Conventions

These last days I focused my attention on conventions. Society rests on conventions.

The other day while visiting my family at the beach the middle aged R.P., was talking to his 10 years old daughter who was sitting on his lap, they were laughing and it was just a happy, lovely family moment. While talking to her, dad said “it's time you start shaving, you know?!”.

The sentence struck me for the simplicity and the lightheartedness and at the same time for its brutality. A 10 year old girl should think about becoming pretty —or at least what society tells us it's pretty, the norm— and she should do it for herself and for those around her.

In the evening we went in town and looking at the people strolling around was striking. All of them —no exception— were dressed exactly the same respecting a strict social and gender code. After a day at the beach they would shower —using copious over-smelling skin and hair killing soaps and shampoos— and put on their best summer dresses: shortish pants and clean t-shirts for the guys, different types of fancy dresses, shoes and accessories for the girls. Some of them even wore unbearable high heels! Appearance is important because if you don't conform you're the weird one and nobody wants to be.

Even the beach code is quite strict. I know it seems unlikely in a place where everybody is almost naked, but females need to cover their nipples, even though they're basically the same as men's. And I'm not talking about the booby part, which is perfectly accepted. Just the nipples. If you stop and think about it ONE second it sounds completely nuts. This extremely good article (in Spanish) explains these issues perfectly. The more I think about it the more I realize that the concept of women nipple banishment is not much different than the ever-opposed chador, burqa and the likes...  And not much time has passed since women wore bathing suites that covered them much more.

Those who don't conform are a very small minority, obviously stand out of the crowd and are always noticed and most of the times judged, to say the least. Some days ago I went to the beach with some friends and I was very refreshed to find that it was normal for them not to use the upper part of the female bathing suite. A.T.'s carelessness, A.L.'s joy and happiness, P.D.'s relax and calm. Just people being themselves.

The day after visiting my parents I went to visit M.P. My mum's aunt where my grandmother was staying.

Kisses and hugs and then we were to go and visit one of my grandmother's brothers who is spending his holidays in the countriside and lives 50 meters away form where we were. My grandaunt said that she wasn't prepared to receive me and that if she knew someone was coming she would put on something else over her chemise... She wasn't brave enough to go visit her brother in law without dressing properly, though.

Conventions are very scary and of course the scariest ones are gender conventions. Even for kids. One of my mum's cousins told me that she would paint her 5 year old son's toenails since he wanted to. Maybe something's changing, I thought, but then she said that she would do it because no one could really see them and that she'd see what to do in case they were more visible... I thought about an interesting article (in Spanish) I read about the same subject.

Things might be much more difficult for parents if it's not just a boy wanting to have funny nails, but if they show signs of being possible transgender kids, like the boy in this very interesting article. I say it's difficult because not very many people are as open minded as the parents in the article and society's critiques and conventions are always around the corner, ready to strike!