This morning I was sent an article about sexual harassment and its effects on young women. I read it (and others linked to it) in a rush before I race-walked to the town's colegio, to give my series of sexual education quizzes to classes of students for day-two.
When I first arrived in Costa Rica, I sought out more information into past research on the psychology of machismo and gender roles, and in particular their presence Latin America. There wasn't very much, as far as I could tell from the various databases, and I ended up giving up for another day. And I'm vaguely familiar with the movements in the US surrounding the Slutwalks, and Hollaback, but only just.
And in the past two weeks since I've been encountering so much ignorance about sexual health, I've been doing research on my own and exploring the little plethora of English-speaking and girl-oriented sex-ed sites. There's a surprising amount launched by organizations in the UK, which is very cool, though it doesn't really serve my needs (I'm seeking out sexual education information for Spanish-speaking teens, and in the end have had to essentially write my own).
I myself remember visiting Gurl.com, and having a subscription to an independent girl magazine called Luna (I think! I can't seem to find it online now!). I once even got something published in their "Howling at the moon" section, which was all about 12 year old girl-power.
Reading these little Internet articles, I felt more empowered than I have in a very long time. My 12-year old self was wiggling with joy at the words on the page, and I felt incredibly informed and uplifted. My stories connecting with the stories of other young women, as well as women universally, I felt as though there was some sort of justice, and a solution to the anxiety and fear I realize now I've felt since I first started walking alone in the city and first began hearing sexualizing comments about my body.
I still remember the map I had created in my head of side streets I wouldn't walk down if I didn't have to, because of the people that hung around certain stores or outside certain stairwells. I still remember the sense of triumph when I could walk down those same streets in the company of my father and stare those who'd earlier made comments in the face.
Until I came to Costa Rica, I felt like the amount of sexual harassment I receive in public has gone down. Now thinking about it, it's more likely that I've just adapted to avoid it, or even just disregard it. One strategy I've used in the city of Amherst, that I've had mixed feelings about - some friends have told me that this is by far the best option while others told me is exactly the opposite of what is should do - is to politely engage those who are yelling at me on the street and demanding my attention. In Amherst, this (at least on the surface) seems to give those asking for my attention whatever they have been seeking, and they stop yelling and conduct themselves with relative normality.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that is the right choice, advise others to do the same, or even say that there is a right or a wrong way to respond to sexually aggressive comments and behavior, but at times it has made me more comfortable. At least I am confronting their behavior, which personally makes me feel better about myself - though it is only because I am in a public space and in daylight that this is even a consideration or possibility. Also, in the familiar atmosphere of Amherst, where I am often seeing the same people again and again changes the way I perceive strangers on the street. Everything seems safer, more familiar, and seeing some of these people interact normally with men in town makes me feel that some sort of communication could and should be had.
Costa Rica has been an entirely different story, but I truly didn't encounter any really remarkable sexual harassment until arriving in Costa de Pajaros. This town only has one road, and it's long, dry, and dotted with people sitting in the shadows of the trees and buildings alongside, out of the heat of the sun.
I should preface by saying that since I was a 12 year old walking down said specific streets in the city, I've seen a lot, said a lot, read a lot, grown a lot. I'd like to think I notice a whole lot more than I did then, and the majority of my energy is spent trying to learn. And I'm a lot more confident than I was. I've gone from not really knowing what confidence was, to being devastatingly aware of how little I had, to thinking I had confidence and violently shoving who I was at the time down every one's throats, to realizing that I have very little clue who I am most days other than the same familiar set of memories. But every day I find something new I can do and something new I want to be doing with the time I've 'been given'. And sometimes I am even proud of the things I have managed to do and which I am fortunate enough to call my own, though more to know that I have these people, these experiences, and that this is who I am. In a nutshell, I am so happy. It's taken a really long time, and I'm not trying to be dramatic or self-involved, but it is my blog after all - so yes, frankly, I'm thrilled with where I find myself today.
