(no subject)
I've gotten some feedback from my post asking about how the Uzbeks that we know view American gender roles. R and I hear two different points of view. No matter which point of view, they always feel very sorry for R, which miffs me a little. Mostly they just don't understand the concept of negotiating roles in a marriage and of equality. The women I know claim that I haven't learned the subtlties of controlling from a subservient position, and also that I don't know how to take care of my man. Rich gets told that he doesn't know how to control me. Really - he was talking to some guys about why they don't want American wives and he said 'have you ever washed a dish?' They replied 'no never - you only do that because you don't know how to make T do that.' R's reply to that was 'well if you want an American wife, you better get used to washing dishes.' Essentially the gender roles here are completely naturalized. You are raised up and trained up to believe that this is just the way things are, that there are no alternatives, and that is they way things will always be.
Actually the day after the wedding I ran into a situation that really illustrated this point. Guests in Uzbek culture are supposed to not do ANYTHING. They aren't even supposed to tear their own bread. This really bucks my puritanical upbringing and I have a really hard time just sitting idle for an entire day while we're guesting. The morning after the wedding I woke up and all the women of the family were in the kitchen washing the hundreds of wedding dishes. I joined them in the kitchen (not because I couldn't sit with the boys, but in Uzbek terms, "why would I want to sit with boys?"). They pulled me up a chair, even though I was perfectly capable of standing or squatting like the rest of them, and it took me about half an hour, 2 american proverbs ('idle hands do the devils work' and 'many hands make light work'), and a bunch of harranging until they finally gave me a rag and at least let me dry some dishes while everyone else was working and chatting. Luckily the last time I visited this family (last year) I had brought my knitting and was knitting while we were chatting, so the mother of the family could affirm my proverbs and say that yes indeed, I didn't like to leave my hands idle. They had a hard time accepting my wanting to work, but let me do it without too much of a fuss, since women wash dishes and cook - it's a natural thing for me to want to help out with. After breakfast we did a lot more sitting around and I was full from last nights wedding and tired of sitting and had really run out of things to say. My friend H and his brother were loading some of the benches that they had rented into the driveway to be picked up and returned. I turned to R and said "let's help them, hurry before they try to stop us." Well they REALLY didn't like me trying to carry benches. They tried to take them from me and scolded me and I pleaded with them to please let me help just a little. I got away with 2 benches all the way to driveway and one more about half way. The entire family was mortified. Husniddin came up to me and said "T, I understand that you have to help, can you just go to the kitchen?" Well that comment wrankled me even further. I really wanted the physical exercize of carrying benches after a 24 hour period of sitting around being a guest, and as an American woman I took really poorly to being told to get in the kitchen. When R and I returned to the table, the father of the family kept apologizing and apologizing. In Uzbek culture it is not a good thing to have guests help out, and I made things worse by breaking gender roles. R and I explained the cultural difference about how it is a sign of respect and affinity in America for guests to help out, and that quieted him a little, but everyone in the family was just mortified. I think that's just part of being an expat, I have to negotiate when to break the norms for my own sanity and when to acquiese.
Actually the day after the wedding I ran into a situation that really illustrated this point. Guests in Uzbek culture are supposed to not do ANYTHING. They aren't even supposed to tear their own bread. This really bucks my puritanical upbringing and I have a really hard time just sitting idle for an entire day while we're guesting. The morning after the wedding I woke up and all the women of the family were in the kitchen washing the hundreds of wedding dishes. I joined them in the kitchen (not because I couldn't sit with the boys, but in Uzbek terms, "why would I want to sit with boys?"). They pulled me up a chair, even though I was perfectly capable of standing or squatting like the rest of them, and it took me about half an hour, 2 american proverbs ('idle hands do the devils work' and 'many hands make light work'), and a bunch of harranging until they finally gave me a rag and at least let me dry some dishes while everyone else was working and chatting. Luckily the last time I visited this family (last year) I had brought my knitting and was knitting while we were chatting, so the mother of the family could affirm my proverbs and say that yes indeed, I didn't like to leave my hands idle. They had a hard time accepting my wanting to work, but let me do it without too much of a fuss, since women wash dishes and cook - it's a natural thing for me to want to help out with. After breakfast we did a lot more sitting around and I was full from last nights wedding and tired of sitting and had really run out of things to say. My friend H and his brother were loading some of the benches that they had rented into the driveway to be picked up and returned. I turned to R and said "let's help them, hurry before they try to stop us." Well they REALLY didn't like me trying to carry benches. They tried to take them from me and scolded me and I pleaded with them to please let me help just a little. I got away with 2 benches all the way to driveway and one more about half way. The entire family was mortified. Husniddin came up to me and said "T, I understand that you have to help, can you just go to the kitchen?" Well that comment wrankled me even further. I really wanted the physical exercize of carrying benches after a 24 hour period of sitting around being a guest, and as an American woman I took really poorly to being told to get in the kitchen. When R and I returned to the table, the father of the family kept apologizing and apologizing. In Uzbek culture it is not a good thing to have guests help out, and I made things worse by breaking gender roles. R and I explained the cultural difference about how it is a sign of respect and affinity in America for guests to help out, and that quieted him a little, but everyone in the family was just mortified. I think that's just part of being an expat, I have to negotiate when to break the norms for my own sanity and when to acquiese.