With time and the changing history of the Mexican people, machismo became a form of retaliation. With the invasion by conquistadors came the prevalence of mestizo children. These are children born to an Indian mother and a Spanish father. This demographic did not have a good social, economic, nor political standard. To justify their aggressive nature, Mexican men have connected their activities to genetics and animalistic instincts. They felt genetically superiority to women, making the actions of men always just. As mentioned by Alan Knight in The Idea of Race in Latin America, there was a caste system developed once races began to mix. The white people, referred to as creoles, were at the top of the caste system, generally having more wealth and power. The mestizos were next; however, there is a considerable difference in the wealth and power they were entitled to. The white invaders took over the land of the Mexicans, slept with their women, and took control.

These disparities led to frustration and retaliation through the extension of the image of the Mexican macho. The Spaniards were taking unrestrained advantage of Indian and mestizo women. Mexican men were helpless on their own land and saw only one rational way of dealing with this takeover; they would have to show a more prevailing masculinity and outshine the Spaniards. This sentiment led to a period of brutality and violence during the early 19^th century when Mexico fought for independence from Spain and again in the early 20^th century during the revolutionary war of 1910-1921.