Piropos, otra forma de acoso a mujeres
Submitted by GranadaSherif on Tue, 2011/12/06 - 18:23.
Piropos, i did not even know the English word for it - turns out there isn't one that exactly describe it (Verbal Sexual Harassment) . In Arabic there is, and it is/was an annoying and embarrassing practice in Egypt. Anyways it is refreshing that a news paper article is finally discussing this. It should be an offense, it probably is, but again enforcement is an issue.
http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/235168-piropos-otra-forma-de-...
Jan 30, 2012: UPDATE
New articles about Women fighting back in Matagalpa:
This would be embarrassing, i hope they keep on doing it.
http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/240242-matagalpinas-portan-ki...
It is a Cultural thing
Some people in Islamic states prohibit their women to shake a man’s hand – it sounds like a perfect story for a great Repleys episode. My opinion of such primitive mentality is of course irrelevant. Most LATINAS (young and old) do like piropos if done with taste and gallantry, inevitable there will be the vulgar idiots that abuse it and will also urinate in your front porch.
Update!
Jan 30, 2012: UPDATE
New articles about Women fighting back in Matagalpa:
This would be embarrassing, i hope they keep on doing it.
http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/240242-matagalpinas-portan-ki...
Great idea,
seems so simple now they thought of it!
Piropos.
Growing up I was never much of a piropeador. The guys that usually did it , did it to girls from our cuadra or at school. But it wasn't sexual harassment. Usually it was an attempt from the guy to make the girl know that he liked her by telling her how beautiful she looked or such inoffensive stuff. On the other hand there were those that did say terribly offensive and threatening things to girls, no matter what age. My dear cousin, 16 years old, couldn't go to the mercado without being abused verbally and sometimes even groped by these lunatics. Sometimes I would come along, I was only 8, and I would get so mad at them that I would say nasty things to them and my poor cousin would be embarrased by my behavior. She used to tell me not to pay any mind to them to ignore them. But it was hard for me to do so. As a well taught Nica boy I was to stand up for the honour of the damas of our family, my mother's instructions. It is unfortunate and shameful. We also live in different times were more kids are ignoring good manners and are confusing libertad with libertinaje. I'm glad I grew up in more gentler times.
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Welcome back Tonio!
I've spoken to my girlfriend and her pals about this, and they usually say, 'no me incomodan', 'no me molestan', and even "ellos no estan intentando para joder conmigo'. I suspect that some of them actually take it as a compliment.
As for the boys, when I see it on the street I really get the sense that they aren't putting their hearts into it. It's almost as if they're saying, "I'm a male, she's cute, if I don't do it I'm not macho."
I never seen handsome, well-dressed boys on the street give piropos. They're too busy ignoring the batting eye-lids of passing enamoradas.
It's vulgar behaviour and it should stop, but Nicaraguan women have more important things to worry about.
"more important things to worry about."
Like avoiding getting pregnant, avoid being raped, avoid being abused by family members, avoid being beaten by husbands, etc....
If Males can stop Pirop.. whatever.... then it is a step towards respect which will eventually help against all those thing i mentioned above.
Hey, Iv got a great idea!!
If Males can stop Pirop.. whatever.... then it is a step towards respect which will eventually help against all those thing i mentioned above
How about we pass a law that forces women to cover their body from head to toe in black and this will surely stop the rapes, being abused by family memberss, avoid being beaten by their husbands..???
Isnt that a great idea guys???
Hey, Iv got a great idea!!
If Males can stop Pirop.. whatever.... then it is a step towards respect which will eventually help against all those thing i mentioned above
How about we pass a law that forces women to cover their body from head to toe in black and this will surely stop the rapes, being abused by family memberss, avoid being beaten by their husbands..???
Isnt that a great idea guys???
And if the gilrs learned not to "put out" so easily....
Or at least not tease the boys as much, we could have a level playing field discussion on the subject.
The post was aimed more at the younger generations of both sides.
Mexico was cute, the boys going one way around the square and the girls walking the other way with the parents sat on the benches.
If you're comparing it to keeping crime down by reacting
...very quickly to graffiti, there are studies that prove that works. 40% of the police here are women, so you'd have to see what the National Police thought about actually dealing with it. Otherwise, it's a matter of people, especially men, who don't do this being willing to speak up in the street when it's happening against guys who do say the rougher and nastier things.
Avoiding getting pregnant requires having enough money for the birth control pills over the counter here, plus the virginity options which really don't work according to studies in the states. Many European countries have excellent sex education classes and very low rates of teen pregnancy. That, however, would cost money and make the Catholic Church cry.
Rebecca Brown
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"Avoiding getting pregnant requires having enough money for the birth control pills over the counter here"
Condoms are available free of charge from Centros de Salud throughout the country.
Also, combined injectable contraceptive monthly injections of progesterone and estradiol are available in many Centros de Salud in the departments of Carazo and Masaya, but I don't know what the situation is other departments.
As well, the monthly injections are available without prescription in pharmacies at about C200, which is within the purse of all but the poorest.
