The most serius problem in our society

Sexism is the principal and the most violent social issue in this society and particularly in this country. 

The negative differences derived of the separation on duopoly genders conform in my opinion, the most important form of inequality because, gender roles have repercussions in all aspects of our life for being the most archaic form of separation between human beings, and the historical overlaying of the masculine gender over the feminine one seem to increase over the years.  For example, in Chile, the inequality between man and women are concrete: the access to education it’s clearly less than what their male counterparts can opt for.

Sexism also affects the way the work is distributed, we know that today the labor market is dominated largely by male forces, according to OCDE studies, women has 23% less possibilities to find a job compared to men and the quality of the jobs that are available for a large number of women is quite precarious: the most of them are informal jobs, half-days jobs or jobs with few social protection guarantees.

Continue with the focus on the differences in the world of the job, the gender pay gap is terrifying, the average monthly income for the men in Chile is $543.996 and for women $382.253, for exactly the same job, the same is repeated independent of the level of the studies analyzed. It’s almost naturalized that women should earn less because they’re still considered as the second income of the family nuclei or because the mere fact of being women.

In conclusion, the inequalities created by the sexism seem not to have a close end. This social issue is the one that the most deeper transform our society because it seem to be completely normalizaed by all of us.  

Santiago: Main problematic issues

Santiago is the capital of Chile and like a globalized capital city, has a lot of problems that affect his entire population. Firstly, It’s the most concentrated city in Chile and all the spaces are hyper populated, it’s common to see in these days how big structures are rising up everywhere lodging a thousands of people in each one, in very narrow spaces.

Secondly, Santiago has a stress of “green areas” for the same reason that I mentioned in first place, the huge zones of built areas have reduced the natural landscape to a little portion of the city. In some communes (generally the poorest ones) the percent of parks or squares are greatly reduced in comparison with the percent related to the built areas, for this reason everyday we see a scenery all in grey colors.

Finally, the city of Santiago it’s a so globalized one that all the events on it happen extremely quickly and the people tends to be always stressed. And as we know, the stress bring with it the anger and the disgust. For example, when you do something as simple as shopping or when you’re using the public transport you could see how hard-set  people are and how they fight with any other for no reason at all. 

As a conclusion, Santiago has a lot of social issues mainly derived from his condition of a capital that has been insert in a context of globalization characterized by accelerated flows and a need for inmediacy, and it's so true that in this days its kind difficult to us live here, but we have to acclimate anyway and try to improve our territory as much as possible must be our purpose too. 

Best holidays ever!

My last vacation in mid-February this year were very very special, because they were not planned, we created an itinerary as we went along and all the trip was full of experiences and adventures. Also we met beautiful places in southern Chile and discovered great food and good people

It was unexpected, from one day to another we decided  go to the south of Chile to the region of Araucanía, didn’t have much money but we wanted so badly to know new places so we went anyway. 

We lived a lot of funny adventures, part of our trip we make hitch-hiking on the way to Villarrica. Camped in the Huerquehue National Park and did the tour of the various paths, despite the rain falling, we could see small waterfalls, lagoons in height and unique flora and fauna. In addition, people we meet in our stay in the park was very friendly, shared supplies whit them and ate together near the fire to pass the cold. Some of them were foreigners, Argentinians and Brazilians so we had many stories to tell them and to tell us.

We also visited various places near Temuco, the network inter-lakes: Pucon, Caburgua and Lican Ray, where we swam despite the icy waters. The rainiest days were spent at home by the fireplace or in the hot springs near Pucón, where we stayed most of the time. The best of all was the food, we went to countless restaurants from many places and we tried everything we could think of, but upon returning from vacation we regretted a little :(

Undoubtedly, the most special holidays I ever had, with a million of new experiences, people and places, although much remains to live yet!

You say there is not sexism in our country? Let’s see.

Sexism continues being an important society problem in the whole world and Chile it’s not the exception. Just take a look at the pay gap between genders, the many cases of femicide or just comparing the number of women and men in an ordinary engineering class.  The Latin American countries are still chauvinistic and the most worrying is that the institutional and economic system supports these acts.

All days we should face this practices, the street sexual “stalking” it’s a thing that always has existed and only recently has become very important to the people and the media, but the chauvinistic actions happens at home, at school, even in Congress where it has always understood the feminine as lower, weak or just bad.

