I have a couple things to share with you. One funny, another not very funny, but important. Another little window into life here:

A: So it turns out that "have a little experience under your belt" can easily be mistranslated as "have a little experience under the skirt". Not exactly the kind of translation mistake you should be making in front of 15 year-old boys. There was laughter, and distraction from the English lesson, but maybe they'll at least remember what it means. I hope. I'll admit it is pretty funny. I hope that people I work with in teaching English feel more comfortable making mistakes because they see me make them a lot. It's a learning process. A long one, and one that requires a little more attention to my words.

B: I spent Friday night dancing with a couple volunteer friends and a couple local friends in a "disco" a few towns away. It was a lot of fun getting out together, dancing and catching up. In addition to the fun we had, there was another important issue at play in our evening. Machismo.

I'm not crazy about (read: hate) all the male attention/cat calls/whistles/air kisses/degrading comments/etc. from the some of the men here, so Friday I wore high heels with the intention of being too tall to dance with. Seeing as they already call me "muy grande" or very big (to which I respond that I prefer "alta" or tall, it sounds nicer), I decided wearing heels would take it to another level and avoid some of the attention because they'd be too intimidated. Mission: Complete. I succeeded in being taller than all the females and 90% of the males. I find it fascinating how some men are so "brave" as to yell and talk at you in the street but would never have the guts to come and talk to you like a real person. I feel bad for women here, and anywhere, who have been taught that this is acceptable and that men are just do that. I feel terribly insulted when men do this to me on the street (read: every time I leave the house) and it's really frustrating that there is nothing I can do to stop it. Important note: it doesn't matter if I am looking disgusting and wearing terribly unflattering clothing, it still happens just because I'm female. It is so disrespectful and degrading. I am not just a figure to be checked out, I don't exist solely to be looked at, the comments are not complements they are degradation that reduces me from and intelligent, capable woman to an object and what is more...do you really think I would ever give a man who did things like that the time of day? Do some men think that women feel good because of the things they are yelling at them? Do they think they look more macho or more attractive because they are to scared of losing their feeling of superiority by actually talking to a woman and instead resort to cat calls/whistles/air kisses/degrading comments/etc.?

It is sad that women are taught that they have to put up with this kind of behavior and it's terribly frustrating that men are allowed to behave this way with no repercussions. There really is nothing I can do when I'm walking down the street. Sometimes when I walk by a man and he says something I say a strong "good day" and keep going, but that's not punishment. That won't teach him. What I do find interesting about that is that when I do say something, anything, in response the men are usually surprised that I responded at all and look a little embarrassed. They are not used to women "fighting back", be it in the smallest way. It is so hard to see this happen every day, to experience it, and to know that it's something that, be it bad enough on its own, is only a symptom of a much deeper problem.

Gender inequality is not a problem specific to here. A long fought battle continues in most of the world to correct the injustices done to women based on nothing more than the fact that they are female. In Costa Rica women have made inroads in many areas including the public labor force, education and politics (Heck, the president is a woman.); but despite this there is still a long road ahead to equality. Especially social equality. We can enact laws, impose quotas, pay them exactly the same, but until women are treated as equals in personal relationships, we're not there yet. I believe things are slowly changing, but I still see and feel the inequality that is the society here.

The majority of women where I live still stay at home caring for the family and the house. This is a completely legitimate job/lifestyle option for a person, but the operative word there is OPTION. In the majority of the cases it's not an option. Women don't have a choice of whether to go to work or stay home. It is expected of them to stay at home. If they have a child, they have to stay home and care for the child or figure out another arrangement. There is hardly ever a split of home or child-rearing responsibilities so women can do what they want to do. Men make their choices and women take care to the homes and have dinner on the table when the men get back. Even when women do have the opportunity to go to work the options are limited. There is the option to cook and clean for a family with more money than you, work in a store, work in a restaurant, be a teacher, be a secretary, be a seamstress, work in a bank. There are certainly other options, but if you catch my drift on this the situation isn't that parents tell their daughters "Honey, you can be whatever you want to be." Frankly, here they don't say that much. I met a woman the other day who told her daughter that at the technical high school her two options were studying to be a secretary or studying to work in a call center. The other options are mechanic, computer technician, accounting, tourism and general business. Are these not options for women? Apparently not. I asked this woman why those aren't options and she said that no one would ever hire a woman in any of the other jobs. I realize this is a pretty extreme case and that the reality isn't quite as harsh as this woman thinks, but as long as we have a majority of mothers living in rural communities in Costa Rica, or elsewhere, passing this message on to their daughters, we're in trouble. How can we expect women to gain power and move forward if they sit back and say, "well, that's just the way it is,"? This is the struggle. As much as we have to fight against men to gain rights for women we have to fight against women themselves, and the resignation that has overtaken so many of them from so many years of being mistreated and denied opportunities.

I know that through education I/we can do a lot, but time and lots of societal change on every level is necessary. It will take years, if not multiple generations, I know, but it's important to work toward as hard as it is to change. Until we get this fixed I guess you and I will have to keep at it (assuming you're with me in this).

Disclaimer: It must be know that the generalizations about men and women do not apply to all men and women, nor a specific people, nor only men or women of Costa Rica. These are general thoughts related to what I have seen here and in other places.