In addition, many gynecologists who are not devout Catholics will give hardship cases free monthly injections using samples the have been given to them by pharmaceutical reps. The women in the poorest barrios in most parts of Nicaragua share information freely with one another about stuff like this and won't have trouble locating an OB/GYN who does this.
Daily birth control pills are not a common form of contraception, at least not in this part of Nicaragua.
Contraceptives are
free - Condoms at least which are the most important. I forgot to mention that women here worry about not getting Aids or some other STD. Morning after pill is 30 cordobas i think. If they can afford to get drunk they can afford a pill.
What hypocrisy.. you can buy a morning after pill, but you cannot have an abortion!
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Sherif, what do you call a morning-after pill in Spanish?
Key word is anticoncepción
Anticoncepción de emergencia (AE)
Anticoncepción de Urgencia
Contracepción Poscoital
Contracepción Preimplantacional
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Thanks.
Morning After
The problem is of course, it does not prevent disease and in fact lulls then into a false sense of security.
Daily birth control pill and a condom every time and its still a lottery. Teaching abstinence has to include a reality plan but it should not be ignored because of those realities.
I had a freind in Northern Manitoba
who always told me that nothing is safer than the Palm Sisters.
Are there really many other
Are there really many other options available in northern Manitoba?
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Well I agree with you.
But help me figure this one out.
One time I saw a young Peace Corps women chuck an infant boy under the chin and heard his mother and aunts tell him, “Da piropos a la gringa. Da! Da!”
What’s really going on here?
Cultural issue
as you said some consider them compliments or a right of passage to be macho...Maybe the mom likes them.
i guess they have to have very low self esteem, be ugly, or drunk to do so
Of couese moms like piropos
Why wouldn't they? Older women also enjoy the attention from men. In some Islamic extremists countries such natural feelings are suppresed by barbaric practices like a female mutilations, veils to name a few...
It's not a legal offense in the US
As one woman found out when she called the cops on a guy who was screaming drunk at her for not wanting to talk to him at 2 a.m. They did say that she should call them back if he tried to get in the house, and that she could use mace against him if he continued to be a problem.
Funny thing is I'd had a fuss on line about this in terms of US behavior, and was talking about that to a woman friend here who said she'd never had these problems. Walked home with Lola and some guy tried to chat me up in English.
The one thing I can say in favor of the Nicaragua guys who try to chat up strange women is that they're rarer than the US version and they don't take offense if I ignore them from the get go.
Rebecca Brown
Verbal sexual harassment is
an offense in the US and Canada.... you just have to prove it. One of my employees (Canadian) got into trouble in Miami because of this (he was Nicaraguan!). He as doing a software install and made some inappropriate remarks to one of the shop floor workers, and got into serious trouble for it (so did the company for sending him, but he spoke Spanish and he had to deal with shop floor workers).
Mostly it's an offense in places of employment
I've never heard of anyone being busted on the street for making lewd remarks. The idea there is that it's public space and the woman could take another street. I called the cops when one guy in a van was following me and they never showed up (1973 or so; things may have changed since).
Job situations are different.
Rebecca Brown
Sexual Harassment is what it is
Everywhere.
Apparently the cops don't have the enforcement budget
Lots of laws are on the books that the police don't have the funds to enforce and often it's one person's word against another's -- and I know at least one woman who lied about sexual harassment to get out of repaying her training fees to a stock brokering firm. Sometimes, it's a gray area.
I'd like people to overall be more civil, but I'm not sure legal recourse is always the right way to deal with verbal statements that may just be someone being stupid or having a lapse in judgment. The rule in the US is that people have to say that such and such language bothers them or that they want no further contact with a given person before further harassment is actionable. Some people are afraid to say anything to a larger harasser.
One of the most damaging sexual harassments I've seen at work was one of the bosses' daughter who decided she was interested in a guy who had had an earlier disastrous office affair and who was somewhat unstable. She didn't get that he was getting very upset with being teased or with making the affair public, and continued to push. He shot himself, didn't die, got fired.
The critical issue isn't gender -- it's power. I don't think it ever occurred to her that she was doing something wrong.
Rebecca Brown
Managua!
I see guys whistling, honking their horns at women by my place in Santo Domingo a fair bit! Saw a truck load of Nica Policeman yell/whistle a whole lot of something at a few young girls out walking!! Last few peoiple I have talked to, it has been their female house keepers that have been mugged
San Jose
In Costa Rica, they make this odd hissing sound and think it's a compliment.
didya respond?
they were hissing at you?
"Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene." -Homer J. Simpson
No. I'm not a snake LOL
Back then, I was more surprised than anything.
she said....
blushing.......
I see and hear little things like that between teenagers
Here it's more like trying to get the girls' attention and the guys are generally rather bashful and almost scared looking when they do it. Rather endearing to watch, and the girls seem to ignore it. The boys stand quite a ways back from the girls, sometimes across the street.
Rebecca Brown
I picked Jinotega for a reason
The guys are pretty cool and the women carry big sticks.
Rebecca Brown
If I am with my daughters, the nice guys say
"Hola Suegro" (Father in Law)
I smile and say "En su sueños"...In your dreams.
If I don't hear it, they won't tell me what the bad boys say, but I growl at them anyway.