Another interesting anti-violence against women campaign...

Maricon, el que maltrata a una mujer= Maricon is someone who mistreats a women

There's an interesting campaign in Chile, lead by SERNAM, the women's issues sector of the cabinet, going on to redefine the word maricon. Originally, the word meant something akin to "wife beater", but it has come to be used in common speech to refer disparagingly to homosexual men. Like everything else in Chile, it also has another "joking" use, where guys who are good friends might use it to refer to each other in a relaxed, joking and seemingly inoffensive way, sort of along the same lines as the use of the "n word" among African Americans in the US. Basically, the goal of the campaign is to bring the original use of the word back. It would basically be the equivalent of using the word f*@#$t to refer to abusive men rather than gay men. It's certainly an interesting idea, but I doubt it will be accepted widely. Furthermore, using one word to refer to an entire group of people is never a particularly good idea, at least by my judgement. But maybe one step towards a weird sort of political correctness in Chile?