Holy Gender Dynamics, Batman!

The gender dynamics of a culture is not something that can be read about or learned in advance. I will not be able to sufficiently describe the most profound source of my cutlure shock so far, but I'm gonna try. When I use subjective terms like "good" or "bad", I really mean "good or bad by my standards."

There is an unspoken acknowledgement of the superiority of men by all the women in Otse. Father is in charge, Father makes the rulse, Father gets the best food. Mother is there to help, to make the home comfortable for Father. Girls should dress and act modestly or expect negative attention. Accepting an offer of a drink from a boy is asking for trouble; date rape is not an unusual occurence. Boys are expected to be promiscuous and dominant.

At first glance, this seems terribly old-fashioned by my standards, although with more thought these are only different manifestation of behavior seen in America. American women still are not paid equally to men, although Batswana claim that while there should be equal pay for equal work, men and women work better at different things. And a common sight at my school, though it often surprises me, is the extent to which girls will demean themselves to vie for the attention of boys. Too often I see a girl trying to prove how drunk and uninhibited she is, and how easy it might be to "take advantage" of her.

There is an element of gender segregation in Botswana, though, that is a source of pride. I recently heard a discussion on GABZ-FM (mostly in English, though occasionally they'd slip into Setswana just long enough to thoroughly confuse me) about gender equality, where several Batswana, men and women both, claimed their culture is pround od being able to celebrate the differences between men and women. It is important to acknowledge that, overall, women are not as physically strong as men, and men will never bear children. They feel that women excel at managing a household more successfully than a man could and should take pride in that, because their society would fair without them. Interesting. Also, women think that until they are paid as much as men, they shouldn't be expected to pick up the tab.

Oh, and it is to be noted that in the older generations, the women (and lower class) are better educated than the men because, while men had to go out and tend to the cattle, women could stay home and attend school to placate the Christian missionaries who had built the schools.

English is not the only language that is arguably inherently sexist (mankind, history, etc.). In Setswana, the world for women, mosadi, means "one who stays", as in "one who stays home".

We can't hold all claims for racism, either. In Setswana, nouns depicting people all start with "mo", such as Motswana (person of Botswana), motho (person), and monna (man). White people, however, called "lekgoa", fall into a lesser noun class, which includes slut (lebalete) and theif (legodu). This means that white women are not always respected, and should expect to be bothered on the street. The day is not complete until I've received at least one proposal for marriage. Also, the "bo" prefix is used to describe abstract ideas, like happiness (boitumelo) and beer (bojalwa).

Another interesting detail about Setswana: the world "mabele" means either breast or sorghum, depending on whether the second or third syllable is emphasized. THis led to a hilarious incident with one of the past SIT groups when a student was exploring a village and saw a woman approaching, carrying a basket of sorghum on her head. (They really balance things on their head, like on TV. It's incredible.) He asked to see her "mabele", so she put down the basket, lifted her shirt, then picked up the basket and walked away. Needless to say, the boy was confused and traumatized.