Eight Honored on International Women’s Day
Isabel Guzman is a traffic cop. Young Cindy Cerdas is a San Jose Municipality motor pool mechanic.
They are two of eight women honored Thursday on International Women’s Day for their gender stereotype-breaking jobs in Costa Rica, where the old machismo habits are hard to break. Ask Guzman, for instance. When she first drove a Traffic Police tow truck, one male driver refused to show her his vehicle documents. Guzman told him, “You’d better get used to it because I’m here to stay.”
Or ask Olga Zuñiga, a fireman in the San Jose suburb of Tibás. Oops! Better make that “fireperson!”
Speakers at the ceremonies in downtown San Jose were Vice President Laura Chinchilla (a former Minister of Public Security, once the country’s top cop) and National Women’s Institute president Jeannette Carrillo. Theme of the event was “Opening the Way: Gender Doesn’t Define the Job.”