At the risk of sounding too much like a self-absorbed teen, I'm going to try and move on from that. But I've never written that before, and it felt kind of nice to. Let's continue with the less good stuff.
The sense of humility as I walk past large groups of men, extremely self conscious of my physical body and presence in this town, as well as what significance their aggression towards me may have to them makes me extremely uncomfortable. Many follow me on their bikes, stop their cars, and yet not one has ever tried to talk to me. When I walk with others who are from the town, there are occasional comments, but for the most part it is as though I am invisible. It is like a totally different town when I walk with a friend.
I don't know what bothers me more - the remarks or that I can see that those making them are sitting or standing around with sons and nephews, and more importantly daughters, girlfriends and wives. Everyone is watching, listening, and learning. And no one says anything except for these men.
Also - there are clearly many different people in the world, and there are so many wonderful people in my town. Wonderful men as well as wonderful women, and many strong, intelligent people, some of whom have said the most beautiful and wise things I've ever heard spoken in my life. But I'm not going to lie and say meeting them hasn't been that much harder do to how uncomfortable I am walking down this one road.
I think I've already written about how awkward I feel in this cultural crossroads when it comes to sexual harassment, and anything mildly sexual actually. I feel like many of my values (which are already probably a bit different from most) have been completely reversed, leaving me speechless while I try and figure out my next move. I find myself clipping my conversations with friends and family here as I listen to myself and begin to edit out entire topics and ways in which I speak about them.
What must these people think - this random girl coming into their town with a color hair they've never seen, who is too tired to make much conversation since she's been spending every minute of her day asking people what they know about sex. She doesn't have kids, isn't married, and apparently doesn't believe in God (but she'll capitalism the name and try and be vague for one reason or other). And she has tattoos, & she won't become friends with you on Facebook, and you don't know why (but it's because the problems that you speak of that are driving this town to ruin are casual past times for bored teens all over the United States and everyone has a camera these days). She said something about abortion and another thing about gay marriage the first couple days she was here, and she hasn't said much worth talking about since but it's clear she's got some pretty revolutionary opinions.
I feel like I met this girl when I was in my freshman year of high school - she was strong and not interested in getting to know me really, because she was there on her own terms (and dropped out or picked up and moved soon after she arrived). I was just as baffled, and probably as threatened by her coming into my world as some of the people here have been. But she was in an entirely different situation (not to demean it - but it was high school, in Maine - quite a trip in itself though not on the same scale). The things they think I'm bringing are on a whole other level. And for that exact reason, many are also embracing my presence here. It's a strange lil' mescla.
But this 'cultural crossroads' has made gauging situations so hard for me. I just want to understand, and I keep getting conversations and situations thrown in my face when I least expect them, and that I don't think will ever make sense as an outsider.
For example, after reading these articles, I went to the colegio, like I was saying (much) earlier. The walk over was peppered with cat calls, whistles, kisses, shouts and honks. My jubilant mood slowly deflated & my jaw tightened as always. I think I've ground down my molars significantly over the past three weeks. But this is the Costa, and this is what it is like for me here, and though I can keep being startled and disgruntled and even upset at times, that's not getting me far. If I can keep a straight face (about a quarter of the time, the comments I get make me smile after I think about them - half nervously, half derisively), I've been making eye contact with the people harassing me. Especially since it's the day time, and half the reason I'm being harassed is because I'm A) a female but more importantly B) a female foreigner they've never seen before, this shuts people up sometimes, especially asshole young guys just showing off. The older men I don't even look at anymore. The time I got mauled in the libreria by an alcoholic while trying to print, an experience that left me sore, bruised, and incredibly angry for days (and subsequently changed the direction of my project) left me extremely wary of the fishermen in my town, which is a shame since they are literally the 99% of money-makers.. I also have come to realize I can set my own boundaries though, and I don't have to throw everything to the wind in the name of anthropology, and that my own comfort is most important. Funny but sad how the things we get told over and over and over never sink in until we've experienced why we were told them time and time again.
