Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Can we keep our culture and still be feminists?

I recently got hooked on One Day at a Time. Netflix rebooted the series based on a 1975 show: One Day at a Time.

Today's show is about a single Cuban mother who lives with her immigrant Cuban mother and her two children while her husband lives in Afghanistan. The fifteen-year-old daughter (Elena) is a bad ass feminist social justice advocate in the making. While grappling with her Cuban heritage, she tries to teach her family about sexism and environmental issues.

One of the biggest moments for the family comes when the daughter refuses to let her mother and grandmother throw her a quinceañera. The daughter looked up the history of the quinceañera and learned that this traditional "coming out" party was a way to inform the village that the teenage girl was ready to be married off. This did not sit well with Elena.

Elena was quick to explain this to her family and let them know that she would not partake in such a sexist tradition. In response, her mother pointed out that many Cuban traditions had sexist origins and if they refused to engage in everything with such origins, they would not have any Cuban traditions. She also showed Elena that, although quinceañeras have a sexist history, they no longer carry the same meaning today. To the mother, this was an opportunity to show the world that her daughter was growing up and that, as a single mother, she was raising her daughter by being able to put on such an elegant party.

This episode hit home because I often struggle with my Mexican upbringing and all the sexism in the Latinx heritage. One of the reasons I don't go to church is the inherent sexism in the bible and Catholicism. However, religion is a huge part of the Latinx culture. My mom wouldn't be my mom without her faith in God as His image has been created. Although I may not believe in the God my mom swears is our creator, I wear a gold rosary when I need to feel safe.

I even drag my partner along to posadas (a reenactment of Mary's and Joseph's search for lodging in Bethlehem performed several days in a row leading up to Christmas) come Christmas time, not because I like to pray the rosary and reenact the night Jesus was born, but because these posadas were a happy and consistent part of my childhood (I remember dressing up as Mary on more than one year). And while I did not have a quince because we could not afford one, I would have loved to get all dressed up, make it to the church and dance all night. Even as a child, I knew that quinces were sexist, especially because I saw no male equivalent.

So what does this all mean? Am I doing feminism wrong by wanting to partake in some of my culture's historically sexist traditions?

This discussion reminds me of Roxane Gay's Ted talk, Confessions of a bad feminist. Her work helped me understand that I can still consider myself a feminist and engage in Latinx traditions. However, there is still a part of me that doesn't know how to reconcile the history of many of my cherished traditions with my feminist identity.

One of the solutions I created is to offer to plan quinceañeras for any sons I have. And if I have the honor of planning a quinceañera for a boy, we can make it as "traditional" or non-traditional as he wants!

Quinceañeras aside, what do I do about church? I want my children to be baptized, mainly out of fear of the consequences of not being baptized my mom has told me about. So, if my children are baptized and have quinces for the sake of holding on to my culture, does that say anything about my feminist values?

And what about marriage? Do people who get married renounce part of their sense of gender equality? Many people would yell, "No! Of course not! The meaning of marriage in today's society has changed!" And that is true.

But what if I want to do a whole Latinx wedding? What if I want to have a ceremony at a Catholic church (assuming my partner and I would be allowed) where a priest lectures us on the importance of marriage and the values we should hold on to until we die? What if I want a loved one to embrace my future spouse and me in one of those huge rosaries that are made for weddings? What if I want to respect the meaning of wearing a white dress no matter how sexist it is and wear an off-white dress to the ceremony? Am I not a feminist?

The other question that pops into my head is: Or is American feminism racist? Although marriage in the United States has changed, in many Latinx countries, religion is a complex area where machismo and sexism are still very much alive. So, although I can have an American wedding and be fine, could I have a full-on Mexican wedding and still be considered a feminist?

I don't feel that I am sacrificing my values for engaging in cherished cultural practices, but Elena's confrontation with her mother and grandmother regarding a quinceañera's sexist origins raised powerful identity questions for me. It was also meaningful to watch Elena ultimately decide to have a quince to honor her mom and provide her mother the opportunity to demonstrate to the world what a great job she has done in raising her as a single parent.

While I do not have the answers for many of these questions, I appreciated how this episode helped me untangle my own thoughts around my Latinx identity, feminism and religion.

4 comments:

Kim said...

Ariahna, I am a huge fan of "One Day at a Time" so I got very excited when I saw your blog post mentions it. Ones of the reasons I enjoy the show so much is because it raises complex issues like this in ways that spark further conversation. Each episode has so much to unpack, we could write a blog post for every episode!

I really appreciate the questions that you pose in your post for yourself and your readers. They aren't easy questions - and that, to me, is what feminism is about. It's about challenging and questioning everything because everything has a history, and it's very nearly always a history of racism/sexism/colonialism.

Determining how to go through life as a feminist is a very personal question and there is no right or wrong answer. While I appreciate Roxanne Gay's "Bad Feminist" talk and the way she makes different versions of being a feminist more acceptable, I take issue with the idea that "feminism" can only be performed in a certain way and that other ways are "wrong" or "bad." Who do we imagine are the feminism police? Judging others and determining how truly feminist you are compared to some imagined ideal standard. If this is what feminism is, it's definitely racist.

Looking down on someone else for not being the "right" kind of feminist is inherently paternalistic and racist. A feminism that shames people (particularly womyn) for not doing feminism right is very likely racist, because it's probably, as you mention, arguing that "other cultures" are sexist and therefore we should leave those cultures behind for some "feminist" culture (read: white).

Nicolette said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LJCarbajal said...

Ariahna,

Thanks for this great post! As a fellow Latina, I also struggle with how to reconcile the machismo inherent in Mexican-American culture with my feminism. Talking about quinceañeras was one of the first times i remember talking about sexism with my family. It was well before I was 15, but my mom brought it up for some reason any way to my Nino. At the time my Nino didn't have any kids, and so spoiled my sister and I instead. However, he said he wouldn't be willing to pay anything towards a quinceañera because they were sexist. He then explained why that was, which I understood and internalized somewhat. As I got closer to 15, I realized I wasn't super interested in having one for my own reasons (i.e. not always having a ton of close friends in my early years because my school district was predominantly white). However, my younger sister wanted one, but without the support of my Nino, my mom couldn't afford one for her. I actually think about his reaction to quinces a lot, because now that he has children (two sons), he has expressed some sexist expectations about, for example, how any money my grandparents leave us should be disbursed. This is disheartening as the talk with him about sexism is the first I remember having.

I also get what you are saying about the desire to still participate in some Latinx traditions, despite the fact that some are problematic. On Friday, we talked about how we both think we'll still baptize our kids despite how we feel about the Catholic Church. Baptisms and First Communions have always been an excuse for a party in my family, and I can't imagine not participating in that. I think it is still okay to participate in the traditions that are important to us, for whatever reason, as long as we can acknowledge the inherent problems, and do so in a way that doesn't perpetuate them.

Nicolette said...

Ariahna,

I enjoyed reading your post. It's thought-provoking, and I couldn't help but challenge my own conflicting views on my very patriarchal cultures. I can relate to you and Elena on disengaging in disapproval of the anti-feminist origin/meaning, but maybe engaging out of respect to the elders and culture. It's a tough position to be in, especially if the elders simply don't understand. I think you are coming up with some great solutions, though, to appease both sides: paying homage to the culture while implementing your feminist ideals - like with the quince, for example. Speaking from personal experience, I was actually a part of a male friend's quince as a teen. Granted, he shared it with his twin sister, but his parents could've easily held a separate birthday celebration for him had they followed cultural norms. No one questioned it. Everyone embraced it, and I think the same would happen for your future sons, too.