Women’s view on March 8: let men congratulate themselves

Much is explained by the fact that I am a humanist. In our environment, there are always many times 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 some women’s club or just to the bathhouse. By the way, you need to take the idea into service …

Needless to say, the students studying with me at the Faculty of Journalism are mostly girls. Quite typical is a student group in which there is one young man surrounded by the care of about twenty classmates. This ratio is a little strange: it seems that not only women work as journalists. However, this seems to be a matter of time.

And at my first job, in a publishing house, the department consisted of 35 employees and one male boss, who, before entering the room to his subordinates, always knocked, because there, it happened, not only boots, but also tried on underwear. A working day from 9.00 to 18.00, then chasing groceries through half-empty shops of the 80s, standing in lines, standing in the subway with two full bags. So our most feminine life flowed, full of food, cosmetics and talk about gender relations, mainly at work.

Now, thank God, I do not sit in the office, but I am still surrounded mostly by women. Every morning, when I come to the first couple and there are still very few people at the university, I have time to notice: two female security guards, a woman wardrobe attendant, several female cleaners. And then, closer to the beginning of classes, ladies-teachers and countless students begin to scurry around the floors.

However, the matter is not limited to the professional sphere. Any exit 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 on the whole it seems that the field of culture is intended mainly for women. To be convinced of this, it is enough to take a look at the queue in the ladies’ room during the intermission of the performance.

And there is also a road. And the concept of “a woman behind the wheel.” I remember that the instructor told me, without hiding sarcasm: “And do not forget to leave a note:“ A lady parked. There are men who claim that they always recognize the one in which the same “woman” is in the stream of cars. Nonsense nonsense! How many times, having paid attention to a particularly wildly maneuvering car, I tried to make out a malicious aunt – and found in her place either a pensioner in an indispensable cap, or a hefty uncle with a mobile phone pressed to his ear, or an aloof 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. This is when you can’t change lanes, because no one is letting you through, and you, almost leaning out, catch the eye of the male driver and make such a special, unhappy female face. And they do miss it! Well, almost always. First of all, probably, those who imagine their own wife in the place of “this fool”. That is, the road still functions according to male rules (the strongest survive!), And sometimes it shows some condescension towards us.

I understand: everything would be different if I entered the Mekhmat, then worked at an engineering research institute and also regularly went to football. Probably, then the male world would not have seemed so alien to me.

One way or another, on the spring holidays, two great civilizations meet. I will not comment on what “we” present to “them” by February 23rd. Let “they” analyze and evaluate it. I will try to tell about 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 eight-March bouquet is no exception. For example, in high school, growing up girls on March 8 are really looking forward to it. First, it will be, as they say, cool. The boys will come up with something funny: some 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 repeats itself in your student years, when March 8 is definitely a holiday, not some kind of vague solidarity, but your femininity, attractiveness, your romantic expectations.

But then … Free time is less and less, expectations too. Male colleagues will either not remember any March 8 at all, or will accompany a hasty congratulation with a healthy dose of irony: “Well, with your sex!”. Moreover, it will be mostly women themselves who will congratulate each other (see the previous paragraph regarding their numerical advantage). Oh, how many teas and shampoos I have exchanged in my life with relatives, girlfriends, friends and colleagues! I do not remember any of the men doing such trifles.

There is also space for family life. At home, they will definitely congratulate, but also with less willingness than, for example, on New Year’s or birthdays. And the responsibility lies largely with me. Haven’t I been practicing wit for years, accompanying congratulations on the Women’s Day with remarks like “so, but no one wants to wash the dishes on this occasion?”.

With what, by the way, are congratulating a modern woman? Equal rights, for which the founder of the holiday, the communist Clara Zetkin, advocated at the beginning of the 20th century, are generally received by women. We do not have to fight for the opportunity to study and, most importantly, to work on an equal footing with men. I would probably fight to work less, but this is 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 feminists rage, a man should still carry a heavy suitcase, because a woman simply does not have enough strength. And maybe feminists in some stores known only to them buy food and drinks in easy-to-open containers. And now I have to ask men every now and then to “turn their heads” to some especially tightly sealed jar. And I do not see in this the slightest humiliation of my feminine dignity.

Stop. I’m not sure about female dignity. Rather, it’s just human. And he can not be offended by help and care. I love it when they give up their seats, give them coats, hold hands when they get off the bus. Why do they give me a coat, and not I? Because they are often taller and stronger. And because there is a cultural tradition, and this, in my opinion, is a great value.

Now students often ask me 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, so-so, evoking a replica from the comedy “Hussar Ballad”: “I don’t like actors!”. There are a lot of 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 “assassin”, “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 can’t argue with 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 always this incomprehensible but wonderful world of women very close by, which manages to smell of perfume and borscht at the same time, a world in which their socks are somehow imperceptibly washed, their shoes are cleaned, many useful and beautiful things appear at the first movement of an eyebrow, and is transported to the world of men, harsh and full of creative ideas. Let them congratulate us and themselves – and go to write “War and Peace”. We will read it with pleasure.