Las Chilenas

**This is the second in a series of posts in which various bloggers around Chile write on the same topic. The previous topic was Chilean men; the current one is Chilean women. Check out "Just Married Chilean Style" for links to the other blog posts.**

This topic was set for Friday. I've been dragging my feet about it because, frankly, there's a lot of animosity amongst gringas towards chilenas and I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to participate in this topic. After thinking a bit, though, I do think I'd like to throw in my two cents on precisely that aspect of things.

Gringas in Chile tend to paint the following image of chilenas: catty, cloistered, competitive, fashion-challenged, and unfriendly. I don't agree, but I do understand where this perspective comes from, and why it's so universally held. I have had a few run-ins with the type of behavior that inspires this stereotype, and it can be excessive. In the incident that first comes to mind, I was at a bar with a chileno friend, two of his male friends, and their two girlfriends. We were all sitting around the table talking, and although the girls weren't being super friendly towards me, they were behaving pretty normally. Then the guys got up to get another round of drinks. Immediately, I became invisible. The girls pointedly stopped talking to me, to the point where they didn't respond when I tried to speak to them. When the guys reappeared, they went back to normal. It was the most outrageous thing that has happened to me in a social setting since puberty (and its accompanying insanity) passed. I bawled my eyes out about it when I got home that night. It was petty, it was mean, and it made me feel like I would never make friends in this country.

Incidents like this are the fuel for the anti-chilena machine. Are they ridiculous? Yes. Do they happen to me here more than at home? Yes. Are they the province of chilenas alone? No.

The thing is, chilenas are just like women everywhere in the sense that at their best, they are warm, caring, and nurturing. At their worst they are territorial and barbed towards other women. The problem is that as extranjeras, we gringas are more likely to encounter the latter behavior.

Why? Because women everywhere can be suspicious of other women. There are various situations and instances which make this more likely to happen, and the gringa-chilena relationship often stumbles onto a few of them.

The first factor, shall we call it, is that both men and women are often less open when they are with their closest friends. If I'm hanging around with my favorite people, you just don't seem as cool. Nor do I feel particularly obliged to hang out with you, because I'm already having a fine time. In Chile, this situation is far more likely to happen than in the United States, because people here are almost always in the company of their nearest and dearest. The itinerant, transitory north american lifestyle is just not the norm here. People do not move away from home for university; they are less likely to move to a new city for a job; they are more emotionally tied to their families and so tend to stay close; and they just plain don't have as many places to go. In the US, when we hit maturity there is the expectation that we will go out into the world and find our own unique place. This is facilitated by the fact that we can move to any one of dozens and dozens of cities, across an astonishingly large territory, without so much as getting a new form of identification. Here, the economy is very much centralized based on sector. Fishing? Head south. Mining? Head north. Office work? Santiago. All of these things combine to create a society where people grow up with the same friends throughout their lives. So when you meet a chilena, the people she is with most likely remember how she wore her hair as an eight year old. That's a lot of history to compete with; I hope you've got a good opening joke. Santaguinos (both men and women) who have moved to the coast have told me that they have the same problem breaking into friend circles.

The second factor is that both men and women are more threatened by people who are different from them. Period. Sad but true, worldwide. Ask any immigrant, anywhere. Add to this that Chile is known for its racism, isolationism, and distrust, and you have a culture that is going to be even less receptive towards outsiders. This is a cultural trait, but it is not restricted to the women.

The third is that foreigners take more work to hang out with. Cross-cultural friendships involve incorporating different perspectives on major issues, behaviors that may strike you as odd, different attitudes towards friendships, and a host of other complications. This is worth it a) if you are interested in international perspectives or b) if you are particularly interested in the person, or both. However, for a lot of people, I could see why it might just be easier to stick to people who think like you do, laugh at the same things, and have experienced similar things. It's not my style, but I understand it.

