Romantic Love

Eva and Marina were doing their presentation and talking about the ideas of the prince charging in on his white steed coming to rescue the princess. "Some day my prince will come!" kind of thing, and how it is a lie. In Spain, they have a saying that everyone is a "media naranja" an orange-half and they're looking for their other half so that they can be complete. But Eva was like "We are not orange-halves. We are full people, and we shouldn't be living under the illusion that we need someone else to be complete. The idea of romantic love is a lie."

It's very interesting to me that they're spilling the beans about this myth to a bunch of teenagers. I'm not sure how much they'll believe her. I know when I was their age, or even like, 6 months ago, I wouldn't have believed her. I didn't want to believe her. But Eva was arguing that a lot of times women who are in violent relationships stay because they believe in this myth of romantic love. And that makes me sad.

But I definitely do agree that the idea of romantic love is a dangerous one. Take Twilight for example. One of my favorite things to argue about. Bella was living a passive ho-hum life until the day that Edward smelled her blood (aka stumbled in on his white horse and magically became obsessed with her) and through this and that they lived happily FOREVER after as immortal vampires. Young girls are reading these novels and watching these movies and they are just eating every little bit up. Of course they know that twilight isn't real because there are no such thing as vampires... but they don't realize that there's no such thing as an Edward. A Jacob is a little more believeable (because he actually likes Bella for who she is, not for something beyond her control.)

And finally, I wanted to talk about a shirt that Urban Outfitters is selling (but I found it cheaper on another website) from a brand called Married to the Mob, which seems to have a lot of shirts with statements about women and being sassy. I particularly like this one, and I think I will purchase it in the near future.

It finally makes sense to me that it really is what it is. "Romantic love was invented to manipulate women." I'm not sure if it was an incredibly deliberate invention, and probably occured over many generations of cultures, but it all seems to come down to the idea that women need to be passive and wait for a perfect man to come by, instead of working to find an equal partner who you work well with. Otherwise it's love-at-first-sight or "he's so dreamy" and there's not too much thought about how a relationship would really work.

I think I've finally personally been able to wrap my mind around this idea. And I'm glad. I will no longer be disappointed in relationships that aren't perfect or settle for less because I think that there's some stronger romantic attachment that outweighs a disfunctional relationship. Good deal. Also I think that shirt is really cute, too.

More about the movie workshop.

For Eva to prove her point more about how women are invisible as authors and artists with the group of kids she asked everyone to write on one side of the paper a famous author and on the other side a famous painter or composer. I was thinking "Ooh I know two women, I can do this. Author: Ísabel Allende, Painter: Frida Kahlo." The kids wrote down Mozart, Beethoven, and a bunch of other men. Some people did have a few women authors, a few other women artists. But Eva was like "Look, the majority of what you've mentioned have been men, and all European." But when she got to mine she was like "Wait! This is awesome. Do you guys know Frida Kahlo?" And only a few did. I was excited that I picked two non-European women, when I didn't realize that it was so hard to find them.

During the second day, Eva and Marina wanted to talk to the kids about Violencia de Género, o Violencia Machista (Gendered Violence). They gave the definition of gendered violence (as to diferentiate it from regular violence) as agression toward a woman by a man because he feels that he has the right to do so. It makes it become the psychology of the violence, not just that it's violence between a man and a woman. But the kids wouldn't stop bringing up examples of women who hit men, arguing that women can commit gendered violence. However Marina and Eva were arguing back and forth with them, trying to say that a woman does not hit a man because she feels that she has the inherit right to do so. It's not because she feels that she is superior to the man. It becomes other types of psychological issue. And the most interesting part about this was that there are a boyfriend and a girlfriend that are in the group, the Columbian girl and her boyfriend, and they always fight and argue in the class, and the girl often hits her boyfriend on the leg or on the head like "SMACK oh shut up! hahaha..." And she hits him kind of hard. And it's crazy that she was the one arguing that women can commit gendered violence. I wonder if in her family she does have a woman, like a grandmother or something, that doles out smacks every once and a while. I know that at least Marina is a psychologist, and she was saying that when women hit their children or grandchildren, it's often because of the hirearchy created in the family, and ultimately comes back to the agression of the man. Which I find to be a heavy statement, but I really don't know very much about it. I'd have to learn more, and I'm sure she's studied plenty about it as she works at a women's rights org and probably talks to women who are victims of domestic and gendered violence.

