Matado: On Street Harassment and Owning Anger
Feb 23, 2017 · 19 min read
My favourite word in Creole so far is matado, which comes from the Spanish matador (bullfighter), meaning ‘a strong woman, a woman who won’t take any shit, a woman whom no one fucks with’. I tried out my rudimentary Creole scratchings on a twinkly old mustachioed man who drove me home from my adopted St. Lucian grandmother’s 79th birthday lunch. He is her neighbour and ‘can’t refuse her anything’, he says. He was impressed I spoke French and Spanish as well as English, and so I tried the little Creole I’ve managed to glean up: ‘Yo ka kriyé mwen Mariella. Man ni venndé an. Man…
