Sexism: Is It Cultural?

Just like propriety is built into a society, can sexism be built in as well? In the US, it’s generally considered silly or low-class when a man calls out to a woman from his car or from a construction site. He whistles, makes kissing noises, and sometimes expresses a grotesque interest in sleeping with her. Men here in Argentina do the exact same thing, but multiplied by 10. I’ve heard it from men pushing strollers, men walking children home from school, old men, trashmen. I’ve heard it while wearing no make-up and baggy pants, or while wearing a nice dress. “Que linda sos,” “que hermosa.” No woman can get away from it in this city. Some buses even have a built-in whistling sound besides the sound of the horn that a bus driver can use when he so chooses. One bus I was on was driven by a man that did not stop blowing this stupid whistle until the women in the street he aimed for turned around and looked at him. And then he would smile like he just got her number or something. Sexism is essentially built into the infrastructure of Buenos Aires.

I once asked Alex, my wise brother-in-law, why men do this. He quickly answered that he thought it a matter of respect. Alex and men like him have been taught to consider women in the same way they consider men: thoughtful, feeling, and unique. Is it safe to assume, then, that men who behave like this don’t respect women as individuals? I’m finding this easier and easier to believe.

What do they hope to accomplish with their calls? Do they want us to act on their advances? Do they want to pester us? Or do they simply want to congratulate us on our appearance that day? I don’t care to find out. But it is infuriatingly prevalent here. I’m afraid to walk outside in a skirt or shorts because of how I know these men will react to simply seeing bare legs. It makes me feel so indignant and, dare I say, victimized. This may sound like a strong word. But repeated objectifying treatment like this can get to a person.

If it is indeed a cultural lack of respect for women, why are other Argentine men so ready to let women board the bus first, sit down first, and open doors for them? Men here are either chivalrous or pigs. Now I don’t mean to sound like Gloria Steinem, but chivalry, too, could be an indication of an understood inequality between men and women.

Little Girl in the Plaza de Mayo

Derecho Latinoamericano

I'd like to report some fascinating facts that were disclosed in a not-so-fascinating class today. It was "Introduccion al Derecho Latinoamericano," and today, the professor decided to talk about abortion. I thought it a strange next step after last week's blah topics of Argentina's Constitution and the Civil Code, but it is a very heated issue all over the world and can certainly keep the attention of an audience of spaced-out kids. In Latin America, a fetus is a "persona" and has the associated right to life. Therefore, in Argentina, a woman is allowed a legal abortion only in three specific cases:

1) A mentally disabled woman becomes pregnant as a result of a violation to her body (rape). So a woman like me, being of sane mind, could not get a legal abortion after having been raped.

2) The fetus endangers the life of the mother.

3) The fetus has no chance at a healthy, semi-comfortable life.

The professor told us that the simple question every nation has to ask itself when forming abortion laws is this: Is an unborn fetus a person with rights equal to those of an adult, property of the mother, or just a group of cells? Answering this question, however, is slightly more complicated.

I once read an interesting take on abortion in the book "Freakonomics." Police forces saw an uncomfortable spike in violent crime in the seventies. The eighties saw an even bigger jump. Researchers expected violent crime to skyrocket in the nineties, but it didn't. In fact, it dropped slightly! Why? The unpopular view this book was postulating: Roe v. Wade. Children born to unprepared families in the seventies who statistically would go on to commit violent crimes about twenty years later WERE NEVER BORN! Some people who have babies have NO business raising kids because they're not prepared to adequately nurture them. I wonder if legalizing abortions can contribute to the health of a society.

Atheism as a Luxury

My friend Melissa was telling me a story about a woman she met in Ecuador. This woman was very poor and lived in a shanty-town. She chose to open up about her strife to Melissa and her fellow volunteers one day. She began to cry when she told them that when she was a child, her family lived on what we would call a landfill. For meals and clothes, she and her brothers and sisters would have to dig through the landfill looking for anything substantive. This is how they survived: on the garbage from others. She then admitted to this young group of privileged American students that her Christian faith has been the only sure thing in her life. She is a woman that could never depend on anyone or anything earthly to meet her basic needs and has had to struggle all her life to just survive.

