Wham-Bam-Gracias-Ma'am

I am absolutely terrified of dogs. I hate when dogs look at me, bark at me, get in my personal space, growl at me, and band together to run circles around me as if I could possibly want to play with them.

I don’t want to play with them. I don’t want to acknowledge them. I want them to leave me alone. I am terrified of them.

Yesterday I asked Escafandra to meet me at the Telepizza in Plaza Italia at 7:30. I forgot that I had told her 7:30 though and thought I said 7. She was running late as well, so I spent a good hour plastered to the wall waiting in terror and observing everything that was going on in the plaza.

Telepizza makes me ridiculously uncomfortable. It’s a great meeting spot because everyone knows where it is and there are always people waiting around for friends before going out since it’s so near all of the bars, but it is crawling with scumbags who harass any and every woman who dares to stand outside of Telepizza by herself.

Just like every other time I have waited outside of Telepizza a slew of men ranging from around 14 to 60 took my presence as an opportunity to give me a good long creeper up and down glance. Some looked me right in the eyes and walked right up to only inches away from my face before continuing on their way. Some whispered things at me. Some whistled at me. Some pointed at me and talked about me with their group of friends.

There was a stray dog waiting outside of Telepizza as well. The dog hated men. Every time a man walked too close to it the dog would freak out and bark and chase the trespasser. No man could walk anywhere near the dog without the dog’s fighting back.

None of the men took kindly to the dog’s threatening their personal space or right to be in front to Telepizza. The men freaked out. Each of them felt the need to let the dog know that they were allowed to be in front of Telepizza. They yelled at the dog. They hit the dog with their bags. They barked back at the dog. They made eye contact and got even more into the dog’s personal space. They kicked the dog. They belligerently fought back.

And then once they had won the battle with the dog some would slink over and take my presence as an opportunity to give me a good up and down glance. Some looked me right in the eyes and walked right up to only inches away from my face before continuing on their way. Some whispered things at me. Some whistled at me. Some pointed at me and talked about me with their group of friends.

When it comes to being alone and outside in Santiago the only thing that scares me more than stray dogs is machista men who do not see the irony in their fights with the stray dogs that threaten their presence in public.

I don’t want to play with them. I don’t want to acknowledge them. I want them to leave me alone. I am terrified of them. 

As a person whose main concerns during this election have to do with the issues that face women, I was quick to jump on the Obama train after the Republican National Convention. I was really uncomfortable about the fact some of the only things that anyone said about women had to do with the idea that a woman’s most important role in society is that of a wife and mother. I agree that wives and mothers are worth protecting, but what about us childless unmarried girls who have no interest in obtaining children or husbands? I’m pretty set on the idea that women’s roles are no longer confined to wife/mother/caregiver—so there ended any hope in my having an interest in the Republican Party back in August.

 Then I was super into the Obama campaign. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, same sex marriage, access to contraceptives, the right to choose, yahoo! The guy spoke to me. Lately though I have lost a lot of faith even in the Democratic Party because of their campaign across college campuses and aimed at younger first-time voters.

“You never forget your first time” is a message paid for by the Democratic Party that we have seen plastered around campus over the past couple of months reminding us of the importance of voting, but undeniably also reminding us of the importance that has traditionally been placed on a woman’s virginity. In addition to posters, a recent video starring Lena Dunham has been circulating the internet with the same message targeted at young voters.

First and foremost, I am upset because the ad campaign completely disregards the staggering statistics of sexual assault and rape on college campuses. New York University’s student health center reports that 1 in 4 college aged women report experiences that meet the legal definitions of rape or attempted rape, 1 in 5 college women are raped during their college years, 1 in 12 college men admit to having committed acts that meet the definition of rape, most survivors of sexual assault are full-time students, and approximately 1 in 3 of them are first year students between 17 and 19 years old. Given these numbers it seems that a college campus especially is a completely inappropriate place to go around comparing voting to sex and placing importance on “your first time”. I agree that getting people to vote is important but I am mortified that whoever made and put up those posters let it come at the extent of students who have been victims of sexual assault being reminded of how important our society thinks “doing it with the right person” is.

