Chauvinism is not dead

I've been teaching classes this past week, and while the experience has been wonderful, I've come to quickly realize a few strange things about the classes I've been teaching.

I am the only male out of a department of 20 female teachers.
96% of my students are female.

That particular fact I've gotten over, actually... it's an interesting experience playing this role here at the university, which I'll get into discussion about later, but the REAL interesting part of this is the remaining 4% of my students - they're male, but they have tendencies that can be easily considered to be chauvinistic by American standards.

For example, the past few days I have been having my students write down 'identification cards' for me, so I can get a good idea of the students and their expectations for the class. This isn't unlike anything you've seen in America - a little card with your name, birthday, hobbies, things you like, and things you don't like on it.

The female portion of my class seem to write things that are harmless enough, like "I like to knit" or "I like to play volleyball". But the 4%... every single male that's written on the card so far has seemed to feel that it's necessary to include some sort of cheesy machismo assertion of their postions.

For example:
"Things I like: PLAYBOY!!!, fiction, history"
or:
"Things I like: beautiful women"

It's strange, but the behavior seems to be ingrained in the culture here - men cannot be men unless they hoot and holler at the woman passing by, and it even needs to come out during class. It's said that while many of the male peace corps volunteers have no problems dating locals here, oftentimes the female peace corps volunteers do, because they simply can't deal with men act like pigs here and don't offer them the respect that's expected in American culture. It's expected for men to go up to a girl and pursue her until she relents her number or what not - "no means no" is definitely NOT a known concept here, and in some cases, some volunteers take advantage of that fact. I'm terrified by the whole concept, personally - I absolutely detest the concept of using my position as the "American Teacher" as an advantage to date girls, and I know for sure that's going to be something that will haunt me if I do indeed decide to start dating here.

I've also realized that the girls here can be quite aggressive on their own - these past weeks I've been spending a lot of time doing lectures or activities in many of the classes, and for all of them, they were my first opportunity to meet the students and to discuss the coming semester with them. Today, for example, I taught 4 classes, and gave one lecture in my counterpart's "intercultural communication" class.

As I introduced myself to the class of 50, I quickly felt like I was being sized up - the second I mentioned that I was 22 years old, a titter swept through the classroom. I was confused by why people were giggling, so immediately I asked, "what?! what did I say?!" which only caused an even bigger group giggle in response. I look to my counterpart, who noted with a grin, "I think they like that fact."

Upon realizing what she was saying, I was at a loss for words, and could only give a strange, "uhh, okay" look to the class, which just prompted more giggling and laughter. Good gravies.

The class wasn't a normal one because it was in the interpeter's school department, not the english department, which I belonged to. When Dinara told them that I would not be teaching regularly for this class, some of them actually began to protest, and all I could say was "Dinara knows beter than I do as to where I should teach and can be the most effective, so I'm just going to leave it up to her."

Hope I don't regret THAT.

The most bizarre end to the whole day was coming home and doing some work - around 8pm I get a call from one of the students that had been in the class - since there were so many girls there I obviously had no idea who the caller was, and I was strangely creeped out by the whole situation. Apparently, after I had left, some girls had actually walked up to Dinara and asked her what my number was, and Dinara actually gave it to them.

I'm starting to wonder whether she's my counterpart or my matchmaker.

The girl asked me if I'd like to go "pa-gulyat" with her sometime, which is literally "taking a walk." Yet, I've started to understand that taking a walk doesn't always mean just taking a walk - it more often than not means a date, and knowing this, I was incredibly cautious as to making any specific promises. She was obviously nervous when she was on the phone, and my host mother was giggling the whole time I was on the phone with her, so it was just a strange situation as a whole. She told me she'd like to 'make friends with me', and she hopes that I liked teaching her class. Since I have no recollection of who the girl was or what she looked like... and the fact that I was very surprised by the call out of nowhere...nevermind my whole thing about cross certain teacher-student relationship boundaries, I was fairly noncommittal - I simply told her to leave a message for me at the office if she and her friends wanted to show me around sometime, as she had claimed.

As we were ending our conversation, she asks:
"Am I the... first girl to call you?"
"Huh?"
"I am the first student, yes?"
"Uhh... I guess so."
"Oh, that is good."
"Why?"
"Because, when we asked Dinara for your phone number, many girls were writing it down, so I was afraid they would call you first."

Good gravy.