Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WOMEN IN PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rican culture, like much of Latin American, is too often stigmatized as a 'macho'
world where women play traditional roles, bearing children, cooking meals and caring for
the home. Stereotypes paint Puerto Rican men in a similarly simplistic light - possessive,
jealous and prone to wild acts of desperation when in love. Although many women generally
perform all those duties (and more) in the most traditional Puerto Rican family structures,
recent history has seen the island break significantly with the punitive gender discrimination
that can be common in other Latin American countries and throughout the Caribbean. In
some sense, both sexes seem to enjoy the drama that comes along with these intertwined
roles - pay close attention to couples twirling on the dance floor to a salsa song or, better
yet, a steamy bolero, and you'll see clearly what game they are both happily playing. But a
more substantive look at Puerto Rican culture reveals a much greater complexity to the role
of women in contemporary Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rican women have excelled at business, trade and, most importantly, politics - of-
ten with more measurable achievement than their counterparts in the United States. San Juan
elected a female mayor decades before a woman won a comparable office in the US, and, in
2000, a woman named Sila Maria Calderón was elected governor of Puerto Rico. She ran on
a campaign that promised to end government corruption, and clean house she did.
Other women's issues that tend to be loaded with political and social baggage in the Un-
ited States have a relatively progressive position in Puerto Rican culture. For instance, abor-
tion is legal in Puerto Rico (although the rest of the Caribbean, outside of Cuba, is uniformly
opposed to it). In Puerto Rico, even socially conservative politicians remain acutely aware of
the effects of a high birthrate on family living and quality of life. The facts of life are taught
early in the home, but it's worth noting that high-school-aged Puerto Rican girls wait longer
to have sex. They are also better informed about sex, and use condoms more responsibly
when they do have sex, than their American counterparts - and that's according to the US
government's own figures. Puerto Rican culture still has plenty of macho myths that pose a
challenge to full empowerment of women, but no more so than any other Western culture.
The effect this has on travelers is very noticeable for women traveling alone. Although
typical safety precautions should be followed, solo women travelers attract much less atten-
tion than in other corners of Latin America.