Secondly, empowering women and female sexuality cannot be achieved if you are going to shame virgins. Just like I was up in arms about Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut for using birth control, I am angry about the Democratic Party’s poking fun at a girl’s “not being ready” to have sex. In the Dunham advertisement she claims, “Also, it’s super uncool to be out and about and someone says, ‘Did you vote,’ and ‘No, I didn’t vote, I wasn’t ready.’” Not being ready to vote and not being ready to have sex are two completely different things that should not be compared. Not being ready to have sex is cool. If you are choosing to not have sex I support you personally and think that you are cool, just like how I support you if you are having sex

I am not suggesting that the “you never forget your first time” campaign should be an excuse to not vote. I already voted and I voted for all Democrats despite my disgust at their targeting virgins this year. What can be taken out of this though is that it is obvious that neither party is completely in tune with the issues that face women in the United States. In an attempt to be quirky and hip, even the Democratic Party proved itself somewhat incompetent at recognizing some of the most important issues that face college students. 

En primer lugar, esto no pretende en ningún caso indagar en términos de diferencias de género en política, pues me parece que el tema es mejor abordado, y de manera mucho más eficiente, por otras personas. Lo que quiero hablar aquí, es sobre algo mucho más sutil que eso, que no figura fijo en instituciones, pero que tampoco es posible medir, pues dice más con categorías culturales, en el término laxo de la palabra, aplicadas a la actividad de la política, incluso entendiéndola en su término más clásico. Las  polis, o comunidades políticas todos sabemos excluía a las mujeres de la ciudadanía, sin embargo tampoco pretendo hablar de la exclusión política de la mujer. Me refiero a que existe cierto estilo, mecanismo casi innato en el quehacer político de las sociedades Occidentalizadas, en las que lo Masculino determina el vaivén de la acción política.  Así, por ejemplo, observamos como ciertas sutilezas de la política, aquellas que tienen que ver con el Appeal político, que bien pueden ser utilizadas en política, no lo son, pues sin siquiera pretender sugerir que existe una naturalidad en lo masculino y lo femenino, son atenuadas por otras características que corresponden básicamente al constructo social del Macho Alfa. Pues dado qusi bien el Genero tiene incidencia clara en la división del poder, entonces eso no puede sino ser el fenómeno político en si. Sin ir más lejos, la definición de lo político desde el poder está prácticamente en cualquier noción de éste. Ahora bien, atendemos entonces a un fenómeno en el que pareciese que se excluye lo que no corresponde con ese ideal. Así, por ejempo, si observamos muchas de las líderes de países, como Michelle Bachellet, Cristina Fernandez (de Kirchner, por supuesto), Margaret Tatcher, y muchas otras, siempre son ajustadas a un modelo ya sea hipermasculinizado, o a una feminización casi paternalista, asemejada a la valoración que se tiene por una Primera Dama. Sea cual fuere el caso, lo cierto es que la opresión de género que se genera va más allá de ese poder mismo que se adquiere. En ese sentido, todos aquellos esfuerzos que pretendan alcanzar la tan manoseada “igualdad de género” simplemente haciendo la llamada “discriminación positiva”, claramente, no entiende ni pretende entender las categorizaciones normativas en pos de mantener la explotación de Género en la que históricamente hemos vivido.

Ramona 

First of all, this is not meant as a probe in terms of gender differences in politics, because I think that said issue is better addressed, and much more efficiently, by other people. What I want to discuss here is something much more subtle than that, something that is not fixed in institutions, but that is also not possible to measure, but it says more about cultural categories, in the loose sense of the term, applied to political activities, including the understanding of it in its more classic sense. Politics, or political communities, we all know exclude women from citizenship; however they also do not talk about the political exclusion of women. What I mean is that there exists a certain style, almost an innate mechanism in the political agenda of Western societies, in which the masculine determines the sway of political action.  For example, we observe that certain subtleties of politics, those having to do with “political appeal”, which may very well be used in politics, are not, because without even trying to suggest that there is anything natural in the “masculine” and the “feminine”, they are tempered by other characteristics that are essentially the social construct of the Alpha Male. Given that gender does actually have a clear influence on division of power, this cannot be the political phenomenon in itself. Without going much further, the definition of politics from power is virtually in any notion of this. But then we look at a phenomenon which seems to exclude that which does not correspond to this ideal. For example, if we observe many of the leaders of countries, like Michelle Bachellet, Cristina Fernandez (of Kirchner, of course), Margaret Thatcher, and many others, they are always adjusted to a model which is already hyper-masculinized, or almost a paternalistic feminization, likened to the valorization that one would have were she the First Lady. Whatever the case, what is for sure is that gender oppression is generated somewhere beyond this exact power where it is acquired. In this sense, all efforts to achieve the warped sense of “gender equality” are simply calling to “positive discrimination”, clearly not understanding nor wanting to understand the normative categorizations in the pursuit of maintining the gender exploitation that we have historically lived.

