Piropos

I highly recomend putting grapes in the freezer. I know its winter state-side, but for the summer, it is an awesome, frozen fruit treat! And now....

I once heard a quote on an NPR interview broadcast:

¨How can any woman say that they are NOT a feminist? Do they not agree with equal rights and opportunity for women? Do they not agree that women have the right to vote?¨

She went on to explain that the Feminist movement has gotten a bad name associated with butch, outspoken and overly agressively oppinionated women that people don´t want to associate themselves with. But these few spokes people do not represent the ideal of the movement, which are what I highlighted before.

Therefore, I most definitely see myself as a feminist. Even more so now that I live in a country where ¨machismo¨ or male-centric culture still exists. You can find it in the simplist of things, like people casually refering to ¨woman´s job¨ vs a ¨man´s job¨. Or maybe it is the way your seemingly open-minded boss makes reference to the fact that you or another girl in the office are probably emotional from your periods, or that older, single women are lost causes who will be alone forever. Comments like this get under my skin, but I´m not outspoken about it yet. That is something about myself I would really like to change.

But the topic at hand today is Piropos. A piropo is a cat call. It can come in the form of slow whistle, a comment about how you are so beautiful, a kiss out the car window, or even those lingering stares that watch you as you walk by, a call to you and comments when you leave a bar, a restaurant or pretty much anywhere, men winking and raising their eyebrows at you if you make eye contact, and even men trying to make flirty conversation with you on buses, when your walking somwhere, whenever you are sitting alone. You can encounter a piropo anywhere, I´m sure, in the US as much as in Peru. I just think that in Peru, it is a lot more common. I have seen some American women driven almost crazy by the piropos in Peru, sometimes to the point of saddness, extreem frustration, or even anger bordering on rage. Most of us foreign women living abroad handle this attention by ignoring it, laughing at it, or just king of letting it roll off of our shoulders. But that doesn´t mean we don´t think about it.

I just read a fantastic article about how women feel with this type of harassment on the street. How we clutch our car keys in fear of violence, and cross the street when we see shady characters. It was moving and resonated with me a lot, you can check it out here: http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2012-12-a-letter-to-the-guy-who-harrassed-me-outside-the-bar

When I walk around in Lima, piropos are common. I honestly don´t think I´ve gone a single day in Lima without hearing some kissing sound from a cab driver that goes by, or a comment from strangers on the street. It is one of the more unpleasant things about living in a latin mega-city. The attention makes me uncomfortable and sometimes scared. On days that I´m feeling particularly fat or unattractive, the first whistle might make me smile, but by the 4th or 5th time, I just feel annoyed and anxious to get wherever I am going.

It makes me sometimes want to react.  I always think of an episode of Sex in the City when Miranda walks by a group of construction workers and they say call to her day after day as she goes to rent movies in grubby overalls.  One day, she finally stops and yells back ¨Ok, lets go, I haven´t had sex in 3 months!¨ and the construction worker looks shocked and says... ¨Woooh, calm down honey, I have a wife.¨ I remember thinking, THEN WHY THE PIROPOS??????

So why talk about this? I like to think of it as a type of awareness raising. As the article I put a link to suggests, men probably don´t think about how this simple acts affects us. They probably have no idea its the 8th time that day someone has creepily called to us on the street. They probably have no idea that the whistles or slowing car as it passes makes us want to run, or clutch whatever sharp object we have a little tighter.

In Peru, I honestly think that men think of it as a way to compliment us. Worse, I think that women in general like it. Or at least it doesn´t seem to bother them as much. I have absolutely no evidence to support this statement, EXCEPT for what I hear in all the media. On the radio, I heard a women with a young girls voice having men call in and flirting with them, asking them to send her ¨piropos¨. At a giant event for the anniversary of Lima, the hosts acknowledged the crowds whistles at the lovely woman on stage, saying ¨thank you for the piropos!¨ and then asking the male host to send some piropos to the pretty women in attendance. The host proceeded to say he was falling in love with several beautiful sets of eyes he could see in the crowd. I watched the entire thing with a rising sense of frustration. Why are they promoting the idea of harassing strangers you don´t even know? Why are they promoting the objectification of women?

This is something about Lima, and a part of the culture here that really bugs me sometimes. I would love to send a message to the radio stations, to public figures, that it is not ok. I want to be part of that struggle for equality and fairness, for less objectification. But first, women here have to decide that it´s not ok. I cant decide for anyone as an outsider that it is a frustrating and angering thing to be harassed on the street for everyone, I just know that it is for me. The first step is that women want things to change. That will be a long road, and a fight for more equality. It should start with public figures and media streams, because.... really??? Common public radio, TV and local events, please don´t promote and encourage piropos.

For now, guys, don´t be that guy.
More fun thoughts coming soon.