Respect for Women: Ogden on the Georgian Flirt

OPED

This is a post I've been hesitant to write for a while, since it will invariably lead to the kind of comments and arguments common to the 21st century, a time in which pointing out obvious truths is somehow unacceptable.

Yet the fact remains there is a problem with Georgian male culture, especially with regards to their attitudes towards women.

I have difficulty explaining this country to outsiders, especially as Georgian women occupy a number of senior government positions in a country wherein sexism is so rampant, they say, surely females wouldn't be able to get those sorts of jobs. I can only put it down to females being driven towards attaining better qualifications. I work as a lecturer, and most of my MA students are young women, and of almost all the Georgians I've known who've gone on to study abroad have been female.

However, I doubt if Georgian men are any lazier (or Georgian women any harder working) than other nationalities of the species, but attitudes towards women are like nothing else I've seen elsewhere. It's something I've found impossible to get past, since after six years here, I still have precious few Georgian male friends.

Yesterday, a friend of mine went for a driving lesson. She told me she had already had problems with the instructor making clumsy attempts to flirt with her despite knowing she was married, but yesterday he took it further by touching her. Naturally, she screamed and shouted at him and then fled the car and ran down the street. Undeterred, the instructor follows her in his car telling her to get back in. Eventually, she boarded a bus to escape.

About two months ago, I went with my wife to get my phone fixed. The man there barely glanced at me, seeing that I was a foreigner, but told my wife that it would be ready in an hour and a half. I couldn't collect it myself since I had to work that afternoon, but when she went back the man told her 'Oh, you're so beautiful, you have such wonderful eyes'. I recall a similar incident when we had to have our taps fixed and the workman told my wife she was 'So delicious, if she was a cake [he] would eat her.' He'd been before but said nothing while I was there.

Further misadventures involving my wife was when she was walking home from work and a car followed her, the driver and his friend calling out 'Girl. Girl. Come here. Girl,' and more recently when she went out to a bar with her friends and a man grabbed her arm while she was trying to leave.

I have many more stories of the same ilk told me by Georgian women, so I could go on, but the idea is, I think, firmly established.

As much as it amuses me that the macho, aggressive, 'warrior' Georgian men are only brave enough to try this stuff when husbands and boyfriends aren't around, it isn't overly surprising; after six years here, I've realized that the national male persona is an aspiration rather than a description. But what I would dearly love to know is what on earth these men expect the result to be.

Did the driving instructor really expect a married woman to suddenly realise just how attracted she is to him, despite the fact she'd already reprimanded him for being inappropriate? Do Georgian men really believe that following a girl in a car and saying 'Come here' will work? And what is it about grabbing someone's arm while she's walking away that they think leads to success?

Perhaps it's a result of most men here losing their virginity and getting most of their experience from prostitutes which has fostered this, but even so, one would have thought that their lack of success with these borderline rapist techniques might have convinced them to go back to the drawing board. I've seen Georgian men in bars popular with foreigners brooding angrily when they see Georgian women talking to foreign men, and then become furious when their attempts at flirting

(which usually constitute something like 'You are so beautiful' repeated ad nauseam) fail. I even saw a few (no one-on-one challenges in this country, you see) start a fight with an American friend of mine. They were, however, unaware that he was a member of the United States Army Special Forces. I don't usually feel sorry for Georgian men, but I confess in those moments when they painfully regretted their actions, I felt a bit of a pang.

(I should quickly add the disclaimer that yes, I am aware that not all Georgian men are like this, many are perfect gentlemen, and a lot of foreigners are also awful. Right? Fine.)

As you might know, I'm not a big fan of the term 'European', but I will admit that there are things Britain and the vast majority of European countries have in common, among them being the fact that the kind of behaviour described above would be considered the actions of borderline rapists. As someone who still has something of a high opinion of this country, I'd hate for Georgians to destroy their reputation after being granted visa liberalisation this year and then doing this sort of thing in Europe. Western tolerance – particularly where women are concerned – has a limit.

Tim Ogden