Ramona 

Tras el mundial que paso ya hace algún tiempo, me quedaron algunos pensamientos dando vueltas por mi cabeza. Mis dudas partieron mientras veía el noticiero de la tarde donde dos comentarista hablaban sobre el rendimiento de los deportistas en diferentes ámbitos, entre sus descripciones algo obvias , me llamo la estación de pronto un comentario que salto  desde uno de los   despreocupados periodistas : Hoy en día  las mujeres están  en todos los deportes  incluso hay mujeres que hacen lucha… Entonces me cuestioné  qué tanto resultado había dado el esfuerzo de  habernos tomado los espacios en búsqueda de  esta supuesta paridad  al  practicar los mismos deportes ,  si a fin de cuentas se  caía  en la misma línea de establecer entre la chica que hace nado sincronizado , de otra que hace pesas o de un chico que hace gimnasia artística de otro que hace atletismo por ejemplo. Entonces se dan ciertas ideas  performativas (performance en la cual Butler afirma que con  nuestros actos  creamos nuestra propia identidad de género) que se manifiestan en los repertorios de las personas cuando relacionan más un tipo de deporte más para mujeres o   más para hombres.

Mas tarde navegando por internet, vi en los titulares de algunas páginas noticiosas,  donde  la idea  anterior se va repitiendo, pero de otra forma. Aquí me encontré con una noticia sobre cuales eran las deportistas mas guapas de las olimpiadas, entonces  comenzaban halagando  los sensuales ojos de tal , el voluminosos trasero de otra  y las excitantes piernas de aquella tenista etc. Como si al final el merito no se  lo llevara el esfuerzo, la pación o la perseverancia que estas deportistas le imprimían a cada competencia, sino  el rasgo accesorio de su belleza. Entonces me cuestione si al final, habíamos ganado terreno al practicar  los mismos deportes  que los hombres, o simplemente habíamos cambiado la forma, pero no el fondo, dado que seguimos percibiendo las mismas diferencias de siempre, solo que camufladas con un lindo eslogan de aquí somos todos iguales.

Todo esto me hizo sentido con el contraste que se ven en Chile  respecto al deporte, ya que hace algún tiempo salió el resultado de una prueba ( SIMCE) que se hace en los colegios para medir el rendimiento de los alumnos e variadas áreas , una de ellas el deporte. Si bien esta prueba tiene muchas deficiencias, al menos sirve  para analizar algunos de los aspectos generales la maltrecha  educación de este país (tema larguísimo para debatir). Lo que se observó entre otras cosas, en esa  ocasión fue que el resultado de las niñas, en las pruebas de educación física ( deportivas), fue bastante peor al de los niños.  Lo interesante es ver si esto tiene  o no relación con lo anterior. No tengo en realidad una hipótesis muy acabada de esto, aun  que  quizás podríamos decir  que  la representación que nos hacemos de nuestros cuerpos y a la vez de nuestro rol como personas en esta sociedad,  muchas veces  por  falta incentivos ( la educación misma en los colegios muchas veces es para esto como en otros ámbitos también muy sexista) se  torna poco activa en el amplio sentido de la palabra.

El deporte es uno de los muchos ámbitos de los cuales aun nos queda mucho por avanzar, por que si bien proclamamos  en la actualidad una revolución que equipara  el poder de los géneros en todos los aspectos de la vida, esto  se da  muchas veces de forma y no de fondo. Entonces hace falta que  cambiemos  nuestros paradigmas  sobre lo que se  debe  o se espera de cada mujer o cada hombre, por que no  somos un todo sino un mosaico de atributos ( etnias, clases, edades, religiones…)  Para percibir esto  es necesario que  desempañemos nuestros lentes  y nos pongamos serios cuando  tratamos de  hablar  sobre el significado de igualdad, por que hoy solo vemos los contornos difusos que a dejado un largo camino que aun mucho por  recorrer.

