Paisana Jacinta

"This is what an Andean women looks like
This is how the powerful want to see her"
Source

I said we'd be looking at sexism in Peru this month. Paisana Jacinta is one of the most disgusting and easily visible examples of the insection of racism and sexism that Andean women face. 

Paisana Jacinta is a regular tv show that features a man dressed up in traditional Andean women's clothing. It's a comedy show, and the joke is that Andean women are "vulgar, dirty, violent, inept, and lacking in intellectual capactiy."** Here are just some of the ways Paisana Jacinta disrepects, mocks, and enforces the oppression of rural Andean women:

• Paisana Jacinta is missing most of her teeth, a way to mock the disparity in health care faced by the people of this region. 
• The show makes fun of the rural Cusqueñan accent. This accent comes from speaking Quechua as a first language. Just as I have a US-American accent when I speak Spanish, many rural people have a Quechua accent. That's just the reality of being bilingual. Instead of marveling at the intelligence needed to be bilingual in two completely unrelated languages,* the makers of Paisana Jacinta mock Andinas for not speaking "proper" Spanish.
• Paisana Jacinta is rough, violent, and uncultured. This reinforces the idea that rural peoples are less than the people from the cities. The culture of a small place like Andahuaylillas, or an even smaller place like any of the surrounding communities, is different than the culture of a city like Cusco (which is constantly filled with tourists from Europe and the US) or Lima (which is where all the richest Peruvians live). Instead of celebrating the rich diversity of cultures within their county, the makers of Paisana Jacinta denigrate those cultures that are different from their own.

But Andean women are not standing by while this show mocks them. They are organizing against the show, striving to get it canceled. A coalition made of Asociación por la Dignidad y Derechos de las Mujeres del Cusco (The Association for the Dignity and Rights of the Women of Cusco), la Escuela de mujeres Micaela Bastidas de Espinar (The Michael Bastidas de Espinar Women's School) y la red de Mujeres Canchis (The Network of Chanchis women) is leading this movement. These women are savy. These women are organized. They have the support of a Asociación por la Vida y la Dignidad Humana (Associaton for Life and Human Dignity) and Instituto de Defensa Legal (The Legal Defense Institute). They have brought a legal action against Paisana Jacinta to get it taken off the air.

"Ello genera un estereotipo de mujer andina que únicamente ocasiona, promueve y refuerza la discriminación por origen étnico y cultural, en vez de fomentar el pleno respeto a su identidad cultural y a su integración plena a la Nación."**

"It [Paisana Jacinta] generates a stereotype of andean women that only causes, promotes, and reinforces discrimination by ethnic and cultural origina, instead of encouraging the full respect for their cultural idential and their full integration into the nation [of Peru]"

This show should be taken off the air. The joke isn't funny, it's cruel.

I'm embedding an episode of Paisana Jacinta. Though I am loathe to add to the view count for this video, it is sometimes necessary to show such examples of racism to remind people that racism is alive and well.

*Spanish and English are more similar than Spanish and Quechua. Spanish and Quechua have completely different rules of grammar no shared roots in a language like Latin.
**Source - Presentan Acción de amparo conta "La Paisana Jacinta"