The columbian girl was on a roll when Eva made the statement that sex workers were all slaves, because slavery is selling oneself to another, and that is what prostitution is, and that many women are forced into prostitution for different reasons. Then the Columbian girl was talking about how one of her really good friends is a prostitute right on Calle Montera and that she loves her job and she does it for fun and for the good money. And Eva was like, "Well, your friend is SUCH an exception. I'm glad to hear that she wasn't forced into that for economic or worse reasons, but that is definitely not the case for the majority of women in sex work." And continued to discuss the idea. But the girl kept insisting that not all prostitutes are slaves. It was really interesting how she wouldn't let it go, just like she wouldn't let the gendered violence thing go.

But to be fair that girl wasn't the only one that was being all like "No, what about this?" and all that jazz. I think these kids are all at points in their lives where they're trying to figure out the world and they need to hear the rules but also the exceptions to the rules to get a better idea about things. It's good that they're argumentative and inquisitive about it, but we could hardly get anything done yesterday because we'd go on tangents arguing about rules and exceptions.

Talleres de Cine

So last Thursday started the movie workshop, where we somehow rounded up 14 kids, age 12-18, to come to the FMP so that they can learn how to make documentaries and movies under the pretense that they will be making documents about feminist issues.

The first day of the workshop, we talked entirely about machismo and sexism and gender stereotypes, and I was highly impressed at what Eva got the kids to say. First Eva asked the group to write on one side of a piece of paper, aspects of their character that they liked about themselves, and on the other side, aspects that they would like to find in a potential partner. Everyone said things like "I'm fun, and I'd like someone I could trust." or "I'm sincere, I'd like a kind person." So the point of the exercise was to show that men and women look for the same aspects in one another, it doesn't matter, everyone wants a good person. Then she asked the group to say what comes to mind when they hear the word "mujer" (woman) and then when they hear the word "hombre" (man), and we got lists like "home, sex, pretty, emotional, mother, wife, girlfriend" and "strong, machine, fear, work,...sex" respectively. The Colombian girl was like "If you're going to put 'sex' down for women, then I want it to be put under the man column." That's right, girl. The point of the exercise was that Eva wanted the group to see that we all want the same things from the opposite sex, what women want from men and what men want from women are interchangable, yet what we think of when we think of the opposite sex are not interchangable. Men aren't seen by society as those that belong in the home, and women aren't usually seen as strong. She was saying that these are stereotypes, and our society doesn't like to think that they're interchangable at all.

They were arguing about these stereotypes, and one of the boys from Morocco was like "Men do cry in real life. Not in front of people, and they'll never admit it, but they do cry." And then the Columbian girl and another girl from Spain were getting heated about how women are supposed to belong in the home because both of their mothers work, and they thought it was unfair that they had to work and also take care of the children. It was really cool to see how this simple exercise brought this out of a group of teenagers.

I thought it was rather intersting that on the first day we barely talked about movies or documentaries, which is why the kids came in the first place. We talked about how some movie trailers portray women as body parts, or always show them dressing and undressing (Pretty Woman) or they can show women clothed and as real characters like in suits(Silence of the Lambs). (Did you know that Pretty Woman is the most-viewed movie in Spain? People eat it up when it comes on cable TV so advertisers fight for commercial time when it comes on) Eva wanted to link the idea that the ways that movies portray women are often how we come to think of them in real life because of the influence of Pop-culture, and so the same stereotypes that they talked about were the ones that showed up on screen.

This might be the most interesting thing that I've gotten to do this Summer, and it's a shame that I have only 2 weeks to be a part of it. I'll be writing more on this.

my eye itches.

I have exactly 2 weeks left of my internship. It ends Wednesday August 4th. Woah. I have to move out of my apartment on Saturday August 7th, and my mom is coming in on Wednesday August 11th.

It all really seems so fast, but at the same time I'm ready for it to end. I feel like I've gotten most of what I can out of Spain and Madrid and this internship, I'm ready to take what I've got and build on it and move forward. I know I've accumulated so many new skills and experiences and whatnot, that I just want to put them to good use! I'm excited to use them. One thing I've got to say: after trying for 3 months to communicate with people in a second-language, I know that I will NEVER be nervous or ineloquent when speaking to a stranger in English again! I've got no reason to be nervous if I know the dang language. And culture for that matter.

We have a final exam in our Spanish-Business course, and I can't find the paper that we've been working on for the past 3 weeks. But I swear I never throw anything away... this is so frustrating! I hope my friends and I all took good notes and then we'll just have a study session one night. Probably over beer and wine, if I know us. But we'll get it done.

