Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

GUEST POST: KRISTINA ON UKRAINIAN GENDER ROLES

(edited)

Curt,

RE: https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10153668125062264

You explained this perfectly but I wouldn’t [describe Ukrainian women] as “broken.”

Throughout the Soviet Union, the terms of masculine and feminine have always been quite defined. Compromising has never been much of an option and is never viewed as optional.

Acts of service or kindness are often seen as manipulation due to the fact that they often are. I look at it as a duty coming from my end but will always be suspicious if it were coming from a man just in case if he is expectant of something in return.

“Demanding” is how Ukrainian men ask. If men are not tough enough then the women will overrule the entire relationship/marriage. I don’t see how “turning the other cheek,” is not considered a sign of weakness. How can you not be passionate enough to fight and defend something or someone you believe in?

Too often Ukrainian women have to do the duties of both a male and female. It is nearly impossible to survive on one income. Therefore, women have to be loving wives, raise children, grow food in a village, work, and of course, do all the housework. Maybe, because of this set lifestyle, we have higher expectations and are distant to any “standards” outside of our own.

Perhaps, I’ll never be capable of understanding of how to be affectionate. It never came naturally and I’ve never considered it much of a necessity. Moving to the states after living in Ukraine is a transition that I’ll never be able to make in an emotional and cultural sense; too many differences in the perception of not only gender but of everything.

— Kristina Protsenko