If you live on the coast, just a ten minute drive inland takes you to a very different Spain. Traditionnal values are very much in place and people continue to live life in the same way as the generation before them.
If you do venture out into the unknown, undoubtedly you will stop for a drink and a bite to eat at one of the authentic pueblo bars. Living on the coast, the first thing that you will probably notice is the difference in price as it can be as much as half what you are used to paying. Some might say that they are more in line with the prices that they enjoyed when they first moved to Spain.
However, you may notice, particularly if you are a woman, that there are no other women apart from tourists like yourself.
If they are not tourists they are likely to be either cleaning the bar or working behind it. I was in such a bar early the other morning and I pointed out to the waitress that it was going to reach 40 degrees and she was wering jeans! She replied that it was a case of having to as the customers were mainly males and she implied that it wouldn't be a good idea to wear anything skimpier.
These bars tend to be male only hang outs. It seems that even in small towns on the coasts there are still places in Spain where it would be inappropriate for a woman to hangout. Just like the English pubs, they are usually frequented by their regulars. But unlike the UK pubs, regular punters, it seems, are never women but packs of old, retired men keeping out of their wives way whilst they scrub the houses or cook.
There also lots of obreros (workmen) especially around breakfast time at around ten thirty, eleven. I don't know if it's that women aren't welcome or more that women don't want to sit in the often spit and sawdust hangouts where everything takes place at the bar.
However, you would be very much forgiven for thinking that it was an example of the remains of the machista attitude where women stayed at home and cooked waiting for the husbands to return from the bar, not unlike the attitude that was common in UK towns in the sixties when women still wore aprons and mopped the front door steps. Needless to say, that in many inland towns and villages, it is not unusual to see middle aged women wearing aprons and mopping their front door steps today.
If you are really lucky you might even spot a couple of curlers in their hair ready for later when they will scrub up and go into town to do the daily shop. That's not to say that women don't go out to bars and the like. In the evenings and at weekends bars and restaurants are full of women although, it seems that once they have a family, they are usually out with their families as opposed to the groups of middle aged women that you see painting the towns red across the UK.
Written by: Susan Pedalino
About the author: Women In Spain
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