I feel bad for the people who "graduated" already (as in they walked but this was their last thing) because apparently their paper is due August 1st. I honestly could have graduated last semester. I'm wondering why I didn't. So much less money, and I'm already antsy to go out and do real things. I'm not afraid of the "real world," I don't need to hide behind the handicap of college anymore. But I'll do one more semester so that I can still be covered under my parent's insurance as a student. I'll take easy classes and work easy jobs.

"Say ole with them and you'll feel better."

My friends and I just saw an amateur bullfight, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I understand that coming from US culture I'm not okay with seeing animals get killed. But at the same time I understand that we eat meat everyday that is killed in utterly inhumane ways like blows to the head or slitting bellies while they're alive. So when a bull is killed in a bullfight it's out of respect and the animal gets to "fight", even though it's killed in the end, and then the meat is given to an orphanage. One of the biggest things though is that people go to watch it for entertainment.

I really need to let this sink in. On one hand, maybe the Spanish people are more conscious meat-eaters because they understand the animals that it comes from, when on the other hand Americans eat McDonald's everyday without giving two thoughts to where the burgers or the nuggets come from. And then we watch Super Size me and we're utterly disgusted. At least in Spain killing these bulls is an art form and has been a part of their culture for hundreds of years.

I feel like I need to do research on this, figure out how it started, what the debates have been, and where the debate is now. I also want to know how much Matadors get paid, how often they might die (this one lady that spoke English and Spanish was telling us how she saw a Matador get killed one time...) and try to see this as a whole. I think the worst thing for me to do is to outright hate it without trying to understand the cultural context.

I feel like it's a good thing that I waited 2 months into my trip here to go see one. I'm less likely to pass fast judgment on Spanish culture.

tra la la la la!

I now have a fan in my room! GLORY!!!! I unplugged my desk lamp so that I could have it plugged in full time, because otherwise I only have one free outlet, and I have to share that between charging my laptop, my phone, my camera, and then fan. Not cool.

Cheers to not waking up bathing in my own sweat anymore! Cute, I know.

Amanda's mom and aunt came to Madrid this week, and on Monday night they bought us so many drinks that they wouldn't let me go home at 2am, they made me and Amanda stay at their hotel. In the morning we were hung over and still dressed in all our Spain glory, but by Tuesday morning things were getting back to normal where people actually went to work again (so therefore weren't wearing jerseys like us), so walking out of the hotel wearing obviously last night's clothing made us look like the walk of shame. But we were staying with her MOM. Ha not worth the embarrassment.

Tonight we're going to take them to the cave bars "las clandestinas" which were where people sold booze during Franco's reign (think speakeasies), and they're small and cramped and really fun in there, plus the sangria's cheap. Lets see how it goes with Agnes and Ilene tonight!

spainsomnia

For some reason I can't sleep even though I was tired earlier today. It's 3:30am right now. Whatever. My boss said that she was worried that since there's another metro strike tomorrow that it'll be hard for me to get to work. :( I hope not. I like having stuff to do! Otherwise I spend too much money on diversions.

So! A new thing that Julia has added in to our workshops is a reading where we all take turns reading it aloud. Julia does it so that the old ladies can exercise their brains and have better memories, and she makes me read so that my pronunciation gets better. Last week we read about the Quakers and how they came from the UK to the US and they're pro peace and they promote women's rights, and so she segued into discussing the wage gap in Spain (It's something awful like women making 31.7% than men) and talking about how we need to fight for equality and such. Well, after the workshop Tita stayed behind, and talked to Julia. Tita's the oldest of our group at 85, and she was like "Why are we learning about an American religion?" Like she had absolutely no desire to think about America or other cultures, as if it were no use to her. Julia explained that some of the ladies find it interesting, and it gets them to learn about the feminist movement. I was surprised that Tita was like "Um hello? We're Spanish Catholics. I don't want to learn about American Quakers" since I was always under the impression that Americans don't care about other cultures but their own and they're ignorant and whatnot. And on the other hand, Europeans were much more open to it because they're surrounded by other cultures all the time. But I guess this is not the case.

