Cultural Banter: The Wandering Eye

This first segment stems from a lot of experiences: good and bad I’ve had here. The Spanish are world renowned for their penetrating stares. Stay in Spain for more than a week and you can easily realize why this is. People here stare and I mean STARE! I noticed it when I studied abroad… our Professor even hinted at it a bit when I had to go to cultural classes prior to my trip. I studied in Toledo which is a much smaller city than Madrid. Here, I noticed this cultural trait right away. Madrid is accustomed to more tourists. So a 6 foot, blonde walking the streets definitely stood out more in Toledo.
While living in Toledo, especially my second time back, I became the target of almost every pair of Spanish eyes. I’ve lost a considerable amount of weight and I’ve learned to dress in a more Euro-chic sense rather than my failed Amer-iversity look that I had when I was studying abroad. As soon as I left my apartment, I had constant feeling of being watched. So every time I got on public transportation or walked into another crowded space, I felt the need to put on a show for the audience. I made sure that every hair was in place and that I worked my newly-adopted swagger I picked up shortly after moving here. Within weeks, I felt this aura of confidence. I even caught myself staring longer than would be culturally acceptable in the US. But with this confidence came even more inappropriate male attention. But it’s not even just the men as most people would think… I’d say it’s almost 50/50 between men and women with the staring. Men will just go a bit further and more out of their way to get your attention.

You know why the men stare but it still confused me why the women stare as much as they do. I have my theories but I can’t be sure:

1.) Spain is extremely fashion conscious. I thought my host mother was insane after leaving Toledo the first time because she used to spend an hour getting ready, doing her makeup and hair just to go to the supermarket to buy bread for lunch. After returning, I’ve realized just how important looks are here. Even during LA CRISIS, Spanish women and men will find the money to get this seasons newest looks. Yes, they’re not as credit crazy as Americans but they’ll get some new trends every season to vamp up the wardrobe. With this in mind, I can understand why women would look at other women and men at men… to see what the newest trends are. But what I haven’t decided is if Spain is so fashion-savvy because of how critical they are of eachother (by staring) or if they stare because of how important fashion is to their culture?

2.) Latin women are extremely possessive. I’m expanding this idea to more than just Spanish women because I’ve noticed this even more so in other cultures. I’ve been in a few social situations where the women are on the defensive with all other women when they are with their ‘novios’. Almost to the point where it’s funny. I could simply walk past a couple that I don’t know going to the bathroom and the woman will automatically glare at me and put her arm somewhere on her man. At first I was taken aback by this but now I just keep looking forward and don’t even give her the satisfaction of knowing that I acknowledged her.
I’ve talked to some of my female students about this. And I’ve come to realize some possible reasons for this behavior which deals in large part to the Latin male persona and extreme issues of infidelity that has been common practice in their culture. Therefore, it’s clear that women stare at other women to size up the competition.

3.) Foreign things are interesting to look at. I guess this is a more particular reason to me because of my physical aspects but it’s still completely relevant to any other foreigners. If I was riding the subway in the Chicago Loop and I saw someone that was obviously foreign (a little harder to imagine coming from a culture that is created from many cultures) but I would probably spend more time looking too. Spain is an extremely close-knit culture. There isn’t a very large mixing of cultures like in America so foreigners are still of great interest to most Spanish people.

This has been a common discussion I’ve had with other non-Spanish people living here in Spain. Why do the Spanish think it’s appropriate to stare so obviously? In the US, we like to check out other people, whether it is an attractive looking person of the opposite sex or because that girl walking by had some slammin’ stiletto boots that we would love to get our hands on. The difference is that we don’t want these people to know we are looking at them. So we’ll do the quick 3 second glance then turn away then look around to see if anyone is looking at you looking at someone else; if not, turn back to take a second glance for maybe another 3-5 seconds…. Turn away again then if you have to, make it look like you’re looking at something else in order to get just one more look at whatever it was that caught your eye. I’ve realized though that maybe this is a problem with our culture. Because God forbid that someone catches us looking at someone else or worse yet, the person that you’re looking at catches you… then you have to make a quick escape or blush like a guilty child that was just busted doing something naughty.

So take this cultural difference as you will. I'm still back and forth on the issue. Plus there are so many other cultural aspects that branch off from this one to discuss in one post. So I'll be expanding on this as time goes on.