Why I Resent Being A Woman in Buenos Aires

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.

Patagonia: Santiago to Pucón to Bariloche

Hey there!

On the 25th I took off from the U.S. and landed in Santiago, Chile the next day. It’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and Santiago was hot and muggy when I arrived. I spent the day checking in to my hostel and running around buying bus tickets and
groceries. I spent the evening drinking beer with two guys from Australia and Ireland and a woman from London who I met in my hostel.

I was off the next day to Pucón, Chile, via bus. Pucón is an outdoorsy town located at the foot of the Pucón volcano, whose snowy cap is always visible from town. Unfortunately it was only a stop over town for me. I would have liked to stay longer. It felt a little like a Colorado town to me. I stayed at a hostel called Ecole which was very cozy. I was greeted by an almost overly friendly front desk man who was so impressed by how strong I was for such a little girl that he felt the urge to arm wrestle me before I went to bed and while I ate breakfast the next morning. It was funny the first time. The second time, I was just trying to eat my breakfast in peace.

I spent Wednesday getting from Pucón to San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina. I first took a bus from Pucón to Osorno and then from Osorno to Bariloche. I made a friend on the second bus ride: an American massage therapist named Adam. He lives in San Francisco, where my sister lives, and his sister lives in Albuquerque, where I’m from. It’s a small world. We chatted most of the ride about our previous travels. He was in the last three weeks of a three month swing through South America and had many tales to tell. Going from Osorno to Bariloche involves crossing the border into Argentina, which was pretty straight forward and convinced me that it seems pretty easy to both sneak in to the country and smuggle something in. At the border I also met a Polish couple who were biking down South America. They started in Mexico and it had taken them 11 months to get that far. Super cool. The woman’s legs made me want to hop on a bike ASAP.

I arrived in Bariloche late Wednesday evening and Adam and I walked to my hostel, where we bid adieu. I’m still confused about the name of where I’m staying but it has the words “Hostel,” “Home,” and “Patagonia” in it in some sort of combination. It’s a cool building with a bar in the basement and everybody seems to know each other and have been here for a while, which is sort of confusing to me. There are also BUTT LOADS of Israelis. Classic South America. Young Israelis everywhere I go.

This morning, Thursday, I went out and did something illegal. That is, I exchanged US dollars for Argentine pesos on the blue rate. If you don’t know, there are two exchange rates. The official one, perpetuated by the banks and blah blah, and the blue rate, which is better for those with dollars. It’s widely used but technically illegal. Basically, you walk down the street and guys yell “Cambio!” You approach them, tell them you wanna deal, and then you go into a nearby shop and do the deed. It was uber simple, in my experience. I approached a young guy who looked about my age and told him I wanted to exchange dollars. He was perfectly nice and introduced himself as Jose. We went into a nearby shop, he showed me the calculations on a calculator, and we exchanged money (mom, don’t worry, I checked that he gave me the right amount). He told me that if I had any questions about anything in Bariloche, I should come ask him, and then I was on my way. The whole interaction took no more than five minutes.
After getting Argentine money, I walked out of town for a while to approach the foot of Cerro Otto, a nearby small mountain that is a sky resort in the winter. Approaching the base, two young Argentine guys and I were both looking for the beginning of the trail. We found it and hiked it together. One point to me for making friends. Another point to me for talking with them in Spanish the whole time and getting along pretty well. Argentine Spanish is utter ridiculousness. It’s fast and slurred and weird, so that’s nice to look forward to until mid-June. We had a lovely hike. Bariloche sits on the banks of a beautiful lake, and the views from the top were incredible. There were mountain peaks and lakes everywhere I looked, and the sky was pure blue, without a cloud in sight. Hiking through the woods reminded me of higher elevations in New Mexico or Colorado. It was interesting to be in such a foreign place but still smell that piney forest smell I’m used to.
Tonight I might go have a beer before packing up again for my bus ride to El Chalten, Argentina, tomorrow. I’ll spend almost 24 hours (blahg) going further south, where I’ll later do a trek around the famous Fitz Roy massifs.