‘We were told feminism meant being a bad wife and a bad mom’

There are those who say that feminism is without reason. “American women have jobs,” they say, “American women get paid almost the same.” While these statements may have truth to them, feminism is not a middle class American focused concept. The idea of political, social and economic equality of the sexes must expand beyond the American white picket fence into the barrios of Colombia, to the streets of Madrid.

My mom grew up in Cali, Colombia, attended college in Spain, and then moved to the United States. I always wondered if I was brought up differently from my classmates because my mother lived in three countries growing up. I decided to ask her about her experience with sexism, feminism and “machismo.” Here is my mom’s experience.

Growing up in Colombia as a woman, did you experience sexism? What was your expected role? Did you know about feminism?

Yes, I experienced lots of sexism growing up in Colombia. From a very early age, I was taught that men and women were very different. Men were superior in every way: smart, logical and powerful. Women were there to please men and were inferior: stupid, submissive and emotional. The expectation was that women were to take care of themselves and look pretty no matter what it took (exercise, extreme diets, pills, plastic surgery) to keep their man happy. Men had to get a great education and provide for their families but they didn’t necessarily need to be involved with the children or be faithful to their wives because men’s nature is just to stray.

My BEAUTIFUL momma

These roles come from the traditional Latino values, machismo and marianismo. Machismo is the idea that men need to be providers, protectors and defenders of the family, can be sexually aggressive, dominant and arrogant. Marianismo encourages Latina women to look at the Virgin Maria as a role model of the ideal woman: someone self-sacrificing, spiritually strong, nurturing and a virgin until marriage.

What this meant for me is that I grew up in a household were there was domestic violence. It also meant that I was very self conscious, insecure and unaccepting of my body. It meant that I learned to hate my body, go on extreme diets and have an unhealthy relationship with food. All of this because I grew up in an environment were my body was public property: I walked through the streets and I was whistled at by all kinds of men and I was criticized by other women.

My mom and grandma

When it comes to education, women that are from higher socioeconomic status are expected to go to college to keep up appearances but are not expected to work unless they have to. If they do decide to work, they get paid less money and certainly don’t have access to the same opportunities than men.

I knew a bit about feminism, I learned about it in High School and college because I went to expensive private schools. However, these were concepts that did not apply to our country, our culture, our family. We were told feminism meant being a bad wife and a bad mom so I stayed away from it. When I was a pregnant teen mom, nobody told your dad it was his responsibility to raise you. They expected me to take it on and I did gladly.

Did you have strong female influences/role models growing up?

Growing up my female role model was Mother Theresa. I grew up in a very Catholic environment and she was considered the number one female after the Virgin Mary. I admired her self-sacrifice and always dreamt (still do) of going to a third world country, volunteering and helping people. All my other female role models were messed up (models, celebrities, etc.) so it was contradictory and confusing.

Me at my finest (cow costume) with my wonderful mom

Did Spain differ from Colombia in terms of sexism?

Spain was different from Colombia. Spain is a more developed and modernized country and it has European influences so women have a lot more freedom there. They are respected more, expected to pay for their own share of meals during dates, expected to work and have a career, etc. There is still a bit of machismo but NO Marianismo. I was surprised to see that women barely cooked, didn’t take care of their kids and had a career without guilt. It was surprising and refreshing for me. I do think that for Spanish women it is less of an issue, more like the US although there is still gender inequality.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

Right now I do consider myself a feminist, but it took me a long time to get there. As I was typing this response, I had a visceral response because I was raised to see feminism as something negative. It is important to understand that feminism is not about putting men down, saying that we are all the same, blaming all men, telling men not to be nice to women, ignoring the struggles that men go through, so ignoring female privilege and male oppression.

If you think of feminism as equality for ALL genders, acknowledging ALL oppression, encouraging men and women to treat each other with respect, discouraging domestic violence, being nice to each other, then yes I am a feminist.

Through the years, I have learned to see gender as a spectrum not as a female/male dichotomy maybe due to the fact that the work that I do includes people that self-identify in many different ways so ‘feminist’ doesn’t really cut it for me anymore, although I know that the current feminist model advocates for gender equality. I would like to see another word conceptualized that represents all these concepts that doesn’t come from the gender binary.

I certainly want to raise my children and apply feminist ideologies in my own life.

How does the US differ from Colombia/Spain?

The US is so different from Colombia and Spain! I think the main difference is that people here are making an attempt to change things, are fighting for their rights and know better than to just sit on the sidelines. Hispanic cultures need to learn to be more active in their approach. Spain and Colombia are very behind on basic things like reproductive rights: access to birth control, abortion, etc. When it comes to sexual and physical abuse, it goes greatly unpunished in those countries while at least in the U.S. something happens.

Although the US is number five in the gender inequality index, there is a lot of room for improvement especially when it comes to gender inequality in the work place.

Thank you so much to my wonderful, strong and intelligent mom for agreeing to be interviewed and featured on The Tab. I couldn’t have asked for a better role model, inspiration, and guide through the messy and confusing existence that is being a Latino woman.

I have faith in our generation. I have faith that we can move past the Anglo-American centered ideas of feminism. If my mother can learn and move past the visceral response to the word “feminist,” so can we.