Also, another lady took a jab at me and my Americanism today and I was rather taken off-guard. During the reading-aloud we were talking about the history of the feminist movement and how it started way back with roman philosophers and whatnot, and they write the centuries in roman numerals. I was already reading slower than the ladies and my accent was bad, but whenever I came across the roman numerals I needed help. I apologized saying that we don't use roman numerals as often in English so I have a hard time just recognizing them. The lady next to me, I think her name is Susana, was like "Julia" (not even asking me) "Why don't the Americans and the English use roman numerals? They're a part of history!" As in it was an insult to world history to not use a number system that you have to know math for just to read the numbers. I told her myself in Spanish that we do learn in school, but at the moment I was doing 2 different levels of translation, from roman numeral to regular numbers, to saying them in spanish aloud. Big numbers are especially hard in Spanish! I was miffed that she was like "Pff why don't THEY care to learn this part of HISTORY!?!" GIMME A BREAK LADY. Save it for our stitch-and-bitch sessions. (By the way I finished my first headband, now I'm making a purple one!)

It's interesting that these ladies come to these workshops because they could use the time and creativity and air conditioning. And since it's run by a feminist org, they get fed different cross-cultural/feminist things that they might not have come across otherwise. Julia knows when to argue with the old ladies and when to just laugh off what they say. But she did get into it the other day with one lady because she said that "Well men are stronger/do harder work so thats why they get paid more." Julia went off on her and was like "DON'T YOU SEE THAT'S A STEROTYPE!? MY MOM WAS A COW WRESTLER!" (or something like that) "YOU'RE A PART OF THE PATRIARCHAL SYSTEM THAT'S KEEPING WOMEN'S WAGES LOW!!!" I don't quite remember how the lady responded, but the situation was diffused. It's interesting to see how they interact.

is this real life?

Running of the bulls, I found a small tiny itsy-bitsy spot to put my camera through the fence to take pictures. I could see the bulls with my own eyes, but since my camera isn't very fast, all I caught was this one bull's leg on the right side of the photo.

The traditional outfit for the festival of San Fermin is all white with red scarves as accents. EVERYBODY was wearing this. It was so cool that everyone was in the same costume. At this point my outfit is clean, but people were just going around spilling wine on people, because well, that's the tradition.

When Spain won the World Cup, everyone went insane for hours. We took that picture in Puerta del Sol, and there were people crawling and chanting everywhere, in all the fountains, on top of all the statues, on top of the metro dome... insane! So fun!

On Monday there was a huge welcome home parade for the players, and they rode around on a bus so that we could take pictures and all chant "Campeones! Campeones! Ole ole ole!" with them. So cool. I saw those guys in real life! :D

That picture of the crowd in the street is the best way I can describe the fact that all of Madrid/Spain was in the street to see the team. As far back as you can see the street, those are all people. Through the shadows. Everything. So fun!

best WEEKEND ever!

I can't believe that not only did I just experience the running of the bulls, but Spain just won the World Cup, and I got to party in the Capital city with everyone. What a nerve-wracking game, but Spain finally got past the Netherland's goalie and scored 4 minutes into overtime. I don't think I've ever been, or ever will be, a part of a bigger celebration. People were lighting up flares and dancing and waving flags and I just don't even know how to describe the scene. How did I get to be here? How am I so lucky?

best week ever.

So let me start off talking about why work was so great this week. On Monday, Julia told me that there were some ladies in the other departments that were interested in showing me what they do, and that I should go see them on Wednesday. I was to meet with Marina, and I'd be sitting at a computer, doing my usual desk work of researching and translating, and then whenever a lady came in, we'd go help her fill out papers. "They're illegal immigrants, but don't tell them you know that." OOH YES! Secrets! So when I went in on Wednesday, there was already a woman there, her name was Isabel and she was from Nicaragua; she had immigrated all by herself, and she was looking to get a job in domestic service. I was so surprised how well the FMP can help her! In Spain, even if it's an illegal worker, they still have rights, especially when they know the right people to talk to. They have rights against mistreatment, rights to a (basic) minimum wage, and even rights to some vacation time. I did not know this existed. I wonder if the U.S. has similar protections, but these days it probably depends on the state when it comes to illegal workers.

I also got a chance to talk with Emilia, who is the head psychologist in the FMP who works with the sexual and mental health women. I asked her various questions I had written down, about the demographics of the groups (women ages 18-70+, immigrants and natives), why the women might chose to leave (they're satisfied with their experience, or they get jobs), and if the majority of the women knew their sexual, reproductive, and protection against domestic violence rights before they came (nope, majority have no idea). Then she asked me a lot about my experiences in women's studies, why I was here, what I wanted to do, and so on. We compared the different types of feminist platforms in the U.S. and in Spain, and we talked about my undergrad research and how I've been working a lot with movies and television and how they affect gender identities. She was super interested in my research, and she asked for me to send her my papers, which I did. She told me she wanted to practice reading English, and that she'd need a dictionary with her the whole time. Haha. Glad I'm not alone sometimes.

