Chile Forum

fahrvergnugen wrote:

nwdiver wrote:If you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen, it has not changed in the 25 years I have been in Chile, and will not change for you, normal women ignore it period.............

Mate - that was NOT my question. I expect it to happen - have any of you gents ever 'taken care of business' or are you all just taking it like wimpy beta-males? What are the possible legal implications?

You attack one male for cat cooling, you need attack almost every man in certain streets of Chile. Its their culture, a large enough proportion of latino girls like cat calling, because it is alpha male, can you stop one man being alpha male by yourself being alpha male, and making street violance which is equally bad for children?

I will punch someone who needs it in Chile if it comes to it, normally it never comes to that, but when I caught a pick pocket taking from my girlfriend on a bus with like eight school children, there was no way I was going to beat him up, what kind of example is that setting. Just causing another problem.

JHyre wrote:Bad idea. Chilean jails, probably not very pleasant, especially for a gringo. Also, the class of person that will make comments will not play nice - probably five guys with knives & sticks, not good. Bad results, all around. Not worth it.

I am not sure about that, you got to commit some seriously bad crime or catch them on a bad day for the courts to convict you here. Its pretty normal for someone to punch someone else in the street in Santiago, and the police only come talk to them because they had some sort of justification in their mind and the police know there will be no conviction based on lack of evidence. I really feel for the Police here, they do a hard job, watching people get arrested and then just go back out the next day and do the same day after day.

carica wrote:Oh.. this is just.. so charming. I don't have children so I didn't even know this was possible.

I think Chilean men's reactions to foreign women getting up in arms about cat-calling are very interesting. When I've tried to have a conversation in order to understand why it's done and who thinks it's ok, I've been told to go back to my country. The other excellent argument is to "take it as a compliment." And now some forum members are saying "suck it up."

Somehow none of these responses are satisfactory.

And so I would like to include a Not Safe For Work video summing up with humor/vulgarity (depending on your point of view) the anger and frustration that women feel about catcalls and flashing. In this case it's Argentinean woman making the comments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT2DF7_jovc

Saw the video: perfect.

MarcusR wrote:That's really not on, especially in front of kids.

Then and only then will you appreciate that as modern as Chile appears to be, the women here are living decades behind Europe and the USA in terms of rights and respect.

Actually in Italy, catcalling is very common.
And indecent proposals at work and sexual harassment are par for the course.

In fact up until 1981 killing a misbehaving female relative in the heat of anger was a legal defense. It brought a greatly reduced sentence, though not acquittal.
Divorce and alimony is very complicated and expensive in Italy, many Italian males used the aforementioned option to 'dissolve' their marriages. Scary but true.

Here's an article about an Italian Judge who annulled a marriage after the wife admitted to "thinking about" cheating.
nerve.com/news/love-sex/italian-marriage-dissolved-after-wife-admits-to-thinking-about-cheating

Yes, Italy is still running a tad behind schedule re the equal rights scenario...

Sigh.... I actually was serenaded in Venice. Well, down the toilet with that delusion of Italian men.

I'm sure such imbecilic behaviour is probably native to Chile but unfortunately, more generally, the US is a global leader in fostering attitudes which are disrespectful and demeaning to women.

http://www.missrepresentation.org/

Thinking about it I've been cat called by girls in the UK before...

I'm not sure if I have grown totally immune to it, but I don't seem to be catcalled much here in Antofagasta. It used to bother me when I lived in Bolivia, but you learn to ignore it. I found it equal or worse in Italy, but the place were it was out of control was Cuba. The men there make this hissing sound, like crickets or something, and when I traveled there for a month a few years ago with another female friend we just had to put up with this constant hissing (as well as the usual rica, preciosa, mi vida, te amo, casate conmigo, tienes ojos bellos etc etc).

I talked to some cuban girls about it, and just like some comments from here - many of them liked it. Said it made them feel special.

I don't like it, but I ignore it. Can't do much to change it, because if you make a comment it just gets worse.
I like momof3s idea though. Turn the kids around and explain to them why that's lower class behavior. Do it in Spanish if you can, explaining to the kids you never want to see them repeating that sort of flaite behavior. May not change anything in the men, but at least you can educate your kids.

rachelmarama wrote:I don't like it, but I ignore it. Can't do much to change it, because if you make a comment it just gets worse.

