If you’re a woman and you’re traveled through Latin America, you can already guess where this is going. If you haven’t been through Latin America or you’re a traditional-looking man, let me regale you with some tales.
I’ve now been in South America for the past two and a half months. The first month was spent in Patagonia, by myself, and the past month and half has been spent in Buenos Aires. One might imagine that while traveling solo, as a 21 year-old woman, I would have received a significant amount of catcalling or male attention, but that is not what I experienced. On the contrary, my time in Patagonia was far more comfortable in that aspect than my time in Buenos Aires.
In English we call it catcalling. In reality, what I get in BA is much more aggressive than anything I’ve received in the US that I would call catcalling. In Spanish, the men who throw these lovely words my way are called “piropos,” but for the purposes of this rant we’ll go with catcalling. Not a single day has passed since I began living in Buenos Aires that I haven’t been catcalled. Let that sink in for a second. Not one day. When I walk the one hundred feet from the door of my apartment building to the bus stop, as I do almost every weekday morning, a man will mutter something about me being “hermosa” (beautiful) as he passes me. When I wait at that bus stop for the five or ten minutes that I spend there every morning, a man will walk by and tell me how he wishes he was going where I’m going. When I get off the bus and walk to class, one will tell me he loves how short my dress is. Bus drivers blow me kisses as I cross the street in front of them. I’m aware that these sound like small things, just little words that shouldn’t matter, but I’ve had “hermosa” muttered at me so many times that the words has practically lost meaning for me. The piropos here are direct and mentally violating in a way that I haven’t experienced in the US. They lock eyes with you as you walk by and get closer to you to be sure that you hear whatever “compliment” they’re throwing at you. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s unnerving. It pisses me off. It makes me wish I wore a longer dress, it makes me wish they wouldn’t look at me. In no way do I feel complimented.
They’re not all “hermosa” and intense stares. Let me recount three experiences I had this past weekend as I walked down the street. 1. A man told me in no uncertain terms what he’d like to do to me as I passed him on the sidewalk. 2. Two guys sitting in a doorway yelled at me as I approached, and as I passed them, one loudly told me where I should be putting my tongue. 3. As I crossed a street, a man on the corner opposite me made a long, horrible, drawn out sucking noise that was more reminiscent of a dementor than any sort of human kissing noise. These all happened within two consecutive nights. Just one weekend. The tongue comment was probably the worst one I’ve gotten so far, but in no way were these two nights outliers in terms of catcalling. No, they are the norm, just another weekend. “Not a big deal,” you may say. “They’re just talking to you, they’re not doing anything.” But when I’m walking home at night, alone, there is always that tickle in the back of my mind. Are they just going to yell at me, or are they going to get up and follow me? Now I should say that I’ve never felt truly unsafe in BA. I walk alone, at night, and have never felt afraid. There are nearly always other people on the street, the streets are lit, and police cars drive by often. But I always wonder, and the piropos always put me on edge, to the point that when I walk home alone at night I look behind my shoulder probably every other block. When I walk down the street, I don’t want to walk too close to the buildings because men lurk in the dark doorways, but I don’t want to walk too close to the street because cars full of men with their windows rolled down swerve over to the sidewalk to yell at me (both of these things have happened to me more than once). I see guys going on runs in the late evenings, with headphones in, and think about what a luxury that must be to not have to worry about not being able to hear your surroundings when it’s dark out. I imagine a man doesn’t think twice about how far away from the doorways he should walk. Sure, I’ve experienced catcalling before, but Buenos Aires has brought it to a different level for me, so much so that there are times I resent being a woman. I resent the fact that there are times I arrive to dinner or to the bar in a pissed off mood because of the piropos I’ve dealt with on the walk over. I resent the fact that I can’t fully enjoy a nice stroll through my perfectly lovely neighborhood after dark. I resent the fact that when a passing man locks eyes with me and mutters his words of choice, my mood immediately worsens. I resent the fact that when I leave the bar and walk home alone my friends make sure that I’ll let them know I arrived home safely, but when the boys leave, there’s no such concern. I resent the fact that I never say anything back to the piropos for fear that they will escalate from words to actions.
I’ve been in BA for a month a half and will be here for another two months. I’m not really a city person, but I feel comfortable here, I like being here, I love Buenos Aires. So I while I hate the comments they throw at me, really I resent the fact that the piropos are tainting my experience of being a woman in this city.
Keep it Crunchy 
I lived in Buenos Aires for a year and yes, this is very much a reality. It’s why the refer to themselves as “warm” people but it’s really just a nuisance. My only advice to you is to try and ignored them. Don’t give it a moment’s thought. At the end of the day, it’s their problem not yours.