A Mexican woman's rite of passage...that men should be obligated to pass as well

What did I spend my Mexican national Independence Day doing? Feasting out at a 15th-birthday party of a niece of my host mom. For Americans, 15 is a pretty useless age: you can’t drive, you can’t kill people in war, you can’t drink and in some cases you’re still in life’s most awkward stage (except being fed through a tube in your mom’s womb), aka puberty. While for Mexican guys the same is more or less true, for Mexican girls, turning 15 represents a crucial step in one’s life development.

A Mexican female’s Quinceanera, or 15th year, marks her departure from girlhood and her entry into womanhood. While no legal privileges come along with being 15, the once-girl, but now-woman, enjoys an entirely new standing in society. Even though she won’t technically be leaving the house for college or work for another several years, the 15 year-old woman is seen as being independent from her mom and, perhaps more importantly, her dad.

In a society so overrun with machismo, or patriarchal, sentiment it makes sense that the central piece of the ceremony would be a symbolic representation of the father releasing the daughter into society. After the mom and sister made repeated heartfelt and tear filled professions of their love for the birthday girl, the dad stoically, with a flick of the hand, opted out of speaking. Immediately after, he took his daughter’s hand and together they made their way out to a concrete platform thing in the middle of the picnic area where maybe 75 people were sitting. Once there, they began dancing a basic two-step to the waltz tunes blasting out of the huge rented speakers. She, in her fluffy pink gown, then proceeded to dance with her 20 or so male relatives in attendance, for a minute with each, until her dad returned to the concrete platform thing (I don’t know what else to call it) for her final dance of the afternoon.

Even though the birthday girl was certainly the center of attention, the party didn’t fail to have what seem to be the basic staples of any Mexican fiesta: great food, uncontrollable amounts of dancing and neon-colored balloons (used in yesterday’s case as dancing aids). Located on an abandoned farm in the hills 40 minutes outside the city, the whole thing couldn’t have been more picturesque. Unfortunately, it marks a beautiful beginning to a less than picture-perfect stage in a Mexican woman’s life that as much as anything involves being faced with the realization of her inferior position in Mexican society. Whenever people at the party attempted to clarify for me the significance of this year in a woman’s life by saying “she’s just treated differently,” I thought to myself “Ohhh, now she’s like old enough to officially receive cat-calls from sketchy guys on the street.”

As I already said, there’s no male equivalent. I guess in a society where guys dominate male-maturity is less something that one is expected to develop and more something that is thought to be intrinsically had.