Finally, a lot of gringas in Chile are dating chilenos. Some came here for their chileno; some came alone and ended up involved in a relationship. This is normal, fun, and wonderful for those who have found love. However, this is factor number four. You will notice that the story I told about my own bad experience happened when I was in the company of a chileno. The thing is that women, in any culture, are far more likely to be awful to one another when there are men in the picture. This is something that I find incredibly sad about my gender, but it's not unique to Chile. We women are territorial about our male friends, about our boyfriends, about our brothers. When a new woman enters a mixed-gender group of friends, she is going to have a much harder time winning over the girls than the guys. They are going to want to know what her intentions are. They are going to make snap judgements about whether she is "worth" their friend's time. If they are single, they might see her as a threat or an interloper.

This is something that makes me incredibly sad every time that I see it. For instance, consider the classic example: a woman's boyfriend cheats on her. What does she do? She finds the other girl, calls her a slut, denounces her to everyone within earshot, cries a lot, forces her boyfriend to denounce the other girl as well, and then slowly rebuilds her relationship with him. The boyfriend is the one who broke a promise and a confidence, but he is absolved because the two women take it out on one another.

It's depressing, and it's a trait that we need to abandon as a gender if we ever want to fully rise to equality.

But is it something that chilenas have a monopoly on? No.

I'm not saying that it's easy to make friends with chilenas. This is a very closed society. However, it's not easy to make friends with chilenos, either. In six months I have been approached by far more chilenos than chilenas, sure. But they're not interested in being my friend, they want something from me. Specifically, either to become attached to my hip, or to take me home for the night. That hardly qualifies as friendly in my book. Meanwhile, the few chilenas who have made an effort towards me do so out of honest friendliness. With my Spanish, anyone who's willing to beast their way through a conversation with me with no specific benefit in mind has got to be a genuinely nice person.

Basically, this reminds me of something a professor told me when I lived in France. France, also, is a closed society, and my language classmates and I were complaining about not being able to make friends with the other students.

"I lived in the United States for one year," she said, roughly, "and at first I thought everyone was so nice. Everyone invited me out, took me places, talked to me...it was great. Except that was it. They weren't really my friends. It was all superficial. At the end of the year, after all of that, I had two real friends, people I could really count on. Here, no one will initiate a friendship with you like in the US. But when they do, it's because they mean it. So, at the end of the year, you'll probably have two friends, and they'll be real friends. It's a different style, but in the end, people are people, and you'll make connections with the same amount of people no matter where you live."

Piropos, in depth

So I was reading another blog, and there was a post about piropos. These are the antics of men in the street who get their kicks by bothering women in any number of ways, ranging from benign comments about prettiness, to obscene gestures and lewd remarks, to hissing and high decibal kissy noises. Read all about it from my first rant on the subject. Anyhow, this blog post that I was reading is specifically related to a very layered question: should you respond to these men? --in a negative fashion, claro, if you want to take them up on their offers that's your business.

I found the post very interesting but even more so the comments. I started to write one of my own but soon found it was turning into a post in its own right, so here I am.

In my own life, I tend not to respond to the running commentary. As I mentioned in my previous post on the topic, it's pretty constant. I'm hoping it will ebb some in the summer when the tourists come, but at least this winter being a blond has made me an exceptionally easy target. I just look strange, and that grabs attention. I don't have it with me but at some point in her memoir "My Imagined Country," Isabel Allende makes the comment that men in Chile will go crazy over a blond woman "even if she has the face of an iguana." Add to that, "if she is wearing sweats," "if she hasn't showered in three days," "if she looks like she hates the world," and "if she is in the company of her father," and you get the idea. I am very jealous of a certain short brunette friend who can "pass," as they used to say in a very different context. She frequently notes how much more annoying it is when I'm around. Of course, that statement holds true for a lot of things, but in this instance it's not my fault. In any event, if I were to respond to all of these jerks, I would spend as much of my time engaged in this sport as they do, and I truly would not wish that on anyone.

