R: (for my second story) I thought generally the process of relationships: starting relationships, going on dates. It is always, well not always, but generally the man is meant to instigate that. So, approach a woman and ask her on a date, pay the meal, all of that. All that sort of thing.
R: Okay, so I think when you're at school, I came in straight through so whole my life has been, all my life experience has been through school (the respondent is 19 and still studying). So, I think when you're a girl at school it is very hard - I found it very hard to fit in.
R: (…) I like being a woman. But I consider that Portuguese society is not well prepared to support working moms. I work many hours, too many, for the support I consider that I need to give to my 3 children at home.
R: I had two marriages, and both of my wives died from cancer. The first one died from breast cancer, the second one - from spine cancer. But I am happy with the people around me now, the kids and so on. This is a matter of destiny.<br />(…)
I: So, do you see that masculinity is changing? Or that there is a debate, somehow, going on? R: I think so, I think it is not quite the right debate, but I think the emergence of these kinds of, these different kinds of masculinities, such as the 'metrosexual'. I: Metro???
R: So, yeah, I grew up in this house with my mother and my sister and my older brother. My father, my mother and father are divorced. My father lives about 2 streets down there, my mother and father would cross the road to avoid each other.
R: […] I had a teacher, who actually did not really tolerate girls. And because of this, frankly speaking he was somehow rather indulgent towards all of them; and he preferred guys since it was civil defense training.
“What comes to mind is that different types of people start bothering you in the streets with different types of intensity. That happened quite a lot when I was younger, was that there were these stupid sexualized remarks, but also other types of remarks. but I must say..
R: We should always discuss the tasks that a man and a woman are doing. There is a tendency to get used to it. For example, that if [name wife] uses to feed our daughter, it becomes soon a habit and we would never consider that it could be done differently.
I: (…) Did you ever have a girlfriend? R: Yes, I did. I: And how was the division of labour, roles, male female in your relationship? What can you say?
R: (…) So a man who washes dishes performs a woman’s job, thus is not manly, not masculine. And now of course you do not need to connect this to Roma only.