The concept of machismo is basically that the feelings of personality lackness are compensated by the feelings of power. I would say, as it’s said commonly that when inferiority complex increases, it becomes superiority complex. So the men suffering from some kind of gap in the personality, becomes powerfully in one way or other. Although the reality is otherwise but they think that they have power over others. The same concept is applied on chicano men living in states, because the social circle in which they are brought up is male dominant and when they come here and see women not abiding by the rules of their society, they feel that they are loosing power over them and its not at all good for their masculinity. In order to compensate that feeling of defeat and complex, they turn into the person who does not have the power or is not the master of all but thinks he is. This most of the time affect not only their lives but their wives and kids too. As they demand full respect from not only woman or wife but from their children too, to satisfy their injured ego, so in return making the others related to them miserable and hurting them deeply and so the cycle goes on like this.
This is an interesting post as you focus on Indian men. But since this post was supposed to focus on Zinn's article, why don't you compare Chicano men and the concept of compensating for being treated as insufficiently masculine to how Indian men are treated and how they behave?
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