There's a refrain that gets said around this time. "Cuando viene la primavera, la sangre se altera." That is, when spring comes, the blood gets altered.
This is a euphemistic way of saying that when the change in weather hits, men of all ages become emboldened in their lewd, nasty behavior toward women.
I have been the recipient of more obnoxious comments in the last week than in the totality of my half year living here. The female friends who I have talked with in the last couple of days have had similar experiences.
It doesn't help matters that I'm tall and light-haired -- an obvious foreigner. I seem to draw piropos (pick-up lines and sexually overtoned comments made on the street) like a pile of crap draws flies. Or something like that.
And it is making me so indignant I might end up punching the next idiot who makes the mistake of saying something sophomoric.
I asked a friend yesterday, "how do you say sexist in Spanish?" and she replied, "machista." Now, sexista would be the literal translation. But machismo, (derived from the root word macho, which means male), is taken to mean a male-dominated culture that subjugates women, and is a much more accurate word to use than sexism.
Latin cultures get deemed machista all the time. In Spain, sexism is synonymous with and epitomized by machismo. The currents of machismo have pervaded this culture profoundly. It's evident in the male-pronoun-dominated language, in the way women's bodies are used to sell everything, and not least of all in the piropos launched at women as they walk down the street.
Trust me, you never hear a woman walk past a group of guys smacking her lips and calling them machines in bed. The opposite does with disturbing regularity. So much so that it's considered perfectly normal.
It's different in the United States, of course. In America, we're equal, men and women.
Women aren't used to sell cars, or beer, or sex-enhancing drugs. Women are treated with respect. Women have a voice in government, in the workplace, and it goes without saying that women are ennobled and their rightful human dignity recognized within the church.
Bull shit.
We need to stop kidding ourselves.
Of course machismo exists in America. But we disguise it in the form of sexism.
Sexism is a nice politically correct word. It makes it seem as though the discrimination of people based on gender runs both ways. And in the U.S., we love to be politically correct.
But let's be real, shall we?
Machismo is alive and real in the U.S., and it has a frightening pervasiveness, thanks to having a foothold in the nation that is the world's biggest exporter of entertainment.
I'm from the school of thought that the words we use really do matter. Words can shock life back into us. They can also numb us. Sometimes, we have to reclaim words, fighting for the intended meaning to be the one that profoundly resonates today the way it did for the people who first used it to spin stories, write poems, inspire communities. There are also moments when we have to put to death words that have become clichéd and trite, losing their power to express the important ideas they are meant to communicate.
A few of the words I believe worth fighting for are words like:
Hope.
Grace.
Love.
Sexism is not one of those words.
I propose we kill the word sexism and replace it with the word machismo. That would be a much more accurate and telling word for what is actually going on. And what is going on is this:
The systematic oppression of women.
It's time to stop telling ourselves that we have this problem sorted and to start acting in the context of our own society to free women and girls from the slavery of machismo.
Oppression of women is not somewhere "out there." No, oppression of women is in our cities. It grins chauvinistically from highway billboards. It bares its nasty teeth in the language we use to to talk about things we don't like (i.e., "that test was a bitch"). And it rears its head in churches, the very place where women ought to be celebrated, their value upheld as intrinsic and indispensable to the building of the kingdom of God, where all people are equal.
OK, rant over (for the moment).
For more on this topic, I recommend checking out:
- Rachel Held Evans' blogs on the issue of women in the church, particularly this post where she asked male readers to blog their thoughts in response to John Piper's comment that Christianity has a "masculine feel."
- The poem "I'll Never Return" by Meena Keshwar Kamal inspired me this week. Kamal fought for the rights of women in her native Afganistan. She was assassinated in 1987, most likely by secret police. I participated in a dramatic interpretation of this poem, wearing a burka as my friend read the majority of it, and letting the garment fall to the ground at the poem's climax. I was shocked by the heaviness I felt when I first donned the burka. I have been impacted deeply by this courageous, strong woman.
I’m the woman who has awoken
I’ve arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children
I’ve arisen from the rivulets of my brother’s blood
My nation’s wrath has empowered me
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred against the enemy,
I’m the woman who has awoken,
I’ve found my path and will never return.
I’ve opened closed doors of ignorance
I’ve said farewell to all golden bracelets
Oh compatriot, I’m not what I was
I’m the woman who has awoken
I’ve found my path and will never return.
I’ve seen barefoot, wandering and homeless children
I’ve seen henna-handed brides with mourning clothes
I’ve seen giant walls of the prisons swallow freedom in their ravenous stomach
I’ve been reborn amidst epics of resistance and courage
I’ve learned the song of freedom in the last breaths, in the waves of blood and in victory
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, no longer regard me as weak and incapable
With all my strength I’m with you on the path of my land’s liberation.
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women
My fists are clenched with the fists of thousands compatriots
Along with you I’ve stepped up to the path of my nation,
To break all these sufferings all these fetters of slavery,
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, I’m not what I was
I’m the woman who has awoken
I’ve found my path and will never return.
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