Escafandra

After the World Cup that happened a while ago, I was left with some thoughts running around my head. My doubts started when I saw two reporters discussing different athletes, between their somewhat obvious descriptions, my attention was immediately drawn to a comment with came from a careless journalist: “Today women are in all sports, there are even women in boxing…”  so I asked myself what sorts of efforts we had to go through to come to this supposed egalitarian place where we can practice the same sports, if in fact we have come to a place where a girl who does synchronized swimming, one who lifts weights or a boy who does rhythmic gymnastics and another who does track for example. Then this gives us certain performative ideas (performance in the sense that Butler affirms with our acts we create our own gender identity) that manifests itself in the reports of the people when we relate a type of sport as being more for women or more for men.

Later I was surfing the internet and I saw the headlines of a few news pages, where the above idea went on repeating itself, but in another way. There I found an article about which of the female athletes in the Olympics were the most beautiful, and then went on complimenting their sensual eyes, their voluptuous butt of another, and the exceptional legs of a certain tennis player, etc. As if in the end their effort was of no real merit, the passion or the perseverance that these athletes showed in every competition, but instead the characteristics of their beauty. Then I asked myself if at the end we had really gained any ground in the rights to practice the same sports as men, or if we had only changed the way in which it is done, but not in the background, given that we keep on perceiving the same differences as always, only that they are camouflaged with a cute slogan saying that we are all equal here.  

All of this made sense to me in regard to the contrast that we see in Chile in respecto to sports, now that it has been some time since I have taken the test (SIMCE) that they do in high schools to measure the performance of students in a variety of areas, one of them being sports. Although this test has many shortcomings, it at least serves to analize some of the general aspects of the terrible education system in this country (a huge topic to debate). What has been observed, among other things, is that in the cases of this test the girls, in physical education, were significantly worse than the boys. It would be interesting to see if this has anything to do with what I said above. I do not really have a hypothesis very well developed, we could maybe even say that the representation that the representation that we have of our bodies as well as our roles as women in society many times cause a lack of incentives (the education itself in schools many times is very sexist as in other spaces) and they become inactive in the broad sense of the word.

Athletics is one of the many areas in which we still have a long way to advance, because if we can really proclaim that the revolution that has resulted in equality between genders in all aspects of life, this happens more time in form but not in substance. So we still have to change our paradigns about what a woman should be expected from every woman or every man, because we are not all a mosaic of attributes (ethnicities, classes, ages, religions…). To perceive this it is necessary to put on our spectacles get serious when we talk about the meaning of equality, because today we only see the blurred lines that have left us with a long way to go.

Escafandra

La María y yo nos llevamos demasiado bien. Ella siempre me acompaña en mis mejores momentos, me ayuda a aumentar mi creatividad, me hace reír, y me mejora el apetito. Yo soy una de esas minas a las que les gusta la maría, incluso al nivel de ser llamada con  cuanto apodo exista. Y yo, orgullosa dejo que me llamen yerbona, pues así me he aprendido a manejar por la vida, sin gotitas para los ojos, sin que me importe parecer que estoy bajo sus efectos, sin miedo.

Lo anterior tiene, como todo, una historia y un origen. Yo había probado la bendita cuando estaba en el colegio, claro que en otro contexto. Después de probarlo un par de veces y decidir casi categóricamente que simplemente “esto no era para mi”, por ciertas cosas de la vida, me volvi a rencontrar con la María. Pero esta vez, no era la que yo conocía antes, ahora yo había madurado un poco, y descubrí excelentes momentos junto a ella, casi siempre vinculados con la compañía de gente grata. Poco a poco me fui acercando más a ella, hasta formar lo que hoy día llamo una excelente amistad, casi un compromiso.

