Happy Women's Day

All over the world, (okay, most of Europe) March 8th is International Women's Day. The day is celebrated by giving women flowers, candy, champagne, and letting them know how much they mean to you in your life.

Today, because the university is closed tomorrow for the holiday, my two male students gave me a card and there was a special concert that shut down the school early. There I was given a plant, I suppose because someone noticed that I was female.

Truth be told, I don't often feel female in Ukraine. Actually, I usually feel barely human. See, in a country where every woman is hyperfeminized, it's difficult to feel like a woman unless you are wearing little clothing, much makeup, and stiletto boots. Conversely, I do exactly the opposite: I wear little makeup, boots without a heel or point at the toes, and my clothing... well... it could hardly be defined at "little." Often times I feel that I dress here more like a man and that women and men hence treat me accordingly. Being foreign of course only adds to this equation, in that you suddenly cease to have a gender. I am the American. Although, thankfully in Russian, I become a Американка, the feminine form of the word American.

It is something that we female volunteers comment about from time to time, how being in this sort of culture where roles are much more stereotyped and traditional, it becomes difficult to define what about yourself is actually feminine. At home that would mean something quite different that it does here. We comment that we often times feel ugly, fat, ungirly, or the word that I most often use for lack of a better term, "dykish," simply because we do not fit into the mold that is made for Ukrainian women, and many of us wonder how we are supposed to feel like a woman when we are such a spectacle ourselves with our unfeminine behavior. Sit on the ground or on a cold bench and you get yelled at for freezing your ovaries. Never had your hair dyed? Not married by the time you are 22? Something obviously must be wrong with you. Not want children? These are concepts that are very much unfathomable to many Ukrainians my age and older, of both sexes. Younger people, and especially those people in the cities, seem to understand a bit more about the need for a career and the pain that can come from becoming permanently attached in a relationship before you are quite mature enough, but for the most part, we American women are freaks. Sloven Amazons among maidens.

Of course Ukrainian women are world reknownded for their uncommon beauty and hence, I think, take great pride in their appearance and dress. We American women are taught that if you dress in a certain way (short skirt, low cut blouse, fishnets and boots), you will not be taken seriously. It's hard to reconcile these things and decide who is actually doing what for whom. Not follow? I've had conversations with male volunteers about this: who is the Ukrainian woman actually dressing up for? Is it men, who simply want to objectify her as a sexual object? Is it for other women? For them to be jealous of their beauty and physical appearance or simply to fit in with the group? Or is it for herself? Is she dressing up and showing off her assets (also for lack of a better word) simply because she wants to feel sexy, beautiful, or confident? None of us really have answers for this, but we typically point to Communism as being the culprit. For years lack of self expression have obviously built up and now that women have money and means to dress the way that they want to, they seem to have bought into (again) this hyperfeminized idea of what a woman is.

Ah, I could go on and on about this topic, but the short of this long entry really is just this: Happy Women's Day to all you beautiful, wonderful, smart, lovely, talented, and amazing women reading this post and I am in dire need of new Ukrainian clothes.