After reading Caroline's
post about the documentary on the gendercide epidemic in countries
like India and China, it made me think alot about my time in El Canton,
Honduras. I recently went on the Global Brigades microfinance trip to
Honduras, where we taught rural farming families about finance, saving,
investing etc. We would go interview each family in the small farming
village El Canton, and ask them about their children's jobs. It seemed that their bias
against a gender for their children depended on their feelings
towards short and long term goals. Most parents explained to us that
they could only send their daughters to school in the near by city
because the boys were needed to farm all day. They would say how when
money was low they were happy for their sons because their work was
an immediate investment. However, when they had enough money to eat, they were
happy for their daughters because they were being educated and were a
long term investment. Either way, the boy was always needed to farm,
there was absolutely no chance of a son being anything other than a
farmer in El Canton. I found myself feeling very bad for the boys in the village
while listening to them talk excitingly about the interesting subjects their
sisters were studying in nearby cities. It just made me think about
the cultural norms and necessities in each country and how they are
different and affect genders differently.
I think this is so interesting because in my experience I have usually seen the opposite to be true, where boys are educated and girls are made to stay home to care for their younger siblings/help with household chores. I would be really interested to know what the relationships are like among the adults and what role machismo plays in their culture.
ReplyDeleteMachismo was definitely present. I think that is why the boys were expected to be strong farmers, who brought in the immediate family income. If the mother was still healthy and able, she would perform the "woman duties" by taking care of the kids, cleaning and cooking while the daughter was sent to school as an "investment" if they had the money. It was almost always at the daughters suggestion though. The parent generation and "elders" of the town were basically indifferent to education as long as there were always farmers to farm, and one woman to clean and cook in every house. But yeah, I'd had the same experience in other countries so it was super interesting.
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