Ser yerbona entonces, ya que me defino así sin trabalenguas, me obliga necesariamente a preguntarme: ¿Qué significa ser yerbona, particularmente en Chile?. Yo diré, que hoy por hoy, y en muchos aspectos, significa libertad. La weed te aumenta la creatividad, te hace relajarte, pensar cosas muchas veces positivas, mearte de la risa, y eventualmente, cambiar tu forma de pensar. Luego, te relacionas con otra gente que hace lo mismo, y lo pasas tan bien, que comienzas a realmente disfrutar de esos momentos que tuviste, tan agradables, gracias  a la maría. Cómo no querer a maría entonces, si mi mundo está objetivamente mejor desde antes de conocerla, y no es webeo.  Sin querer entrometerme tanto en el asunto, sólo diré que para una yerbona en Chile, la vida no es nada fácil, pues primero, hay cierta masculinización en el uso de la droga todavía permanente, que recae necesariamente sobre categorizaciones de género, pero además, esta el típico prejuicio del Marihuanero entre rasta y artesa, que habla como hablan los volaos, anda destartalado y básicamente no se baña y no piensa. Ciertamente estamos claros con que la subcultura hippie y natural se identifica plenamente con esta sustancia, pero no seamos ingenuos, no son los únicos que la utilizan.

Pero ojo, no porque sea una mujer yerbona voy a decir que siempre fumarse uno está bien. Estoy consciente de los daños que inhalar humo hacen, y que el consumo en ciertas personas de Cannabis está contraindicado ante ciertas situaciones. Pues no por ser yerbona siempre  voy a defender a la María,  y pensar que hace todo bien, por supuesto que no. Simplemente pienso, que grandes cosas que son parte de mi persona, se las debo a ella, y que, pese a que muchas veces la maría se equivoca, me ha dado tantos buenos momentos, que no puedo sino agradecer su existencia. Ciertamente que exista hace que este mundo sea un poquitito más soportable. Mi consejo para todas y todos los que me leen entonces, por añadidura es: Fúmense un pito, porfavor.

Ramona 

Maria and I get along very well. She is always there for me in my best moments, she helps me to augment my creativity, she makes me laugh, and she makes my appetite better. I am one of those chicks who likes Maria, even at the level that it means being called every nickname that exists. And I, I am proud that they call me a pothead, and it is in this way that I have learned to go through life, without tears in my eyes, without caring about seeming to be under its effects, without fear.

The above has, as everything, a history and an origin. I had tried the good girl act when I was in high school, obviously in another context. After trying it a couple of times I decided almost categorically that it simply, “this was not for me”, and for a few reasons in my life, I returned to meeting up with Maria. But this time, she was not the girl that I had known before, now she had matured a little, and I discovered myself having excellent times together with her, almost always in pleasant company. Little by little I got closer to her, until the point that today I call what we have an excellent friendship, almost a commitment to each other.

Being a pothead then, now that I define myself as such without problems, obliges me necessarily to ask myself: what does it mean to be a pothead, particularly in Chile? I say that today is for today, and in many aspects, it means liberty. Weed augments your creativity, it makes you relax, it makes you think in thinks that are very often positive, it makes you laugh, and eventually, it changes your way of thinking. Later, you get together with other people who do the same, and you pass it so well, that you being to really enjoy those moments that you had, so pleasant, thanks to Maria. How could I not want Maria then?, if my world is objectively better since I met her, and it is not a shithole. Without wanting to intrude much in the matter, I only will say that to be a pothead in Chile, life is not easy. First, there is a certain masculinization in using the drug still prevalent, that is necessarily incumbent in gender categorization, but additionally, there is the typical prejudice against the stoner between rasta and artist, who talk like the volaos talk, go around disgusted and basically do not bathe and do not think. Certainly we are clear about what the hippy subculture is and naturally we can identify plainly with what is this substance, but we do not want to be naive, they are not the only ones who use it.

But look, it is not because I am a woman pothead that I am going to say that always smoking one will be fine. I am conscious of the dangers that inhaling smoke has, and that the consumption in certain people of cannabis is contraindicated in certain situations. So it is not because I am a pothead that I am always going to defend Maria, and think that she does everything well, surely not. I only think, that they are great things that are part of my person, and they are things that I owe to her, and that, even though many times Maria messes up, she has given me so many good times, that I cannot but thank her existence. Certainly she makes the world a little more bearable. My advice to all who read this then, moreover is: smoke a joint, please. 

Ramona