Boys Club of Tuxpan

There is a boys club down here and I will never be a part of it. And that really bothers me.

When I was growing up I was a tomboy. I’ve always had male friends. It’s not that I wanted to be a boy, but it always seemed that boy things were more fun than girl things. I wanted to run and play in the mud, I wanted to play tag, I wanted to build things and take other things apart to see how they worked. Makeup didn’t interest me, dolls didn’t interest me much either. One of my first toys was a Tonka truck. But it was the 1970’s, and gender stereotypes were breaking down it the US, so no one questioned my boyish habits. At least not to me, they didn’t. Perhaps amongst themselves there was speculation, but if I caught wind of it, it never bothered me enough to stop me.

But down here in Mexico there is a definite split between the sexes. Men hang out with men, women hang out at the house with their relatives. Luis’ mom never really left her house. She would stay there all day, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of her kids. And she was apparently happy that way. Cynthia has a job, but her circle of friends consists of her two sisters and their children. The same holds true for Laura and Pati. So I guess I have a built-in group of friends, if I want them. But that’s not who I want to hang out with.

The women I’ve met here in town are nice enough, but I think they buy into the gender roles that have been laid out for them. And in small town Mexico there is considerable social pressure to assimilate, to fit into predefined roles. Rebelling is not as accepted or as common as it is in the US.

So I have looked to Luis’ circle of male friends. They all seemed fairly modern, and being that I am a gringa, I thought maybe there would be some flexibility in the attitudes towards my behaviors. I thought I might be accepted as one of the boys. As if I could somehow lie outside of the social roles. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Luis’ friends talk to me and include me in their events, but I’m seen as auxiliary, an addition to Luis rather than a member of the group on my own right. I’ve realized that I won’t ever be included that group as an equal. And it’s not just because I am Luis’ girlfriend – although I’m sure that factors into it – it’s because I am a girl. And here in Tuxpan, males just don’t make friends with females. Females have their roles, even if they are modern gringas.

Another thing I’m seeing is that men here have different relationships from the men I know in the States. Up there, men may have friends, especially during certain years like college, but those friends seem to dry up once they get married. Or they are incorporated into a circle of friends, both male and female. Men of my age, and older, are more solitary in the states. They are not expected to have a group of male-only friends. They might get together with a group of men to go do something perceived as manly in the States – like going to watch a football game at a bar – but not just to hang out and shoot the shit. (Or am I wrong about this? Tell me if you think otherwise.)

Here in Tuxpan men will continue to hang out with their friends long after they are married. Men go out in the evenings to meet up with their friends and drink. Men see each other in the street during the day and stop to chat. Luis and his friends regularly get together just to talk. They don’t need to have some sort of organized event to bring them together. I don’t imagine those conversations are particularly touchy-feely, but I do know of at least one conversation which centered around a friend’s marriage problems.

I just can’t imagine that happening as often in the States as I see it happening here. Men are much closer in that way here than they are in the states. Some of that comes from the built-in gender split here. The most blatant example of that is when family is all gathered at our house. In general, the men will sit in one area and drink beer or tequila while the women sit in another area, drink Coca-Cola and watch the kids. I’ve seen this happen in the States too, but it seems it’s more a matter of conversation – people tend to gravitate to the group that is talking about something that interests them. Sometimes conversations are about topics that interest both genders, sometimes they are about a more gender specific topic so the group becomes gender specific too. Here it somehow feels more confining, more expected – men just don’t talk to women as friends, and vice versa.

Now, it’s not always as cut and dry at that might sound. The sexism isn’t always that blatant. But it’s there, it exists.

So since I’m a woman, I am excluded from Luis’ male group. And it kills me. I don’t have any real desire to hang out with the mothers of the town; I don’t have kids of my own and don’t plan on having any. Women here marry early and have kids early, so the other age group that is available to me is teenagers. And we all know that teenagers have a hard time communicating with adults, especially when they speak a different language - literally.

So I’m left out of the women’s group by my own choice, and the men will never accept me as one of their own. Dang.