Today* is International Woman’s Day.  It is actually quite a big deal here in Peru.  Everyone says “Feliz Dia de la Mujer” (Happy Women’s Day) and people have lunches etc.  In one way this warms my heart.  In another I find infuriating.  It feels so false, words without action in a culture that is so macho.  It is one of the things that I find most difficult about living here.  Here is why.

Almost all the men have very little involvement in raising the children and even less in housework.  Whenever people see Martin caring for Nina or cooking they say to me, “Martin helps you a lot doesn’t he?”  While I am grateful for Martin and express that I also  keep trying to say to people, “it’s not that Martin helps me, it’s his house and his daughter as well”.  Why is it that any man who does stuff around the house or looks after his child is seen as “helping his wife” not just his duty like it is hers.

Infidelity is unbelievably common place among men.  In general people wouldn’t say this is “right” but they consider that it’s normal for men who mostly cannot help themselves.  People tend to just laugh about it and men who have various partners do get a certai amount of respect.  On the other hand if a woman is unfaithful there is no respect for her and there are hundreds of derogatory terms for her.  Women even share this view.  One of my very educated female friends told me that her father cheating on her mother is not good but normal, whereas if her mother ever did she “could never look at her again”

As a doula one of the issues most close to my heart is that women have almost no rights to choose the way they birth.  They give birth with their legs up in stirrups and episiotomies (cuts to the perinium) are routine.  My nurse friend even told me that for men from certain communities, if a daughter is born they do not even acknowledge her as their own.

I have on occasion met with some female friends in the home of one the women.  It’s nice but I mentioned that maybe we could have a drink somewhere in one of the “cantinas” (closest equivalent is bar).  However, I was informed that a group of women having a drink there would be seen as provacative.  What???

I run to the pool in the mornings and the comments and carry on that are directed at me are certainly not what you would call respectful.

I could keep going on but it’s bed time and you get the point.  But I guess I will have a “Feliz Dia de la mujer” when women are actually given equal respect and rights here in Peru and in the rest of the world.

*It was actually yesterday but I wrote most of this then but didn’t finish it as some family came over for dinner to celebrate International Womens Day.  The conversation eventually landed on driving and how women can’t drive.  Happy Day Women Drivers???