I’m a Latina who recognizes the influence of culture, ethnic background, gender and experience in this highly selective, privileged, racist, and sexist country. Included in these influences is the experience of being reared by a highly dominant and sexist Colombian father, at least this was my perception of him, and probably still is to a much lesser degree than while growing up. It was “his house” and I quickly learned that what he says goes. Consequently, I slowly decided, that being oppositional at an early age, was the way that I would express my disagreement with the “rules.” I also do recognize how this has shaped a big part of my life and how I view the world.

In my younger years, I don’t remember ever identifying myself as a girl. I felt like one and was aware that I was female, but as people asked me the rhetorical question, “What are you?” My first thought and response would almost always be that I was Puerto Rican, Colombian or both. Perhaps this was due to the great variations in culture and the confusion as to which I “had” to follow.

Granted, I was well aware of the apparentness of my female gender but it wasn’t until I was in my late adolescence that I began to perceive that who I was, was not just an ethnic background but also a girl; therefore, at that point I identified myself as female Latina. I shortly began to realize and internalize the practices and behaviors that where modeled by my Latino father.

Even today, when I am asked to think and/or describe my upbringing, my father and his disciplinarian style is what I am first drawn to describe. Some who are not familiar with my life may even wonder if my mother was around while I was growing up. Although it she who maintained my sanity at home and who inspired me to achieve the fullest I can in life, it was most definitely my experiences with my father who influenced my considering myself as an independent Latina. Additionally, if I had to operate by any doctrine within that equation, it would proudly be feminism.

In observing and reflecting on the dynamics of my parents, this gave me sense of how dominance and gender are interrelated within systems, and much more when there is a cultural twist to it especially in marriages. I didn’t understand it but I knew it didn’t sit well with me when my mother had to serve my father meals at a specific time every day because “all hell will break loose” if she didn’t. “I pay the bills and what I say goes” was my father’s favorite motto.

Somehow I was conditioned to believe that if I grew up to pay the bills in my house, I had power. However, much to my dream’s demise was the rude awakening of how much harder it was to attain that longstanding power because I was of the wrong gender. Anatomically, I was not male and so I shortly came to realize although not understand, how underprivileged I was and still am and how much harder it was for me to be that powerful.

In an early quest for this supremacy, I engaged in a series of what I thought were societal norms for males. In my early twenties I started a business. I became driven by money. I purchased a house as a young woman in my twenty’s, a two family house because I wanted to be a “landlord.” And I decided to accumulate college degrees

As I was still not feeling very privileged, I also came to experience early on as I was shopping for a house how the realtors and mortgage brokers would face and speak to my boyfriend during the transactions, even though I was the sole purchaser. I really identified with this inequality when the contract agreement was very different the day of the closing and especially so when the mortgage broker on the other end of the phone, (and yes I was to cease the closing until I settled this), was attempting to convince me of the terms that I knew I did not agree on. Perhaps “he” thought I would engage in feminine-like behaviors and not assert my thoughts with convictions. I have to share that I still remember their shocked stricken reactions when I asserted the deal was off if I didn’t get what I asked for.

Needless to say, I was gladly accommodated. Currently, as a proud landlord for 6 years now, with a little more experience, I am now able to giggle when I solicit a contractor for work to be done in my home and he asks me as I open the door, “where is your husband or your father?”

I can’t say though that it has only been but challenging for me as a young woman. I might add that at times being a woman does have its perks, especially when your car breaks down and men stop to offer help. It’s not my favorite thing to say but I do admit that I have used my gender to my advantage as well.

How many men do you know will have a group of 5 men rush within seconds once their car stalls to help push their car to the nearest gas station? How many times can men say they’ve looked out to their window at home and noticed some neighbor has taken the initiative to mow the lawn and trim the shrubs several times each summer? I don’t think many men can share those experiences. However, I must add that although it is nice and I am dearly appreciative that I have one less thing to do, I sometimes struggle with thoughts such as, “Do they think I can’t do it by myself because I’m a woman?”

Chances are, that may be true but having to live in this male dominated society, I do realize that we as women have come a long way. Even though, the progression for equality seems rather slow, it is much better that having to go on a hunger strike and locked in a dirty cell while begging for rights.

In perception after the fact, I do realize that my feelings towards my “dad,” and I gladly say that now because for a long time I couldn’t address him as anything but “father,” have drastically changed. I often wonder if he’s become more sensitized, has come to realize that as he’s aged I have become independent and free from living under his roof; or perhaps I’ve just grown.

Whatever it may be, I admit I sometimes still look at my dad with some resentment for engaging in such dominant behaviors but I am also thankful that these early experiences have allowed me to be comfortable with who I am in this society. That is, with a strong sense of womanhood. Although it is still obvious to me that differences in gender are very real in our social world, I’ve learned that internally reconstructing my thoughts about the way women and men are categorized allows me to live more constructively in the external world. It is also true for me that just acting and doing what women are “supposed to do” in some people’s eyes is much easier; nonetheless, I do manage to find some comfort in that. In fact, from time to time, I find it to be quite amusing to defy the unwritten rules society and culture have imposed on women.