As a few examples, in Chile the participation of women in the working market it’s extremely low in comparison with the men’s participation:  41,9% vs 70,7% respectively. A great percentage of women plays unpaid works, the salary is low when they’re paid and fewer opportunities to get jobs because the fact of being a woman involves losses for the companies because of the pregnancy issues or women diseases, and even the health plans are governed by the same ordinances. In our university we could see these episodes too, when teachers make offensive comments to women, they harass them or by the simple fact that some careers are male-dominated.

In summary, and without forgetting the advances in the field, the struggle for equality rights emplaced us to take part of this to make real changes in a country where the chauvinistic behaviors seem to be so naturals that go unnoticed and have become a part of our culture, not only affecting women but also men, imposing to us all practices by sex regardless individual decisions and that undervaluing to a genre historically despised.

Vacations '16

The university finished in January this year so I didn’t have much plans for my holidays, also I didn’t work and I hadn’t any money to make a trip and I was decided to stayed at home until March. But one day and so improvised a friend told me about his house in Pucón, it was alone and we could go for some days, so we went.

Spent 11 days there, the first’s days we went over the city, and we swam in the lake Villarrica, also I knew the river Trancura, but was very cold and I was not able to swim on it, but anyway I enjoyed the view. Also we visited the National Park Huerquehue, we camped one day and the next morning we did a 7 hours trekking in a lane to see lakes who birth in the highs, after this we came back home making auto stop.  Additionally we knew Caburgua and his lake with very warm water, the last night we went to a night hot springs and we were able to see the stars while we’re floating in hot water, was amazing. Definitely I didn’t want come back L  


I share you some pictures of my trip 

Step One: A short introduction to myself

Hi everyone! 

My name is Constanza Abarza but the most of  people simply call me Coni or Cona. I'm from Chile most specifically I live in the Metropolitan area of Santiago and I'm 20 years old. My birthday is in July 27th so as can you see I'll be 21 in a couple of months. My family consists in five people including me they are my father, my mother, one sister and one brother and the most important part of the family: my dog Ringo. My father is a car seller, my mother does not work out of the house but she has a lot of work inside, so it's the same. 

Also, I'm a Geography student at the moment, I'm in the third year of the career, that means I'm in the middle of it. My favorites subjects in university are those related with the social area of Geography, because I believe that the most important problems of the people in those days like education, employment or citizen repression haves an expression in the territory and as a Geographer it's really important take care of them for make real changes. That's why I would like to be a Geographer and I hope that one day this discipline could give me the competences to make this changes and this all same time make me a happy person. 

Now, let's talk about a few more things about me.

Generally I don't play sports, but if  I have to choose one, i think I'd choose swimming because I really love the water and also I learned how to swim at the school so I can swim in many different styles. My hobbies are reading (in 1st place) listening to music and sometimes imagine that I can draw and practice a little, the rest of my free time is spent in watching some films or series and things like that, but also go out a lot for waking or meet friends. 

My favorite food in world are french fries, I could eat them practically everyday but that wouldn't be healthy :(  I like spaghetti too. My favorite drink could be the lemonade or the strawberry juice, in alcoholic terms I prefer beer than others drinks. The day of the week that I like more is Saturday that's why I can sleep a lot and wake up late the day after and we don't have to go to university <3. 

July is my prefer month, It´s so cold and rainy and it's the month of my birthday like I said before so I like it a lot for both. 

I like sci-fi movies and a little of horror movies too, I don't like much romantic or action movies or that teenagers sagas like The Hunger games and stuff, but I have to confess that I'm a big fan of Harry Potter. Talking about music, I don´t have any favorite band or singer but por example The Smiths likes me so much, in Spanish I love so much to Luis Alberto Spinetta, in fact their albums're those one of my very favorites. 

My bedroom is my favorite place because I feel safe and confortable on it, and It´s the place where I sleeping so, you can imagine how much I appreciate it. Other great places are those who I have known in my travels, recently on my holidays I went to Huerquehue National Park in the Pucón surroundings and saw beautiful landscapes everywhere you looked. This is replicated for all over Chile, but for me the most amazing place in the country are Torres del Paine although I haven´t had the opportunity to see it yet but soon I'll go there I wish.  

Finally, I'm here studying English because although this course is a obligatory one I take the chance to learn more and apply in the future to my discipline and sincerely I'm always interested in it but I was always to lazy for learn by myself. 

Things I don't like

-Clowns/Mimes

-Wake up early

-People who're bad with animals

-Maths 

-Hamburgers (and the list goes on and on)