Reading Journal 9

(On the Russian dating service photocopies.)

Radzinsky's article, after reading the past few hopeful novels that we have, revealed a fairly tragic but predictable reality: Russian women almost seem to be where North American women were, from the narrow depiction I've absorbed from the media, in the 1970's: they are "winning," in some sense, the beginning of a fierce battle for independence from men in the workplace and gender relations. Middle-class women are somewhat economically empowered but still unequally so, open sexual expression long repressed by Soviet morality has begun to saturate the media, and men are becoming divided into either the "whipped" category or the "traditional" category, and there is no room at the moment for Glebs, let alone Pavels, in cross-gender relationships. His final lines are telling: "The Russian girls are coming. They don't want to change the world. They want to conquer it." Will there be a modern-day Kollontai that does want to change the world? Would the culture allow her to be heard? I suppose that's where the Vice photo-article comes in.

One theme amongst the brief Q&A captions was that local Russian men do not treat women well or otherwise would not make suitable partners, so they seek men from other countries, some of which hold more promise than others. Americans, Muslims, and Arabs in particular, just in this small selection, are not preferred, but Dutch, English, and German men are. There's some sense to the logic given: the Natasha of p. 73 cite the practical statistic of the latter group wanting to be with women closer to their age, which is more likely to work due to similarities in life stage; others cite more respect being given from them.

In my brief encounter with liberation theology a few years ago, I heard of three ways of responding to systematic problems: temporary aid, sustainable aid, and restructuring the system in question. Within this framework, it's obviously preferable in the long term to engage the last option, albeit much more difficult. But if we apply this to the situation above, the moral prescription is clear: Russians, Americans, Muslims, Arabs, Dutch, English, and Germans are all likely in need of varying degrees of cultural transformation. This is not to prejudge every relationship that comes about through an international dating service as unworthy, doomed to failure, etc., but rather to recognize that if Tver are often drunk or high and don't have respect for women, the outsourcing of relationships with men to other countries does not seem likely to be a path to the coming about of a generation of sober Tver men that have in mind the best interests and humanity of their female counterparts and of themselves. Tver women, as well, are in a sense training themselves to run from possible transformational roles as mothers and sisters, and instead embrace a preference for the unknown rather than a redemption of the known in situations of conflict. This is a harsh criticism, absolutely, and I'm not saying I would do any better in their situation; indeed, I have my own history of abandoning situations wherein I feel overwhelmed by a systematic problem. But I do know that sometimes the unknown turns out to be much worse; meanwhile, whether it turns out well for her or not, what good there was in a local Tver woman has left with her and is in both cases unlikely to return. Furthermore, if the facts in these short captions are what they appear to be, I believe Tver culture has plenty sufficient intelligence, practical skills, and creativity needed to become what its women are dismayed that it isn't.