a few thoughts on gender

Ok, so I'm totally falling off the wagon with this keeping my blog updated thing. Surprisingly, life as a Peace Corps Volunteer can be busier than you'd assume or imagine it to be. I've been moderately successful with keeping myself busy and occupied, partially with things that are on the personal growth tip and other energies are focused on how to achieve the status of best volunteer in Siyezen.

Discussions with other volunteers about blogs have made me feel that I say very little about my perception of the local culture. In truth, there are so many nuances I'm still trying to understand about Azeri culture and we've had it drilled into our heads that it isn't our place to change or judge their culture (not that I want to anyway, if I were a local I wouldn't be too kind to some foreigner coming in and telling me I am wrong about everything I know), and yes there are a lot of things that for me as a fiercely independent, single woman raised in the Western world that I have a hard time digesting.

I recently changed host families, since under the discretion of our Country Director (Zoltan), we are required to live with host families for the first 6 months of service but are granted the ability to identify and pick our own host families at 4 months. Now, let me say this. My first host family are great, I really did like them quite a bit since they understood I wanted to do my own thing and were receptive to things I brought into their home (like the lovely flavors of garlic and chili pepper in an otherwise relatively bland palate as far as the local cuisine goes).

But, there were a few small things that added up enough for me to believe in order to preserve good feelings about the family and locals, I needed to change residences. I didn't have my own private room for one, the layout of the house was set up as such that my room was essentially a hallway for their storage room. The house was also split, with the front of the house shared with my host mom's mother-in-law. My host grandma, well, what can I say about her and still be delicate? While she made some awesome cucumber pickles, she is very much the opposite of a loving mother-in-law to my host mom and purposely caused much discomfort for everyone on my side of the residence, which was typically unannounced, unsolicited and frequent. The racket she'd raise when she encountered a locked door was something to behold.

I felt horrible for my host mom, who, not only has an absentee husband of 10 years (he left on the premise of finding remittance work in Russia, which isn't uncommon for Azeri men, but family is rather valued here and the fact that he's only returned twice, does not keep in touch and definitely doesn't send money to support his wife and their 3 daughters suggests not only callousness but that he has other attachments he feels more obligated to) but now has to continue living with a hostile daily reminder of a man she didn't even want to marry who lacks serious commitment to their family. Thankfully she's an educated woman who has career opportunities (recently decided to step down as the principal of her primary school) so she's had the means to support herself and her girls. But she definitely didn't seem happy about the way her life had turned out. I oftentimes felt like I was invading on many private family moments.

I recently met a young woman, probably younger than I am, whom I tried to comfort in Baku. A fellow volunteer and I were walking behind her and her male escort (which we determined to be her brother or her husband by the "protective" way he treated her) and as soon as he left, she burst into tears, and rightfully so. The behavior freshly displayed by her husband on the streets would've warranted an arrest for domestic violence in America, but that is what I see with my American eyes. I tried my hand at comforting Azeri but she spoke English well and she told me that he was her husband and she did not love him at all, her parents forced her to marry him and she was unhappy. All I could do was stay with her until she calmed down and gave her my number, told her to call me if there was anything I could help her with at all, whether it was to help improve her English or just someone else to talk to about her situation who she thought would take her side. It was sombering to compare in my mind how differently this situation would've been processed at home, even in the attitudes. We call that abuse in America and it is unacceptable behavior. Here my perception of the attitudes is that while, yes, it's a particularly crappy relationship, it doesn't have the stigma and unacceptance I'm accustomed to. I suppose the most culturally acceptable way I can hope that works out for her is that her family will recognize she's unhappy, being treated poorly, maybe let her divorce and return home.

In America, women would've had other choices in these situations. Women would've been able to at least identify options and paths for their lives to otherwise take when life handed you a lemon. It's very rare for women to re-marry in most instances I've heard of. There is quite a premium on virgin brides, because a girl not only shames herself but her family for being impure. Though the tenets of Muslim religion ergo culture expect purity of both bride and groom, I've seen a lot more leeway given to males with unchecked behavior towards women.

That is not to say that all Azeri men have unchecked behavior towards women, my current host family has me living in a home with a married couple and their 2 young boys. The boys call me aunt since their parents are so close to my own age, my host brother treats his wife quite well and is affectionate with his sons. The boys are exceptionally well behaved, I must say. The older boy is a particularly pleasant kid, I expressed my shock to his mom that he was so helpful around the house, cleaning up dishes after meals and all that (something my own brothers at home in America hardly do). Gulare (my host sis) was very happy I had noticed and said he's always been like that and Eli (the younger one) isn't as much, but she's working on it. It makes me hopeful for an improvement on Azeri gender relations and roles for future generations.