After that whole thing with my student being potentially trafficked to Egypt, I began to feel rather a bit like an activist on a crusade. I decided to give my conversation students a page from The Angel Coalition (in both English and Russian), a summary of my former student's job offer and how she received it, and the testimonial of a Russian girl taken from HumanTrafficking.com. Not exactly a fun, light-hearted topic or anything (meanwhile, several of the other conversation classes were discussing humor...) I was pretty worried that this was going to be a total conversation killer. I mean, it's an important topic, but would I be able to get these people to chat about it?
I actually consider this conversation class to have been quite a success. It was interesting, because all of my students had heard about this problem before, and they spoke of having all seen many television programs and newspaper articles on this topic. Wow. I asked them if they thought this topic got a lot of publicity in the US. Several of them said, "Of course! In America you have feminists!" Hmmmm. Perhaps some of you other Americans out there will disagree with me, but I don't think this problem gets much attention at all in the States. This is something that I have been interested in for many years, and as such I have ferreted out stories, articles and books on the topic, but there have been numerous times when I have brought this subject up with educated Americans, only to be met with utter disbelief. Obviously, the few times the problem of human trafficking has reached Dateline haven't been enough to generate mass awareness of this issue. It is interesting (and reassuring, as Russia is a source-country) to me that this issue has received so much attention. Of course, this was a class of eight students today, so perhaps this doesn't qualify as a good survey-sample.
My class today consisted of six women and two men (one of whom is about 17-18 and was totally embarrassed by the discussion, sadly to say). The other man is probably in his late 30s to early 40s. I must say that I don't really like this fellow's opinions very much. Granted, this is a *conversation* class, and I'm not there to judge, I'm there to listen to their arguments and to correct their grammar. (This is the same dude who had what I felt were some pretty questionable opinions of a woman's role in the workplace during our Feminism discussion back in February) Anyhow, this guy provoked quite an animated discussion (dare I say argument?) with his female classmates when he said that he didn't believe that trafficking was much of a problem, and that probably most of these women simply *chose* to lead the life of a prostitute, and we should therefore stop referring to them as slaves. He also said that prostitution is just another job, like being a soldier or a policeman. Well, at least those comments provoked discussion!
He, and one other woman, said that it is Russian tradition, or perhaps male tradition world wide, to seek the services of prostitutes. I found it quite disturbing when he told me that Nikita Mikhailkov has been involved with hookers. (Other students nodded; they'd heard that before. I find myself hoping that's not true.) The woman who agreed that this is a Russian tradition told us the following tale:
Once a male business contact of her firm came to Vladimir on a business trip. After the meetings he requested that she find him a prostitute for the evening - and she had no qualms/problems about getting him one. In case anyone is interested, 500 rubles gets you four hours of companionship. That's $13 an hour folks.
When it came to discussing the "job offer" my student had received, I didn't tell them that it concerned a woman from Vladimir, and I changed the woman's name. This is what I had them read:
Irina was a bookkeeper in a city in Russia. She went to Egypt on vacation for two weeks. While she was there, she went dancing in clubs every night. One night, while she was dancing, a man approached her, and offered her a job in his hotel. He said that she would be an “activity leader” – her job would be to lead guests in aerobics, ping-pong and volleyball, and to dance in the hotel’s club at night. Additionally, she must always have a good attitude, she must smile all the time, and she would not be allowed to have a boyfriend. She would live in the hotel and be paid $500/month.
Even after having spent the previous hour discussing trafficking and the methods traffickers use to attract victim, several of my students thought that this seemed like a legitimate job offer... although they did admit that if they were Irina, they would do a *lot* of research before leaving Russia. So that's something I guess.
Next class, we're going to talk about pets. I gave them an article on why you should spay/neuter your pets. (Spaying in particular doesn't appear to be practiced here... or if it is, it's rare.) The two men in my class looked at the translation I'd given them for the verb "to neuter" - let's just say that it's a cognate of "to castrate." The very vocal man said that he would much rather discuss prostitution than castration... Blah. Now I have to see if I can convince some of my students to start the Vladimir branch of the Feral Cat Coalition. Or a Russian Humane Society. Or something.
4 comments:
See, you'll be reinforcing their stereotypes of feminists, by talking about castration next. "First this American feminist talked to us about the prostitution, as though it were an unnatural thing, and then she discussed castration ..." :-D I expect that Russians would say it is unnatural to spay or neuter a dog, and just leave the poor animals be ... that it is cruelty to animals.
When I asked Katja bout Nikita Mikhailkov ... she said that she thought all Russian actors and musicians ... were involved with prostitutes sometimes. She isn't too fond of Mikhailkov anyway - says he might be a good actor but he has cruel eyes and she doesn't trust him. It is that Russian eye thing.
You realize, Germany just legalizes prostitution - decided it was better to remove or minimalize the criminal element to it and tax them as regular workers. Many German prostitutes are married with families, etc.
Oh ... by the way ... Americans aren't going to care about human trafficking unless American teenage girls are getting snatched from their bedrooms and dragged to a ship and sent to Saudi Arabia by the dozens. Sometimes the Lifetime Channel will have some special and very dramatic movie and some case here or there, etc. But overall I am willing to bet it is much less our children shipped to other countries - than other countries children being brought here in shipping cannisters, etc.
наши животные не занимаются сексом
;-)
Your post reminded me of some of my teaching experiences. It's hard to simply stimulate a conversation when you've got strong feelings about a topic (and don't American feminists have strong feelings). Sometimes I just want to avoid controversial topics altogether. But those are the topics which really get students to participate, so... Actually I don't think it's so bad if you inject a lot of personal opinion. They can take it or leave it, and it's good for everyone to hear another point of view.
Yeah, as for the Russian attitude toward prostitution, it's pretty blase. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if Mihalkov had visited prostitutes, and for most Russians this is, like, a total non-issue. I've heard plenty of stories about other beloved Russian cultural figures too, involving things worse than prostitution. Oh, and Russians assume that all men cheat on their wives.
As for neutering pets, even my otherwise enlightened Kostia thinks it's a violation of their animal rights or something. We're going to have to sort this out before we get a pet.
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