Finally, I got rounded up by two of the ladies that work in the communications sector of the FMP, Sylvia and Susana. They knew that I was interested in learning about sexist language and what the FMP does to fight it, so they sat me down and gave me their spiel. They talked about how they both have backgrounds in journalism, but none of their professors ever told them about avoiding sexist language in publications, and that they've had to learn it on their own, and it's a shame they don't teach it in the universities here. For their job, they edit many of the publications of the FMP and other NGO's to make sure that they use neutral language, instead of sexist. They said how a lot of times people criticize the work they do because they're just changing words. But as they explained to me, and I agree, that the way we talk and speak determines the way we think. I linked it to how the way we watch TV shows or movies also affects the way we understand and interpret real life. And if there are male generics that invisiblize women or negative connotations and images of women in the news we read or the movies we watch, then it's affects the way we think about and see the world. Sylvia also talked about how she'd love it if I could help them put a part on their website about sexist images of women in the media, which would go under her sexist language part. Heck yes!

So after work that day, I was feeling super excited about all of the things I had talked about, and on top of that, after class that day was the Spain vs. Germany game, and Spain won! My friends and I all went to a small little bar and crowded in the back room and drank beer and cheered on Spain. So amazing when we scored that goal.

Tomorrow my friends and I will be in Pamplona for the running of the bulls! I am so excited! Yet at the same time I know I'll be scarred for life if I see someone get gored, or worse, killed... But I mean it's a tradition all around Spain, and I'm going to the festival that started it all. So much history! And I'm here in Spain! I can't miss it.

Then, Saturday we're going to the beach at San Sebastian, which is supposedly the prettiest beach in Spain. From the pictures I've seen, I believe it.

Then on Sunday, we'll be coming back to Madrid so that we can be in the Capital of Spain during the World Cup Finals. We plan on going to the stadium with EVERYBODY to watch! I am so pumped.

What an amazing time for me to be in Spain. And I also feel incredibly lucky for how awesome the FMP is and how I might help them with their website!

i actually hate subject lines.

So I realize that I definitely have an attention span for Spanish. It gets rough sometimes. One day, Julia brought me to a meeting for EAPN, the European Anti-Poverty Network, and I sat in on their discussion/debate about the different policies of Spain and the EU regarding different ways they could eradicate poverty by 2020. It sounded mildly interesting, and for the first hour, I was doing relatively fine. Everybody liked to have long-winded monologues about what they thought, and I got used to the speaker's voice, and even though they were talking quickly and using more intellectual words than are in my vocabulary, I was able to follow. For the first hour. But after that, my brain just felt fried. I tried to concentrate on the Spanish and follow the discussion, but for the life of me my mind would not stop wandering to other mundane things, like the posters advertising the city pools of Madrid. Oh yeah a pool, that'd be fun. I wonder where it is? Is it free? I'm sure my friends would want to go. Wait, what? Poverty in Europe?. My brain would not let me pay attention to the "difficult" spanish, it actually hurt my brain to try and listen and understand or even translate.

Just now I was trying to read an analysis of the different sexual and mental health workshops that are put on all around Spain by the government to help the new immigrants know their rights and adjust. The first part of the study is about the demographics of the group, men vs women, their ages, the ages of those conducting the courses, the ages of those taking the courses, so on and so forth. I was doing well, until all of a sudden I realized bam, I couldn't take the intellectual stuff anymore and I had ceased to pay attention. Kind of like when you read a book and you get 3 paragraphs down the page and you realize you have no clue what the character is doing anymore. But that character was the Spanish government and how they help immigrants.

So I thought to myself, does this always happen with Spanish? Do I seriously have a time-limit of listening/reading/understanding? But then I remembered that there have been times when I am with my ladies and we're crocheting or making bracelets and talking, and I'll be there with them for four hours straight, and I can get through no problem. I definitely enjoy it, and I know I learn. I think it comes down to that the pressure's off, and I don't have to concentrate too hard to make sure I understand intellectual concepts on top of understanding their language. I think there may be a threshold of cognitive stress that I cannot cross. Maybe I could try and stretch it more often to try and expand it. It would be nice if I could not get burned out sometimes.