The mariachi band, dressed in their festive beige and black charro outfits adorned with silver beaded embroidery, took their place in the center of the dimly lit church awaiting the cue from the priest to begin their song. As the priest looked at them and nodded his head, all nine men started playing their instruments. The violins started off first, with the guitars and trumpets following right behind. Those who were in attendance quickly rose and looked towards the center walkway where damas and chambelanes walked down slowly making sure they didn’t fall.

As soon as the quinceañera party took its place in the front benches of the church, my cousin Brenda walked slowly into the church looking beautiful. Her princess gown was white with baby blue accents, with a hint of lace accenting the bodice of her dress. At 15, she looked like a real-life version of Cinderella with blond hair and blue eyes.

All of those who were in attendance stared at her relentlessly, and many people, especially the women, had to hold back their tears. I was one of them. For some reason, I got emotional—extremely emotional—seeing her transformation from a little girl to a young woman. She was always such a sweet girl. She made her parents proud by bringing home good grades, obeying their commands and, above all, not rebelling and “growing up too fast” the way many other girls in my family had. But literally, from one day to the next, every person who knew Brenda as a young girl was to view her now as a young woman.

Towards the end of the mass, the priest looked at her and said, “The most important thing in your life is school, and obeying your parents. Everything else doesn’t matter.” I sat there and started nodding my head in agreement with the priest until I fully processed what he told her. My head stopped moving. The priest was essentially telling my cousin how she should live her life, when he knows nothing about her. Now that she had transitioned into womanhood, shouldn’t she be the person dictating her own future, choosing her own path to walk? Those questions popped into my head and I was probably the only one who had those questions. I realized that our unconscious psyche has manipulated us into thinking a certain way, accepting the double standards that our cultures have given us.

The strict Mexican-Catholic household in which I grew up had a traditional way of raising its children. We were often told at a very young age that women are different from men in ways that are not apparent to the human eye. Girls are always taught to respect and obey their parents, while following strict rules about sexual behavior and knowing what their duties are as women (e.g. cleaning, cooking, staying at home with the children). Men, on the other hand, could be as deviant as they wanted, engaging in sexual activities at as young an age as they pleased—without reproof—because they were men. These double standards reflect often-ignored gender inequality. Just like our history, gender inequality is permanently tattooed on our skin, and even if we try to remove it, it always manages to surface in one way or another.

In the living room of my parents’ home, there are portraits and plaster figurines of the Virgin Mary. In every corner of the room, she is there, staring at me, reminding me that, being Catholic, I am supposed to abide by certain rules, and if I don’t, I am sinning. I do feel guilty at times for things that I have chosen to do, but why can my brother walk through the house, drunk off his ass at two in the morning and feel no remorse? I remember he walked into the house obnoxiously drunk after a family party, stumbling at every step in his cowboy boots, grunting things that I couldn’t understand, and waking our mother. When she saw how inebriated he was, she undid his bed and placed a trashcan next to his bed just in case he needed to vomit.

When I got a little drunk (okay, really drunk) for my 23rd birthday, I was called a borracha (a drunk), and she reminded me—like every other time I have gotten drunk—that a lady should not drink because it doesn’t look right.

Carmela Gonzalez, a SF State student majoring in criminal justice, finds herself fighting an uphill battle with her parents about similar issues. Although she is an adult at 22, her parents still have a curfew for her and her two brothers, but the curfew is only enforced on her. Her parents ask her to be home on most nights by 11 p.m., the same time that her siblings are getting ready for a night of partying out on the streets. If she isn’t home by that time, her parents call her on her phone and demand she come home. Or whenever her boyfriend of two years goes to visit her, he is not allowed anywhere past the living room or kitchen, because “it doesn’t look right.” “Oh, but my brothers on the other hand,” Gonzalez says in a frustrated tone, “Can lock the doors of their rooms when their girlfriends are over. I’m sure they are not in there praying.”

Although hours of talks with her parents haven’t given her the freedom she demands, Gonzalez looks at the bright side of the situation. “If my parents wouldn’t have been as strict as they were with me,” she says, “I would probably have a kid right now, not having the chance to further my education and become something in this world.” She acknowledges that her parents raised her with many strict principles, but she knows that, as an adult, she is entitled to make decisions on her own.

Gonzalez’ situation is so similar to mine that I feel we were raised in the same household.

As many times as I have tried telling my mother that it is not okay for her to treat my brother and me differently, she never seems to understand. She always says the same thing: “Eres mujer, Maribel. Tu hermano es hombre. Entiende”—You are a woman, Maribel. Your brother is a man. Understand. But I cannot seem to understand her, just like she cannot seem to realize how unequally she is treating me. But in reality can I blame her? This is the way she was raised. For fifty-five years she has had this mentality, and there is no way that I can possibly break her away from it. Most cultures around the world socialize their men to celebrate their masculinity, including their sexuality, and the very same cultures use the family and religious institutions to control female sexuality and behavior.

I definitely do not want to seem like I am bashing my culture or my family. By all means, I love the Mexican culture, music, foods and tradition. And I couldn’t ask for a better family either. My dad has worked extremely hard to support a family of seven, and I thank god because we were always taken care of both mentally and financially. However, that doesn’t mean that I have to agree with everything my parents believe in. What it boils down to is this: we cannot possibly change the mentality of those who have these double standards ingrained in their heads. We can try to make them understand where we are coming from, and if they agree with anything we say, then I believe that is a victory in itself. The only people who can alter these notions and bring change are those who have suffered the inequalities, realized it, and want to make sure that the future generations of this society don’t go through the same obstacles they had to go through.

If and when I have children, I know that I am going to raise my children in a similar household to the one that I grew up in—minus the double standards. If I can teach them at a young age that men and women can do the same exact things, it will have a positive effect on their lives, although it won’t stop the inequalities in general.

However, I will continue reminding myself que soy mujer, (that I am a woman), and I will continue fighting the unrealistic ideals that our culture has given us.