Lately in the vicinities of Moscow an on-site training took place. The event was designed for making real leaders out of Russian women, that is to create smart, sharp, decisive, determined women, possessing of broad thinking and able to engage other people. In short to make them more similar to men. I’m not quite kidding, since there were gathered thirty woman students who had evinced both intellect and activity during several conferences in the leading universities and institutes of the country. Six young men were present there if to put it mildly for demonstration of the sex discrimination.
There are no prizes for guessing that the English have organized the event. Why? Because Russian women are content with their condition. Whatever one may say all surveys have revealed a negative attitude to feminism; there is an obvious distinction between the desired and the actual situation: in fact they don’t want to enter a house on fire and<...> hold up a galloping horse as a Russian poet Nikolai Nekrasov wrote about women. Although they have to do it day after day. But in such situation she prefers to think that this position is temporary, but not to create an operative basis which will legalize the state of eternal holding up a galloping horse as if it were normal. And for some reason nobody believes that this will influence on a birth rate.
An English specialist on discrimination delivered a lecture about how a woman-leader should be. The she-lecturer explained what qualities a leader should possess. Strangely enough that she had no prepared in advance answer on a question ‘for whom and why is it advantageous, that women would be leaders’. She just referred all the time to the wrong Russian socialization because of which the audience is divided into two parts, male and female. Just one nuance was astonishing. All the time the organizers put the blame for sex practices on the audience. Yes, we really have another socialization; yes, even in our language there are archetypes of the patriarchy. But why did the respected colleagues from the Great Britain always divide the audience during all the trainings into groups according to sex on purpose?
The trainers tried to use the communicative method to evoke from the women a leader’s behavior. The main presupposition and the problem issue of the training was the following: in Russia there are more women than men, but in the government and on leading position there are less than 10 percentage of woman. That means undoubtedly that in Russia there are great gender problems and women should solve them conjointly; foreign colleagues will help them.
I can’t understand first of all how it can be considered right to change immediately foundations and principles, which directly concerns the institution of family. The more comprehensible the necessity to determine the distinction between what is postulated (the so-called equality) and the actual sex discrimination. This is useful for young people and in the longer term it can lead to the desired result, that is to the absence of the discrimination.
The next proof of a wrong women’s consciousness was the fact that they didn’t wish to agree with the average portrait of a woman. The audience was divided according to the principle of self-determination into men and women. Both parts had to compose a verbal portrait of an average representative of the opposite sex.
After the results had been announced women began crying “We’re not that! What do you tell? This doesn’t represent the facts at all!” Well, the organizers had to explain that the audience wasn’t consist of average representatives, that the matter concerned some other level of people and that such women existed if only one went aside slightly from a university. Here is the portrait composed by men:
· Is not married but is looking for a successful match
· takes up a not leading post
· comes from an incomplete family, lives with relatives
· smokes, consumes alcohol frequently
· prefers to spend her free time in front of a TV, watches mainly entertainment channels
· messes around in a small company, the round of her relations is no more than eight people
· not a professional in her sphere but has a credential
· doesn’t know foreign languages, uses PC bad, can’t use all the functions of her mobile phone
· doesn’t have any savings
· buys her clothes in a flea market or cheep shops but tries to be in the fashion
· cooks badly
· doesn’t have a hobby
· doesn’t read serious literature
At the same time the portrait of an average man composed by women was just slightly better, but the reaction of the men was more appropriate; they agreed that most of average young men are such, unless with the exception of the last point
· a student
· is anxious to be free from any obligations
· smokes, drink beer
· a PC user
· not married or is going to get married
· is anxious for financial independence
· likes to visit concerts and clubs
· prefers music to reading
· a homophobe
· heightened sexual activity
Two things astonished. First it is strange that someone from the woman part of the audience really believed in possibility to become a leader in spite of the fact that nobody could assume the existence of several tens of million men, who see an average woman to be such. Second, nobody saw a direct connection between the leadership of a high rank and absence of a big family, but referred exclusively to social problems.
