Sexism in Russia is a topic that I've wanted to address on my blog for a while, but it's too daunting a task. There's no way to make you, my loyal blog reader, from the comfort of your probably fairly gender-equal home, understand the multifaceted monster that is gender relations in Russia. It's positively archaic.
However, I will share this one small anecdote with you that should help illustrate the cause of my dismay. It's not a usual occurrence in itself, but it is entirely characteristic of Russian culture. Read and enjoy, and hopefully appreciate your equal gender standing in society a little bit more........
So I'm not sure if I have written much about my Russian Far East class here yet. Basically, it's our only class taught in English. It's a twice-weekly lecture given by various professors and "specialists" about different aspects of the Russian Far East. They are all Russian, and some have better English than others. It's a difficult class because usually we're talking about subjects that the students don't have the Russian to discuss and the lecturers don't always have enough English to satisfy them. But we manage.
On Tuesday, we arrived at RFE to find not one, but two professors! And, lo and behold, one of them was male. Until that time I had had zero male professors. In fact, the only male professor I'd even seen was an American who teaches English here. Anyways, here they were, a woman and a man, whom I assumed were here to co-lecture our class.
The woman introduced herself and mentioned that the man was her husband. He didn't really introduce himself, just nodded a lot and occasionally added a word here or there. Today's topic was the economy of the Far East. She began to lecture.
But as she lectured (in English, which she was clearly not very comfortable with) the man would interrupt her in the middle of about every other sentence. Sometimes he would correct her English (which was really unnecessary because we understood what she was saying). Sometimes he would ask her skeptically where she got a statistic. Sometimes he would ask devil's advocate questions that weren't really helpful to our conversation, and only seemed to undercut her. A couple of times he flat out told her she was wrong. He also called her powerpoint boring on several occasions.
The woman was very patient and submissive and waited calmly while the man bashed her lecture. It was painful to watch. I have literally never seen adult professionals behave like this. It was like I was watching them have a marital dispute while discussing the different mining regions of the Russian Far East. It was wild. 15 minutes before our hour-and-a-half-long class was over, the man physically took the mouse from the woman, exited her powerpoint while she was talking about it, and tried to open something else on the computer. The woman took the mouse back and reopened her powerpoint. The man got so agitated that he simply left. He gave a little bow, announced his departure, and that was the last we saw of him. Those last 15 minutes were the most productive of our day.
So that was a weird and uncomfortable day of class. Yep.
However, I will share this one small anecdote with you that should help illustrate the cause of my dismay. It's not a usual occurrence in itself, but it is entirely characteristic of Russian culture. Read and enjoy, and hopefully appreciate your equal gender standing in society a little bit more........
So I'm not sure if I have written much about my Russian Far East class here yet. Basically, it's our only class taught in English. It's a twice-weekly lecture given by various professors and "specialists" about different aspects of the Russian Far East. They are all Russian, and some have better English than others. It's a difficult class because usually we're talking about subjects that the students don't have the Russian to discuss and the lecturers don't always have enough English to satisfy them. But we manage.
On Tuesday, we arrived at RFE to find not one, but two professors! And, lo and behold, one of them was male. Until that time I had had zero male professors. In fact, the only male professor I'd even seen was an American who teaches English here. Anyways, here they were, a woman and a man, whom I assumed were here to co-lecture our class.
The woman introduced herself and mentioned that the man was her husband. He didn't really introduce himself, just nodded a lot and occasionally added a word here or there. Today's topic was the economy of the Far East. She began to lecture.
But as she lectured (in English, which she was clearly not very comfortable with) the man would interrupt her in the middle of about every other sentence. Sometimes he would correct her English (which was really unnecessary because we understood what she was saying). Sometimes he would ask her skeptically where she got a statistic. Sometimes he would ask devil's advocate questions that weren't really helpful to our conversation, and only seemed to undercut her. A couple of times he flat out told her she was wrong. He also called her powerpoint boring on several occasions.
The woman was very patient and submissive and waited calmly while the man bashed her lecture. It was painful to watch. I have literally never seen adult professionals behave like this. It was like I was watching them have a marital dispute while discussing the different mining regions of the Russian Far East. It was wild. 15 minutes before our hour-and-a-half-long class was over, the man physically took the mouse from the woman, exited her powerpoint while she was talking about it, and tried to open something else on the computer. The woman took the mouse back and reopened her powerpoint. The man got so agitated that he simply left. He gave a little bow, announced his departure, and that was the last we saw of him. Those last 15 minutes were the most productive of our day.
So that was a weird and uncomfortable day of class. Yep.
This gender lecture deal sounds like at least half the problem is a bad marriage. Respect is a common trait in all good marriages around the world irregardless of culture or gender trends. I guess it comes with love.
ReplyDeleteSounds like something yucky to have to sit through. Catie
Sometimes gender relations here can be frustrating for me to witness, because even when I know there is no disrespect intended (clearly this was not one of those times) women are definitely not treated as though they're equal with men. Gender roles play a huge role in Russian life! As a self-sufficient Alaskan girl that's one of the hardest things to get used to.
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