I mean, as I said, it’s a casual observation from an outsider. Historically, sure, you could very much argue there is a trend toward machismo and patriarchal structures in Spain, as well as a lot of spanish-speaking countries. I personally got myself in a lot of situations where I was observing a man acting really aggressively toward a woman and intervened. Everyone around me (my local friends) found it really weird that I would see an issue and/or step in out of some sense of duty. Even one or two of the women that I was attempting to help would sort of seem taken aback.
Again, I’m making a huge generalization, but there is something to be said about the difference in interpersonal relationships across different cultures. And in my experience, in Spain in particular, I noticed very sort of “aggressive” tactics of “flirting” among spanish men toward women in general, but also on the flip side, got the impression that the Spanish women grew to be very strong in pushing back when it came to unknown men. Again, these are my thoroughly biased, anecdotal findings from my years spent there.
But again, there’s also a noticeable difference in race relations. More sort of blunt racism that is treated as “normal,” whereas in my country the racists are more likely to coat their racism or deny it while obviously having a racist bent to their words and actions.
Spain is a pretty religious country, and that does tend to go hand-in-hand with some sense of patriachal behavior/thinking in a lot of cases. Now, I also lived in South America for a few years and there are some similar patterns there. But in my mind, Spain is distinctly more noticeable in these respects.
I mean, as I said, it’s a casual observation from an outsider. Historically, sure, you could very much argue there is a trend toward machismo and patriarchal structures in Spain, as well as a lot of spanish-speaking countries. I personally got myself in a lot of situations where I was observing a man acting really aggressively toward a woman and intervened. Everyone around me (my local friends) found it really weird that I would see an issue and/or step in out of some sense of duty. Even one or two of the women that I was attempting to help would sort of seem taken aback.
Again, I’m making a huge generalization, but there is something to be said about the difference in interpersonal relationships across different cultures. And in my experience, in Spain in particular, I noticed very sort of “aggressive” tactics of “flirting” among spanish men toward women in general, but also on the flip side, got the impression that the Spanish women grew to be very strong in pushing back when it came to unknown men. Again, these are my thoroughly biased, anecdotal findings from my years spent there.
But again, there’s also a noticeable difference in race relations. More sort of blunt racism that is treated as “normal,” whereas in my country the racists are more likely to coat their racism or deny it while obviously having a racist bent to their words and actions.
Spain is a pretty religious country, and that does tend to go hand-in-hand with some sense of patriachal behavior/thinking in a lot of cases. Now, I also lived in South America for a few years and there are some similar patterns there. But in my mind, Spain is distinctly more noticeable in these respects.