Puras Mujeres

I feel as though I lack the words (and the time) to adequately describe the prevalent gender inequalities and machismo that greatly affect many, if not all, aspects of the culture in which I have become immersed. The gender roles are clearly defined from birth and the children accept and fill these roles as soon as they are physically able. Women wash clothes, cook, have babies, and care for their children. Men work in the farms, fish, construct buildings and usually, drink. Girls as young as 7 years old are washing clothes for their entire families and 12-year old boys are carrying machetes and wearing boots out into the forest to harvest platano or to help cut down trees for a local business. They’re all forced to grow up fast and take on the same daily tasks and fill the same gender roles shared by their parents and grandparents and great grandparents. I’m always surprised to discover the real ages of both the males and the females in the community because they all seem and act much older than they really are. For many kids, the teenage years are entirely lost to parenthood. I was informed by my 10 year old host-brother a while ago that I was still considered a ¨niña¨ (girl) because I haven’t had kids yet. Females are only considered ¨mujeres¨ (women) once they have had children.

I realize that all of this is a well known aspect of Latin American culture, but I’m here now. Everyday I look into the faces of seemingly hopeless, uninspired and exhausted women and I don’t know how to help. I had an especially frustrating day last week that left me generally (and hopefully temporarily) disheartened and personally quiet.

1. I was woken up a few times during the night by a little commotion and light coming from the room adjacent to mine. When I woke up the next morning, I was informed by my host-mom that Katy, the girlfriend of my host brother, was going to have her baby. The mid-wife of the community stayed with Katy until she had to be taken away in an ambulance, due to complications with the birth and the poor health of the mother. Katy is 15 years old. The father of the baby, my host-brother, chose not to accompany his fragile girlfriend to the hospital. Men don’t do that. He is 25 years old.

2. I spent the rest of that morning trekking around Estero de Platano with Katy, my Peace Corps volunteer compañera and Señora Elisa, a strong female leader in the community, inviting all women to the first Women´s Group meeting in the community. We chatted with more than 50 women about the importance of uniting all the women and of finally establishing a women’s group to DO something together… other than washing clothes and cooking. A few of the women seemed interested, said they would attend, and even signed their names on a list we were creating to appear more official. The majority, however, stared at us with blank faces or amused us with an apathetic, disinterested ´´yeah´´. A few of husbands pretended as if we were addressing them and answered on behalf of their women. Another woman was just completely honest with us and explained that her husband would be angry if she attended a women’s meeting.

* Of the plus 50+ women we personally invited to the meeting, 3 showed up.

3. Because the women of my household had left for the hospital, Katy’s sister came over to our house to cook lunch for the rest of my family. While I was sitting at the table playing UNO with my little host-brother and chatting with Katy’s sister, her older husband walks into the house and begins yelling at her. It’s rare for men to yell at their wives in front of me, but on this day, he didn’t seem to mind my presence. He was yelling at her for cooking lunch in our house, instead of in his house, when she had actually cooked enough for both families. He ordered her to ¨run¨ to the house and cook him more food immediately, after she informed him again that there was plenty of food right in front of him. He kept yelling at her as she sat there calmly holding their 1-year old child. She eventually stood up and walked slowly out of my house. She’s 19 years old.

4. Later that day we had our Thursday afternoon youth group session. Katy, the PC volunteer, and I had coincidentally planned a lesson on gender roles, stereotypes, and discrimination… 3 words that were foreign to the ears of our young friends. After explaining their respective definitions, giving examples, and soliciting questions from the classroom of wide-eyed (primarily female) youths, we began an activity. We split them up into small groups and asked them to complete the following sentences as many times as they could…

- Yo estoy contenta de ser mujer porque…
(- I’m happy to be a woman because…)

- Si fuera un hombre, yo….
(- If I was a man, I ….)

I wish I had interesting, creative answers to relay. No one could answer the first sentence and the answers for the second sentence were few. A few groups quietly said that if they were men they would work in the finca (farm), play futbol, or fish. Katy and I shared our lists with the girls as well, just give them a different perspective and new ideas. (If you know me, you can just imagine what my list of answers consisted of... coming from my childhood of hating dresses, playing sports, and listening to NoDoubt one too many times.)
Every class with the youth group ends with Katy and I trying to explain to the kids why we´re there, why we´re talking to them about themes such as gender roles and stereotypes and why we care so much about their future. ¨Los estereotipos pueden limitar nuestros sueños y expectativas¨. (Stereotypes can limit our dreams and expectations.)
I usually leave frustrated, feeling as though I still didn´t get through to them. I always cling to the hope that we at least made them THINK about something else, or at least think in a different way about themselves or their future.



Conclusion: I blame machismo, the long history of gender inequality, poverty, domestic violence and the lack of sexual education and/or basic education.

This is one reason why I´m still in Ecuador.