It bothers me sometimes when the most academically apt people I know who have successful families and a sure shot at success themselves turn their noses up at my choice and the choices of others to be a Christian. “I’m an Atheist,” they’ll say, in a tone fit for a statement like, “I once delivered a baby on a flight to Australia.” What a luxury to believe and know that you have complete control over the course your life takes! There is no other force to get in your way. I can understand why some people really are proud of that.

But then I think about this woman, and the millions of other people like her on Earth who have nothing more to depend on than the idea of a benevolent higher being because, as time has told them, countless actions toward bettering their lives will never be enough to effect change. Their only hope is in an omniscient being that can reward their faithful toil.

Please, No Gifts

Of the things that weigh on a traveler’s mind (procuring documentation, securing valuables, navigating), buying souvenirs for her friends back home is definitely in the top five. But I’m not sure I want to bring back gifts for my friends. I love them and appreciate them, but how is a keychain or a piece of leather embroidered with the name of the city supposed to convey that? I think those sorts of things, more often than not, say, “Here, friend. Please know that I thought of you when I was walking through a bunch of makeshift stands where shady people peddled their cheap wares. No, it was not at the last minute, and yes, you can throw it away within the next few days.”

Everyone has a few dumb, useless things sitting in their sock drawer as a result of a friend’s travels. Given this prevalence, it’s no longer a thoughtful gesture but a somewhat expected assignment. “Damn,” I often say to myself when I think of all the acquaintances that know I am abroad. I have two very close friends studying in South America, too. I think that we should all three agree to not get our friends back home anything so as to avoid competition between us for the best gift and any hurt feelings from people who did not receive one.

And I know what some of you are thinking: “But I really WANT to get my friends a little something, a keepsake.”
You can’t fool me, and stop trying to fool yourself. That thought is just a lousy effort towards sentimentality. True friends won’t care.

So, my America-dwelling friends, get excited for my return! At that time, you can expect a big hug, a few funny stories and NO tango dancer finger puppets made out of corn husks.

Recent Photos

I took this on a ranch about 1 hour outside of Capital Federal



the entrance to an abandoned bullfighting arena



Uruguayan sunset overlooking the Rio de la Plata

Don't Chatter in Loud, Obnoxious English in a Foreign Country, and Other Lessons Learned After Being Robbed at Knifepoint

I’ll tell you what. I wish that I had been robbed at knifepoint in my own country. At least then, I know my money is going to one of my fellow countrymen. Like taxes.

This man was shorter than I and carried nothing more than a sharpened butter knife, but somehow made me feel like I was staring Death in the face. “Plata plata!” he kept insisting. It seemed like hours until he was finally satisfied with my watch, a couple hundred pesos, and my cheap, borrowed cell phone. He walked away eventually, but, probably perplexed by our broken Spanish he stopped to ask, “de donde son?”
“Los Estados Unidos,” we told him. I could tell from his expression that he was dying to know more, but I guess he had some place to be because he took off right after that.

It was no doubt a very scary moment for me. And although its duration was no longer than five minutes, the incident has never left me in the month and a half since it happened. As childishly poetic as it sounds, it managed to really make me question my faith in the goodness of people. This man certainly did not look comfortable doing what he was doing, threatening to hurt a couple of girls and forcefully taking what was not his own. But can we ever get comfortable with behavior like that? Can we ever get to a point where our desperation is so dire, we feel not an ounce of remorse for forcefully taking what we need at the risk of hurting others? Can I ever get to that point?

I don’t think that I will ever get a chance to test myself in that way. I live more-than-comfortably and plan to be so for the rest of my life. But many, many people that I’ve encountered here in Argentina are NOT comfortable. Many people feel unsafe financially, politically, you name it. In my head’s scenario, this man whisked off to a 24-hour drugstore to get medicine for his sick baby (please, bear with it)! And it was this incident that brought me face-to-face with morally-bankrupting destitution. Does this sort of destitution exist in the United States? Of course! But I am blind to it, really. It isn’t standing outside my front door or trying to sell me Disney princess stickers on the subway like it is here. It isn’t shaking me by the throat yelling, “you have too much and I have too little!” like it is here.

I feel that with everything my country has given me (and no doubt much of what I have worked for), I am morally bound to give back to it and my fellow countrymen less fortunate. I feel that every citizen has a similar duty to his/her country. I now plan to neither live abroad nor change my citizenship; I want to see my money go towards institutions (governmental, charitable, or robber-like) that better the lives of my country’s citizens.