Much is explained by the fact that I am a humanist. In our environment, there are always many more women. They prevailed 40 years ago among my teachers, and today they prevail among my colleagues. In principle, the entire composition of the section at a scientific conference on philology can often go after the meeting to a women’s club or simply to the bathhouse. By the way, you need to put the idea into operation …
Needless to say, the students who study with me at the Faculty of Journalism are mostly girls. Quite typical is a group of students in which there is a young man surrounded by the care of about twenty classmates. This ratio is a bit strange: it seems that not only women work as journalists. However, it seems to be a matter of time.
And during my first job, in a publishing house, the department consisted of 35 employees and a male boss who, before entering the room of his subordinates, always knocked, because there it happened , not only boots, but also tried underwear . A working day from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., then running after groceries in half-empty 80s stores, standing in line, standing in the subway with two full bags. Thus flowed our most feminine life, full of food, cosmetics and discussions of gender relations, mainly at work.
Now, thank God, I’m not sitting in the office, but I’m still surrounded mostly by women. Every morning, when I arrive at the first couple and there are still very few people at the university, I have time to notice: two security guards, a wardrobe, several cleaning ladies. And then, closer to the start of class, teachers and countless students begin to rush upstairs.
However, the issue is not limited to the professional sphere. Any outing to a museum, a theater, a concert, a trip on an excursion is a stay in the female kingdom. There are, of course, sad men led by energetic wives, but overall it seems that the realm of culture is aimed primarily at women. To be convinced of this, just take a look at the queue in the ladies’ toilets during the intermission of the performance.
And there is also a road. And the concept of “a woman driving”. I remember the instructor telling me, without hiding his sarcasm: “And don’t forget to leave a note:” A lady has parked. There are men who claim to always recognize the one in which the same “woman” is in the stream of cars. Nonsense nonsense! How many times, after paying attention to a car with particularly crazy maneuvers, I tried to single out a malicious aunt – and found in her place either a pensioner in an indispensable cap, or a burly uncle with a cell phone pressed against his ear, or a distant youth in headphones.
Although in fairness it must be said that the gender aspect of driving still exists and sometimes even manages to be exploited. That’s when you can’t change lanes, because no one lets you pass, and you, almost leaning over, catch the attention of the male driver and make such a special, unhappy female face. And they miss it! Well, almost always. First, probably, those who imagine their own wife in the place of “that madman”. That is to say, the road always operates by male rules (the fittest survive!), and sometimes it shows a certain condescension towards us.
I understand: everything would be different if I entered Mekhmat, then worked in an engineering research institute and also regularly went to football. Probably, then the male world would not have seemed so alien to me.
Somehow, during spring break, two great civilizations collide. I will not comment on what “we” present to “their” by February 23. Let “they” analyze and evaluate it. I will try to tell my own feelings on the eve and on the day of March 8.
It seems to me that there are several periods in life when literally everything excites and pleases. And the March 8 bouquet is no exception. For example, in high school, girls growing up on March 8 are really looking forward to it. First, it will be, as they say, cool. Boys will find something fun: funny toys, postcards with funny inscriptions. Secondly, if He already exists, the most beautiful, the most important, then here is the moment of truth when He will come separately with something special, intended only for you.
The situation is repeated in your student years, when March 8 is indeed a public holiday, not a vague solidarity, but your femininity, your attractiveness, your romantic expectations.
But then… Free time is less and less, so are the expectations. Male colleagues will not remember March 8 at all or accompany a hasty congratulation with a healthy dose of irony: “Well, with your gender!”. In addition, it will be especially the women themselves who will congratulate themselves (see the previous paragraph concerning their numerical advantage). Oh, how many teas and shampoos I have exchanged in my life with parents, girlfriends, friends and colleagues! I don’t remember any of the men doing such trifles.
There is also space for family life. At home, they will certainly congratulate, but also less willingly than, for example, on New Year’s Day or birthdays. And the responsibility lies largely with me. Haven’t I practiced the spirit for years, accompanying congratulations on Women’s Day with remarks like “so, but no one wants to do the dishes on this occasion? “.
With what, by the way, to congratulate a modern woman? Equal rights, for which the founder of the party, the communist Clara Zetkin, advocated at the beginning of the 20th century, is generally received by women. We don’t have to fight for the opportunity to study and, above all, to work on an equal footing with men. I would probably fight to work less, but that’s definitely not in the spirit of March 8th.
There is no absolute equality not only in human society, but also in nature. No matter how frustrated feminists are, a man should always carry a heavy suitcase, because a woman just doesn’t have enough strength. And maybe in some stores known only to them, feminists are buying food and drink in easy-to-open containers. And now I have to ask men from time to time to “turn their heads” towards a particularly airtight jar. And I don’t see in it the slightest humiliation of my feminine dignity.
Stop. I’m not sure about female dignity. On the contrary, it’s just human. And he cannot be offended by help and care. I love it when they give way, give them coats, hold hands when they get off the bus. Why do they give me a coat, and not me? Because they are often bigger and stronger. And because there is a cultural tradition, and that, in my opinion, is a great value.
Now, students often ask me questions about feminists. I refrain from making predictions. It cannot be ruled out that in 100 years, “authors” and “editors” will become stylistically indistinguishable from “actresses” and “teachers”. But while they sound, to be honest, passably, reminiscent of a line from the comedy “Hussar Ballad”: “I don’t like actors!”. There are many words ending in “ka” in Russian, and they have different emotional connotations. And yet, how to renounce the existence of such, for example, a series: “grandmother”, “tramp”, “drunkard”, “beggar”, and also “murderer”, “onlooker”, “cracker”? Listen, can I stay a little more “author” and “editor”? On this basis, no one has yet taken me for a man.
You cannot dispute the fact that men have done more for world culture. But only because women have done more for them. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy created War and Peace, and Sofya Andreevna completely rewrote the text for him. Therefore, I think that on March 8, men have every reason to congratulate not only us, but also themselves. Let them rejoice that there is still this incomprehensible but wonderful world of very close women, who manage to smell perfume and borscht at the same time, a world in which their socks are imperceptibly washed, their shoes are cleaned, many useful things and beautiful things appear at the first movement of an eyebrow, and are transported into the world of men, hard and full of creative ideas. Let them congratulate us and themselves – and write “War and Peace”. We will read it with pleasure.