I agreed with one strategy that was mentioned, which is essentially to give them a look that reads, "oh how pathetic." Luckily I do this pretty naturally so it doesn't take too much effort. I do worry occasionally about some undiscovered link between excessive eye-rolling and future cataracts. Otherwise though, a pretty efficient approach. I will say, though, that I have a sort of knee-jerk reaction sometimes (generally after a hiss or a kissy noise--oh how I hate the kissy noise). This reaction generally involves me stiffening my arms, extending my fingers in some sort of cat-arching-its-back imitation, and letting out a ridiculously aggrieved noise which generally startles whomever I'm walking with. Ocasionally there are obscenities involved. I suppose there must just be a slow build-up that gets let out every once in a while.

While I was reading other people's perspectives, I began to realize what a multi-faceted issue this is. First, there was one comment that mentioned that gringas on vacation who go for the "latin lover" stereotype create much of this problem, at least for other gringas. I disagree with this very intensely. I understand that we are seen as "loose," as it was put, on much of this continent. Girls from the US are seen that way in a lot of Europe, as well. Honestly, this doesn't bother me--in fact, I think that plenty of us are more liberal in our sexual lives than many women here are. There is definitely a different attitude towards sex in the US and here, and I think that's just fine. Yay for difference, and acceptance of difference. Anyhow, what some gringas do or do not do in their personal lives has absolutely nothing to do with what some creep can say to me on the street. That to me is just an extension of the notorious "she was asking for it" logic. The thing is, when was the last time a guy yelled at a woman with the idea that she might sleep with him? These men know they're doing nothing but harassing us. I have a much higher tolerance for sleazy guys who hit on me in bars than I do for the street guys--at least the former have some aim involved other than impressing their friends and making my life unpleasant.

However, there's also another side to this, I realized. It was also suggested that gringas talk to Chilenas and tell them to fight back. The problem with this is, I don't think that's our place. In fact, I don't think it's warranted. I've had enough Chilenas (and French women, who live in a similar environment catcall-wise) tell me that they like the comments that I'm pretty convinced that this is a cultural issue, beyond being a gender issue. Yes, it is a very sexual thing. However, this is also a very sexual culture, compared to my own. And going back to what I said above, that's just fine. Gringas might be more inclined to have casual sex for pleasure--that does not make them sluts, or loose, or any other such obnoxious label. Chilenas may be more inclined to enjoy a sexualized relationship between the genders as a whole--that does not make them degraded, unless they fel that way, which I have not found that they do. Those who don't love the comments tend to find them harmless or at worse slightly annoying.

So, where does this leave us? In my opinion, to each her own. I hate the comments; when I walk towards a group of ogling guys that I can't avoid my stomach hits the pavement. So I will continue to roll my eyes until they fall out of my head and occasionally yell out nonsensical frustrations. And more power to the all-out combatants; I sympathize completely. I don't think that this is a societal problem to be solved--I think this a culture clash that every irritated woman must put up with in her own way. As for equalization of rights, well, maybe around the same time that women in the US start having the ability to express themselves equally, women in Chile will be out there in the streets hissing away with the best of 'em. Gender progress takes many forms--to quote Paul Simon, who am I to blow against the wind?

Chilean men--or lack thereof

This post is part of a multi-blog blog (like that? an English teacher using a made-up word as both a noun and a verb in one sentence?). Essentially there are masses of us gringos blogging away here in Chile (there it is again). Why? Inexplicable. Maybe it's because you can't throw a stone here (if you were inclined to) without hitting one of Pablo Neruda's houses. Or maybe we're all just exhibitionists. Can't really say. I for one was entirely against the concept when I moved here (see post numero uno for proof). I like to write, though, and as I seemed unable to put pen to paper without going on for pages about emotional ups and downs, I figured measures needed to be taken to ensure that I would have some writing of value to represent my Chilean Years (as the book of my life will label them).

That's fab, Meredith, you may be thinking, but what's this multi-blog business? Or, you may be thinking, are you capable of writing a sentence without a parentheses in it?