That is my approach too.

fahrvergnugen wrote:Which is why I married a French woman - but let's leave it at that and not tick off any of our gringa hermanas who may be reading this.

That was an inter-thread reference made by persons with a Chilean girlfriend and wife respectively, not meant to be taken seriously.

BTW, in one of those threads the famous internet philosopher previously mentioned also posted that Twain described the French as a breed of filthy subhumans with prostitution being their most common recreation.

I'd don't have any scientific data at hand to confirm or deny the hypothesis but I do note that a former presidential candidate is being questioned for links to an organised prostitution ring.

Dosedmonkey wrote:I will punch someone who needs it in Chile if it comes to it, normally it never comes to that, but when I caught a pick pocket taking from my girlfriend on a bus with like eight school children, there was no way I was going to beat him up, what kind of example is that setting. Just causing another problem.

Whatever about a bus, it's generally not recommended in any case to fight back against street robbers. There's always more in nearby alleys and they are always very fast.

I know of four Chilean naval officers who did not attempt to resist two teenage thieves. I know another Chilean who was robbed (and slashed for resisting) by an adolescent thief while returning home from his ninjitsu class.

I know of someone else who was with his girlfriend who also decided to fight back. So the thieves held him and cut his girlfriend's ear off.

Some people though have to learn these lessons the hard way.

Afterburner wrote:

Dosedmonkey wrote:I will punch someone who needs it in Chile if it comes to it, normally it never comes to that, but when I caught a pick pocket taking from my girlfriend on a bus with like eight school children, there was no way I was going to beat him up, what kind of example is that setting. Just causing another problem.

Whatever about a bus, it's generally not recommended in any case to fight back against street robbers. There's always more in nearby alleys and they are always very fast.

I know of four Chilean naval officers who did not attempt to resist two teenage thieves. I know another Chilean who was robbed (and slashed for resisting) by an adolescent thief while returning home from his ninjitsu class.

I know of someone else who was with his girlfriend who also decided to fight back. So the thieves held him and cut his girlfriend's ear off.

Some people though have to learn these lessons the hard way.

Yeah dont think I'm going to get knifed by one guy half my size... and guess what, i didn't.... I also used to work in plain clothed security and confronted these people on a daily basis for 6 months before joining the navy. So get a good feel for when they are desperate and will fight, or when a quick biff with stop them mid way from putting their hand in my girlfriends bag.

But I do agree with you, I would condemn other people carry out the same actions as myself, generally I find putting out a strong defense posture, and keeping an eye on everyone surrounding myself, no one bothers to trouble us. It was only in the Bus the man had not realsed I was with my girlfriend, he thought we were two seperate commuters and decided to pray on a women by herself, so not even able to see the direction i was in.

For two teenagers theives to steal from four chilean officers, presumbley they presented knifes or a gun openly, not just ask them for their money?

JHyre wrote:Interesting. So many times gringo griping about some aspect of Chilean culture gets the "don't impose your standards" line from the multi-culti types, accusations of bigotry, etc. That crowd is presently silent for some reason. Looks like when their ox is getting gored (women's issues in this case), well, "that is different".

Come on, let's have a sermon about the beautiful quilt of diversity, how all cultures are completely equal, and how we should not be judgmental and impose our colonialist, evil gringo ways on others.

<crickets chirping>

John Hyre

It might be prevalent in certain areas and socioeconomic levels, but cat calling is NOT a Chilean cultural standard that women should have to deal with. The crickets are chirping because it IS different. Punto. I'm all on board the "tolerate other cultures" bus when people are complaining because they're simply being inconvenienced and don't like something because it's different from what they know.

However, in this case 99% of the Chilean women I know don't feel that a cat call is a compliment. The majority of the Chilean men I know think it's crass. And in this case women are not being "inconvenienced." They're being harassed.

You are all intending to do what about this?

If you are living in a major city in Chile, in particular Santiago, women get cat calls. Very rare in smaller towns, and I have not even seen it very much in the larger cities in the south. Occasionally the construction / work crews, and even then there is not the big loud show they do in Santiago.

My suspicion is because a guy cat calling at a woman on the street has the high probability of it getting back to the wife or girlfriend. Just a theory however.