault usually took the form of a sexual comment called, in Spanish, a piropo.

A piropo was not a compliment; it was a remark, sometimes obscene, sometimes even friendly, but always sexual, about a woman's physical appearance. A piropo often expressed the effect a woman was having on a man's sexual impulse and his intentions toward her. By means of a piropo, a man was able to situate a woman as a sexual object, reaffirm his masculinity, and reinforce a power relationship in which women had no choice but to accept the comment without reply, as an unavoidable price to pay for having entered a public space. Not only was the piropo intimidating, but, because a piropo usually involved a positive judgment about a woman's body or her sexual appeal, it had a flattering dimension too, and, in a sense, it sometimes had a positive influence on female self-esteem. Therefore, a woman's attitude toward piropos was often contradictory. Although it was a reminder of her subordinate position to men and her vulnerability, on the one hand, it was also a confirmation of her power to arouse sexual desire, on the other. In the end, a good piropo required, in those days, a sort of skill, some creativity, some would even say an art, in order to compose ingenious metaphors, word plays, and witty obscenities, in a way that provoked a woman's embarrassment through its sexual content.

Fifty years after the English ladies visited Spain, to piropear was still a common practice among men, and was usually associated with images of a man who was always sexually motivated, lascivious, blasphemous, and prone to donjuanism; possessing a deep sense of male "honor" and also male privilege; disrespectful to women, ready to quarrel, reluctant to work, and a great friend of the fiesta. This type of man was intimately linked to the Spanish traditional, premodern ideal of manhood, and its enduring vitality indicates how particular the evolution of masculinity has been in Spain.

In July 1929, a criminal case hit the front page of every newspaper in Spain and became the topic of debate everywhere. The incident, in which a man offended and attacked a woman, took place on the Gran Via, Madrid's main thoroughfare and promenade. The popular case of the Gran Via saw an ordinary man, Jose Gonzalez de la Camara, brought to trial for physically assaulting a young Colombian woman, Maria Otero, after harassing her in the street. Otero and her husband, Joaquin Meneses, a Spanish medical doctor, were spending a few days in Madrid on their honeymoon. When the case reached the press, there was general agreement that the accused personified a whole series of negative male attributes. Rather than serving as a model of civilization to these visitors from one of the ex-colonies, Gonzalez's conduct was considered backward and crass, a sad representation of traditional Spanish chivalry. At a critical moment from a military point of view, when the status of Spain as a colonial power was being questioned and even challenged, this incident served to further demonstrate the decadence of Spain as an empire. The kind of man that Gonzalez personified had become a countertype; but then the question was, what type of masculinity would best replace this model?

The debate over the court case became a struggle to define the ideal Spanish man. The purpose of this article is to analyze this debate and show that, as late as the 1920s, there was no clear replacement (the kind that a majority would accept) for the manly ideal that Gonzalez symbolized. Compared to other European countries and the United States, the construction of modern masculinity was especially conflicted in Spain. The Catholic Church, a very powerful and highly influential institution, firmly opposed liberalism and modernity. The Spanish middle classes were too weak and tied to the past to make modern views on gender prevail over old, traditional stereotypes. The role of masculinity as a national symbol was problematic too. Unlike in other European countries, (2) ideas about masculinity were deeply bound to political ideologies and local realities. National identity in Spain was sharply divided by political agendas and internal differences, among which peripheral nationalisms played an important role.

THE CASE OF THE ATTACK ON THE GRAN VIA

In July 1929, Joaquin Meneses and Maria Otero were in Madrid on their honeymoon. Meneses was a thirty-five-year-old, highly respected medical doctor originally from Leon, Spain. Otero, who was twenty-one, came from an upper-class Colombian family. Both had come from Santa Fe, because Meneses wanted his wife to visit his native country. On the night of July 13, the couple decided to attend a public dance organized by the telegraphers of the city. On their way from their hotel to the celebration, Meneses went into a tobacconist shop, leaving Otero outside waiting for him on the Gran Via. He took a few minutes in the small shop to buy a cigar. Meanwhile, Otero was waiting in front of the store when she observed a man, accompanied by two friends, approach her. He came close enough to be able to rub against her body, pinch her bottom, and say something obscene.