To the point. A woman who writes a really interesting blog in Santiago has organized a project of having various Chile bloggers writing on the same subject all at once, then inter-linking the results. I think this could yield some really interesting results, so I'm jumping in and hoping to see more of this in the future. You can check out the other posts through her blog.

The topic for this particular post was set as "Chilean men." I sat down to think about what I had to add to this discussion, at first I thought, "not much."

I slowly realized though that that, in and of itself, is a bit of an oddity.

I came to Chile alone. I've been here for over six months and I am single. None of this is particularly shocking to me, other than the fact that I've managed to avoid starting a pointless relationship simply out of boredom (a vice of mine). Everyone else in the country, though, seems to be completely blindsided by my manless-ness.

It is apparently very difficult to stay single in this country. Walk into any park and you are in danger of tripping over a tangled couple. When my students talk about themselves, if there is a girlfriend or a boyfriend in the picture, you know about it by sentence number two, because every free time activity involves him or her. (sample conversation: Me: "What did you do last weekend?" Student: "I went to visit my boyfriend. I watched a movie with my boyfriend. I went walking with my boyfriend....") People's significant others call them and ask simply, "Where are you?" This is not a simple request for information...this is shorthand for "disclose your location, because I'm coming, and I don't intend to ask what you think about that because we are dating and therefore you want me present at every moment." Basically, codependency, like awkward, is not a word that would make sense here. It would translate roughly as "in a relationship."

In a climate like this, it makes sense that everyone who is not in a relationship tends to be actively seeking one with the intentness of a job hunter. I once had someone explain to me that he had recently ended a two year relationship, but he was ready to get back on the market because it had been over two weeks since the big break up. Plenty of alone time to think things over.

So when I say that I'm not really looking because I "recently ended a relationship," and then am pushed into disclosing that "recently" means six or seven months ago, people just think I'm out of my mind.

I should mention that one of the myriad of benefits of living in a machisto culture is that everyone I meet, particularly men, asks about my relationship status on first encounter. Even if I work with them. Even if I work for them, for that matter, or if I am their teacher. So this topic comes up pretty frequently.

Explaining that I am a disaster in the Spanish language (see: title bar of this blog) doesn't help me out much either. In the roughly translated words of one well-meaning interrogator (with whom I have a professional relationship which would have precluded this conversation in other countries): "What are you talking about?! You're very pretty! You don't need to be able to speak well!"

I actually prefer to be able to communicate with romantic partners, thanks. I'll leave my response at that because I'm sure you can imagine what the rest of it would be.

I had one private lesson that pretty much consisted of me spending 90 minutes, three times a week, explaining all of the ins and outs of my relationship status. No joke. I'd tell him to practice asking questions in the simple past, and the first one he'd come up with would be, "Why did you break up with your ex-boyfriend?"

The unintelligible quality of my single status comes from two main angles, as I see it. First, I'm 25, which means I should be husband-hunting based on common logic. A friend told me that she was recently reading a women's magazine which had conducted a survey in which Chilean women were asked what they were most afraid of. One of the top ten was not getting married. So when people hear that I'm not dating anyone, they go into a bit of empathetic panic. Some people I've talked to seem to equate my current state of mind as the equivalent of a near-suicidal giving-up on life.

Secondly, I'm a gringa. Living in Chile. But not because I am dating or married to a Chilean man. I've touched on this before: this is totally incomprehensible to 99% of people that I meet. To be fair, I myself know very few foreign women who are living in Chile for reasons other than a Chilean partner. Many came for other reasons, but stayed for a relationship. So the fact that I don't have a departure date OR a boyfriend is just an unreal combination.

Well, Chile, get used to it. I spent a whole bunch of years being completely undiscerning in my choice of men. The old criteria was pretty much: you're here, you like me, let's date. In short, when I was living in the United States, I dated like a Chilean. Now that I'm in Chile, I am planning to be picky and date like a gringa.