But more about the colegio. This was the third time I've been there, and every time I've raised my eyebrows more and more at the extremely provocative clothes that these (incredibly) beautiful young female teachers are wearing. And these teachers happen to be some of the brightest, conscious, and stable of everyone I have met in Costa de Pajaros, and in Costa Rica as well.
One teacher, the Spanish language professor whose name I can't remember, I first came across while walking up the dirt road to the town school which is set back into the forested hills. From far away I saw a girl not wearing a uniform, rather tight white (leather?) pants, shiny white 6 inch heels on platforms, and a purple shirt cut down the back. She was carrying a lunchbox in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and was clearly not going to make it to the top of the hill before me, despite her significant lead. I flapped past in my flip flops with a smile, super mystified by her choice of attire.
And 5 minutes later I was lead by the principal, who herself was wearing a cut down tank top, skinny jeans, and chunky platform pumps to the classroom of this Spanish teacher. While her class of 15 year olds giggled over questions no one has ever bothered to ask them about their personal lives, the 25-or-so year old Spanish teacher teetered over on her stilts like a rare species of flamingo, wearing three different shades of eyeliner. She told me that this is the first school that she has felt she earns respect from her students, and that elsewhere students are disrespectful to the point of violence. The last class she taught, which is located in a city less than an hour away was remplete with gang violence.
The same thoughts of safety within the community as well as innocence within the student body was reiterated to me by the director. Today she brought her daughter (who she has enrolled in an American school in a nearby city ), and was wearing bigger wedges, though less tight jeans, and a blue shirt I can only describe as ripped and draped. She's probably 29, has got freckles and purple stripes in her curly dark hair, a large birthmark stretching from her eyebrow over her temple to her hairline, and long pink fake nails that have diamonds glued onto the corners. She's intimidating, incredibly beautiful, over-indulgent with her daughter, knows the names of every student in the school, and spoke with an authority and sincerity about the limits of her power as an educator in Costa Rica that influenced my opinions about the public systems culpability in the amount of ignorance and lack of interaction with students personal lives greatly.
But I'm looking at these crazy exotic bird ladies as an outsider, who is astonished at the amount of young female power present leading this coastal fishing town's school. How do the students look at these teachers? What does this mean for the young girls when they see these women as their role models? How do the young boys see them? To me the answer is obvious, though I don't know about the repercussions. I hadn't really thought about it until I actually passed through the gates into the school for the first time.
Maybe I am just as bad as the men on the street for talking about these women and picking them apart this way. But it has been so foreign to me, as I believe in the US I associate successful women with a sort of mandatory desexualization, and with teachers even more so. One of my teachers at Hampshire openly advertises her obsession with makeup and other petty things that we women in America, and undoubtedly men as well, tend to notice and judge as a mark of character. Her having to confront her own tastes and represent who she is and wants to be as a form of self-defense and the preservation of her image seems almost worse to me than these stilted professors may have it.
I believe, though it is only my guess, that they are more comfortable wearing what they would like and dressing how they wish here than they would be elsewhere - and that it is part of the innocence of this fishing village that lets them feel they can express themselves. And it is not like they are dressing informally in any way, but rather their dress attire is on a whole other level that I have only ever encountered in clubs. In my eyes, I'm more curious to know where they are learning to dress this way, and then who they are teaching this to. I can't figure out whether it is my own sense of Puritan ethics that makes me think that the Spanish teacher might receive even more respect if she didn't dress this way, or whether it is the fault of society for potentially indulging the male gaze over others. Whether students should not be (or already are not?) sensitive to this the same way I may be..?
I just don't know! But it's dinner time, so I'm going to go eat something delicious and watch a television show where women dance around in sports bras and men in swimming trunks and t-shirts, and everyone tries and accomplish a lot of physically demanding contact sports. Costa Rica's number 1 show! I don't even know..
Muy bien! Excelente! Viva las mujeres! Tu Mama.
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