Work life, gender parity and Verrücktes Graß (or Hierba Loca)

Working life I dare say is different in every city. In Santiago there are a few things that I have started to notice. My office environment is really good, there is a strong team spirit, I am allowed to work from home a couple of days a week (not that I would say this is common at all in Santiago!) and I have a fair degree of freedom on what to wear (again, I would say this is not the norm in Chile).

My perception of general working environments in Chile is that they are a lot more strict/traditional than the European standard (no doubt as with all generalisations, there are always exceptions). In addition, I would say that "traditional" roles are a lot more widespread. A few country stats:

Full gender parity in Chile remains a long way off. Less than two in five women (38.5%) work, the lowest percentage in the continent. Women earn on average four-fifths (79%) that of male employees. Boardrooms and unions remain Clubes de Toby, the Chilean term for men-only institutions. Political representation is little better. Women number less than one in eight (13%) parliamentarians. In neighbouring Argentina, the figure is three times higher.

So it is often the case that I go to an external seminar to be confronted with:

•  95% of attendees being 35year old plus males in suits and ties, many of which have gone to the same 5 schools (in Santiago) and the same 2 universities (in Santiago too) and who are most likely married to someone from Santiago and will continue to live the rest of their lives in Santiago.
• The remaining 4% are the trolley-dollies and the or organisers (who may well have gone to those 5 schools from above)
• the missing 1% is me and any other randomer not fitting the other categories, like the presenters which are likely to be foreigners...

Now, this poses a little bit of an inconvenience: if I do dress up and look nice (as there is huge social pressure to do here as this is what is expected), I run the very real risk of being confused for a trolley-dolly. If I don't most people are generally confused! This leads to quite funny situations like:

• grown men trying to "help" me by translating (poorly) the English of the presentations,
• people asking me to bring them drinks (erm... go and get them yourself you lazy-old-git-in-a-suit!),
• my almost 2m tall male trainee student (normally in a suit) being confused for "my boss"  

So, I have opted for the "I dress up when working out of the office or for important office meetings" and "I go smart casual (fluctuating sometimes towards the smart and other towards the casual as the mood of the day dictates!) the rest of the time".

(i just need to vent now... eine kleine Pause...Chilenas out there, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, get up and go get what is rightly yours: half of this country! Stop concerning yoursleves wiith filling up your chest with plastic bags, wearing shoes which deform your feet and in which you cannot walk, spending your mornings and evenings putting make-up on, doing your hair, your nails... Educate yourselves, go out there and tell the PRIVATE health system that making you pay more for not having a penis is discrimination and stop complying with the norms. You set the norms. If you don't like them, don't comply)

Ok... so, last time we had one of this funny situations (my student confused for my boss ;o)) we actually made some friends. Some german company came to my office and this was one of those days where I had opted for the "more casual than smart" look (jeans and trainers... ooops!). The meeting went quite ok and one of the german guys at the meeting asked for recommendations on what to do at the weekend. To cut a long story short, we took them to Hierba Loca or Yerba loca. We did a variation of the ruta filo cerro manchon and cordon... though we got lost (Christian disagrees) and made it quite a bit longer (or more fun, no path!). After ascending roughly 1300m, we had lunch at 3100m above sea level. It took us about 8 hours and we finished in a beautiful spot next to a pristine river followed by a (very hot) curry back in Santiago!

Mario loved it too! (though pets are not allowed officially, there is a photo of a dog on the official website under the title Cabalgata... how did it get there?!).

We'll be back here for the Easter weekend so more photos will follow!!