This week at the FMP

I am loving my internship. Between all my ladies and my research and the FMP, I feel like I'm seeing so much of the world of Women's Rights Organizations and NGOs.

I love that my ladies take so much care of me. They're teaching me to crochet (el ganchillo), they teach me songs in Spanish, and they always tell me how beautiful I am when I come in, even if there's sweat dripping from my forehead from the heat. They told me I need to buy my own fan like theirs (abanico), since Spain is unbareable without it. I'm beginning to believe them.

On the other hand, when I'm not doing the intercultural workshops with the ladies, I am in the FMP office at a computer doing research for myself, so I can get to know the FMP better and the world of NGOs better, or translating documents (like I mentioned before) or doing research for Julia. Also, this coming week I'll be investigating the world of Sexual Health within the FMP, because I am extremely curious given that this is a very Catholic country, even though a huge percentage of the people admit they never attend church. So I want to see if their catholic traditions affect the way they talk about reproductive health. On Monday I have a meeting with Mariana, to discuss with her what I want to learn, and then I think the week after they're starting a new session of classes, and I can then attend those. So cool. I'll see how it's taught and get to know new ladies. Probably younger ones this time.

I'm also interested in the more abstract applications of Feminism in Spain, along the lines of their fighting the Machismo culture. On their website (fmujeresprogresistas.org) they have an extensive page about how to avoid sexist language in Spanish, which I find really interesting because Spanish has all gendered nouns, and I thought then, would be inherently sexist. But it has more to do with using masculine generics, which does have it's equal in English. For example, we say "you guys" a lot, also "freshmen, chariman" imply a generic but use the word "man" and in fact makes invisible the identity of a woman. So, I want to talk to the ladies at the FMP who made the website, and talk to them about how they make pratical applications out of avoiding sexist language. I'm sure it has a lot to do with offical documents like job applications or government documents, too. So I'll be meeting up with these ladies next week as well. I'm excited.

I can't believe I am almost halfway through my internship! Not fair! I'm not ready to be done anytime soon. I still feel like I have so much to learn and to investigate. Wahhhhh. I also love my old ladies, and I'll be so sad to leave them!