The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

feminism

Just another day in the Centro Histórico

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“Hola bonita, buenos días.”

It was a stranger. I didn’t see his face. I mumbled buenos días and kept walking, stepping up onto the empty sidewalk near the Chedraui.

From the other side of the street, a chicken vendor yelled out, “Hola guerita!”

You’d think they had never seen a girl before. I pressed ahead, not looking at anyone.

Then, just about 10 paces later, the first guy’s voice again:

“I’m trying again, I wanted to say hi, because I very much feel like I want to know you.” Intento otra vez, te quería saludar porque tengo muchas ganas de conocerte.

His earnestness made me laugh. I didn’t want him to think he was having an effect on me, so I just pressed my lips together and walked more quickly to Mercado San Juan. Avoided Chicken Row on my way back.

One of Mexico’s “hottest girls” is only 14

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Quien magazine

Just when I was getting semi-used to how differently women are viewed here — they’re valued more for being mothers than workers, and chastity is prized even as many professional women here walk around in miniskirts, tacones and cleavage-bearing shirts — Quien magazine, a fluffy but respected publication in town (billionaire Carlos Slim was on a recent cover) has gone and put a 14-year-old telenovela star Danna Paola on its cover, announcing her at the top of its list of “beautiful girls.”

All the other women featured in the story are in their 20s.

As you can see above, Paola is wearing a bikini and a sexy expression, which is creepy and disturbing. Even worse is the video the accompanies the story, which has leering camera angles and moaning-ecstasy sound effects.

Executives at Televisa, which sponsors Paola’s show, Atrevete a Soñar, are reportedly scandalized by the magazine cover and are thinking about canceling her contract, El Universal says. Other websites are reporting that Televisa is demanding that Quien magazine turn over the photos. Also: Where were the girl’s parents?

Quien, for its own part, is portraying the uproar as a bunch of rumors, and Televisa as an overbearing company that’s squashing the success of a up-and-coming star. Paola felt very comfortable during the shoot, a story posted today on Quien’s website says.

I don’t pretend to know how hard it is to be a parent, let alone a showbiz parent, but what ever happened to the idea of teenage girls simply being teenage girls, and not sexualized creatures? In the U.S., a lot of the hot teen starlets right now are admired for their sweetness and innocence. (Unlike the Lohan era of five years ago.) Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, for example, have never been photographed stumbling out of a club or flashing their underwear at the paparazzi, and Selena was just on the cover of Teen Vogue. Not that I’m advocating for them to have perfect lives, but it’s refreshing to see them acting their age. Can you imagine the uproar if either one of them appeared in bathing suits and sexy expressions on the cover of a U.S. magazine?

I’m getting more worked up about this as I write, so maybe I should just stop here and go take some deep breaths.