Cultural and Gender Inequality in Peru
Tags: Pageants, Peru, Cultural, Inequality

Well, I’m back here on Medium. During my travels on the road, I’ve been reading many different articles on different topics that affect different people in different places. One article I read was really interesting. Though it happened back in 2017, let’s talk about it.

“On Beauty and Protest” by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, discusses the beauty pageant in Peru, which happened on October 29, 2017, and how the beauty contestants used the pageant as a platform to speak against violence that has been happening and plaguing their country for years. Using factual statistics, they are able to show and prove just how much violence has already occurred throughout the years. Unfortunately, most Peruvian women are subjected to blatant racial, societal abuse and gender inequalities at home as well as in their communities. They weren’t given any opportunity to speak up and voice out such exploitations with women and even children, as well as their injustices, until now.

There are different stereotypes about races, class (that is related to economic status), status, and gender that exists in Peru. In talking about race, the Indigenous and black people, they are a main target for any sort of physical violence that has occurred, especially with women. The data and statistics that were said in that pageant shows that women who have been beat, hurt and even killed in these incidents are far too much to handle. In Latin America, there has been “improvements” made to improve Indigenous races “through marriages with lighter skinned people which would result in children also having lighter skin and finer features”. This mixture is also known as “mestizaje”, and this makes anyone with a mixed background more desirable and more beautiful. Status, as it is known as, is basically how one sees themselves in a society. They can be in a different status everytime something happens. Class, mostly relating to the gap between the rich and poor, is very distinguishable in Peruvian society, and low-class people are basically the targets. This affects the economy and the individual people as well, because when there is poverty, there is likely to be more crimes in the area, a lack of respect due to low education, and a sense of living without the essential needs that a person has in life. This can affect how a person looks (which is also beauty), how they communicate to other people, how they dress, and how they live out their life.

With these improvements to overall beauty and how it is seen by others, there are also many bad results and effects that happened to these women of the beauty pageant contest. These women started to view themselves as a bad image of attractiveness and appeal. These women started to do plastic surgeries, fixing themselves to having a European standard of beauty (by straightening their hair, bleaching their skin, losing weight, making themselves look taller, wearing different clothing than the ones that they are used to, and the worst of all, by eating less, they develop eating disorders), and this also affects them emotionally and psychologically, which then they think that what others are saying about them is true, and then they end up hurting, injuring, or even killing themselves because of the negativity and bad criticism they receive. This shouldn’t be the case with these women, but sadly it exists and happens always because of how much people want to shape the women to what they want them to be, and not just let them be themselves.

Even though all of this exists in our world today, there’s something we can do to improve this issue. We need to communicate, recognize and spread awareness of these problems and horrible things that are happening to these women in Peru. Even with regulations, the justice of law cannot solve every problem that happened. We need to be educated about these problems in the terms of what it is, where it happens, who it affects, and what it does to people emotionally and physically. Most importantly, we all need to learn the significance of respect. If there is no respect, then there is no love for oneself and one another. This creates a conflict within oneself and with other people. And if there is a conflict, then there is chaos. This is the reason why there are many negative headlines that were happening in Peru (examples are: Tailor Strangles Wife, Drunk Man Beats His Wife to Death, etc.) The exploitation of women and the harassment they receive on the streets with more than 70% recorded is terrible to know and accept. Respecting not just women, but all men, women and children of different race, color, ethnicity and gender is something that must be done so that no injustice, brutality or unfairness is to happen. What we do need to do is keep the peace and have respect in order for us to thrive and prosper as a society.

Cultural, gender disparity and inequality also exists not only in Peruvian culture but in the United States in America, and worldwide, wherever you go. There will be hardships but when this is overcome, there will be experiences of triumph and happiness. Continuity of struggles based on gender have been the hallmark of societies. Changes will only happen when society raise their voices in unison, and to walk hand in hand together to address these issues. Community leaders, government and political arenas are proactive by the provision of education, more funding for integration of cultural sensitivity and gender inequality for implementation of seminar and or workshops in schools, job site and community. Propagation of support groups, availability of resources with involvement of the mass media has tremendously increase society’s awareness and captures their attention regarding the importance of cultural sensitivity, positivity, gender equality, and empowerment.

Now I’m pretty sure someone, somewhere out there wrote about this already, but I hope that this article can shed some light onto the subjects and problems that people in a society face.