The writer finds out why it's considered a misfortune to be born a man in Juchit�nIt's a testing experience trying to get some shopping done in Juchit�n (pronounced "Hoocheetan") ? a market town on the Pacific coast of Mexico, on the isthmus of Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca."Looking for something fishy, something nice and slippery, gringa?" A mountainous woman, her arms elbow-deep in a basket of prawns, sniffed her fingers ostentatiously as I made my way between the overflowing food stalls in the crowded market.Next door, the fruit seller joined in. "Perhaps she's after one of these," she screamed with laughter, lunging out with a bunch of gigantic bananas known as pl�tanos machos as if to stick them up my skirt.The butcher, another woman the size of the Popocatapetl volcano, held up a string of sausages. "Perhaps it's meat she wants, or" ? making a grab for a half-plucked chicken ? "a nice big cock."The egg-seller was convulsed with laughter, gold-capped teeth twinkling. "Looks like it to me. See how skinny she is ? half-starved, poor thing. You need to beat a few eggs, sister." The word for eggs is the same as for testicles so I guessed she wasn't talking about making omelettes.The women were speaking their native Zapotec, a language that lends itself to innuendo and puns and with which they have danced circles around foreigners for centuries. My friend Natalia, a Juchiteca herself, but living in Mexico City and a quarter the size of most of the women here, was translating for me ? when she could stop laughing."The Zapotec culture is very strong," she told me, as we moved, thankfully, away from the food stalls into the quieter realm of the flower market. "Being so far away from Mexico City, the Zapotecs were on the very edge of the Aztec empire. Even the Spanish had trouble exerting their influence here. Zapotecs are notoriously rebellious. They don't like being told what to do."Juchit�n market was run entirely by the women and this was the secret of their remarkable self-confidence ? and their size. While their husbands were out labouring all day in the fields or the fishing boats, the women of Juchit�n took charge of trade, bartering and haggling with every foreigner who passed through this fortuitous bottleneck between the two continents of America. When money fell like a ripe harvest into their aprons, the Juchitecas took to running the economy, owning land and property, even fighting in wars. Nowhere in Mexico ? or anywhere else in Latin America ? has a matrifocal culture like this come into being.It was a refreshing surprise to encounter these glorious matriarchs in a country infamous for machismo and misogyny, where the stereotypical ideal female is the retiring mujer abnegada ? a paragon of restraint and pious self-sacrifice. I'd lost count of the times I'd been ignored by waiters or passed over in the queue for the man behind me. But in Juchit�n, amazingly, men took a back seat."Men aren't allowed in the market," Natalia said, "unless they're a muxe."She gestured to a flower-seller with long, braided hair and the traditional huipil (embroidered blouse) and voluminous skirts of the Juchiteca ? but the hands wrapping dripping stems of tuberoses and hibiscus were enormous and hairy, and there was a prominent Adam's apple poking out above the neckline of the blouse. She was, quite clearly, a he.Well over a quarter of the town's male population were thought to be muxes, or transvestites. Homophobia was another stranger here. "If you have a son in Juchit�n, people will try to cheer you up", said Natalia, "they'll say, 'better luck next time' or 'perhaps he'll be a muxe'."In Juchit�n, if you had the misfortune not to be born a woman, the next best thing was to behave like one.? Flights to Mexico City from Gatwick from �623 through Netflights (netflights.com). See hotelesdeoaxaca.com for a list of places to stay in Juchit�nSliced Iguana: Travels in Unknown Mexico by Isabella Tree is published by Tauris Parke Paperbacks (�11.99)Mexicoguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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