An important part of any study abroad experience is just that, the experience. You are not there to simply observe like a vacationing tourist. Once that country becomes a temporary home to you, it’s time to delve into the culture and live like a local.

But what happens if you do not like or agree with part of the culture you are partaking in?

I have been in Spain for nearly three months and during my time here I have attempted to blend in and not reinforce the stereotypes the rest of the world has about Americans ( i.e. lazy, ignorant, entitled). So I’ve eaten Spanish food, taken siestas, and learned colloquial sayings, but there are some Spanish habits that I don’t care to adopt.

For example, high-heeled shoes seem to make up the majority of Spanish women’s closets. From young women pushing strollers to old women carrying grocery bags, everyone wears them and the fact that I don’t has begun to make me feel less feminine.

The women often admit that high heels are difficult and painful to wear, but to them it’s a necessary, daily sacrifice to look good and draw positive attention. Not only is this “beauty-over-pain” attitude ridiculous, but something as simple as this encourages men to treat women as objects, prizes, with little value outside of looks.

The amount of cat-calls one hears everyday in the street is absurd. The word “guapa” which really just means “attractive” or “pretty,” has been forever tainted for me because of how often it’s used by beggars or random passerby to get your attention in an attempt to get a reaction out of you. Most women here just ignore it, but ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away.

Recently a friend shared with me a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King that says, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

While this high heel and cat-call example is a minor one, it shows that inequality between the sexes is still tolerated in developed countries, and if we remain silent on this front, how can we expect the treatment of women in third world countries to improve?

Some will call me an extreme feminist and say I’m overreacting about such a trivial thing, and many of these critics would even be women. The fact is, though, that I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist. These small, daily actions perpetuate the problems and develop into a larger mentality, having a larger impact than most people think, and ultimately harm a society.

To me, it’s easy to recognize these problems. The real difficulty is fixing them, especially in a country or culture that is not your own.

To begin with, what rights do outsiders really have to change a foreign culture?

As someone who wants to work overseas in the future, this is an important question for me to answer.

Even if you think foreigners have every right in the world to step in and try to make changes to a culture, it is often not very likely that they will be able to effectively do so exactly because they are outsiders and therefore don’t fully understand the culture.

Additionally I would argue that outsiders do not always have the right to attempt to change a culture. Such a thing on a grand scale is called “conquering” and, in the 21st century, is generally criticized.

However, I do think there are certain things every human being should have access to, and steps ought to be taken to ensure that everyone does have access to them.

In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first sentence of the preamble states, “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…”

Article 1 of the same document states it a little more straightforwardly, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

These promises are given to all human beings, and they need to be enforced, but this brings us back to the question of how to instill these ideas.

Most people would automatically think of an army being the enforcer. Indeed the United States has tried establishing systems of democracy in a number of nations using military force, but real change must come from the inside. Fundamental change has to do with changing the mentality, and then the actions will follow.

So while this might not be my country, it is my world and I believe everyone in it has a right to equality; it just takes the action of good people to ensure these rights are available to everyone.