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A TRIP TO AMERICA
by Oksana Ivanina Svetlyi, Kaliningrad Region America!
There is probably no one who has not, even if only for an instant, dreamed of going to America—a land so far away that it is almost unreal to us. A land that we know from its sparkling Hollywood smiles, improbably tall skyscrapers, countless melodramas, adventure yarns, and comedies, the universally impressive Oscar awards ceremony, and, of course, the tales told by our own favorite stand-up comedian, Mikhail Zadornov.
But how realistic were my own dreams of making it to that virtually mythical country and seeing for myself, at first hand, that everything anyone says back here at home about the Americans is no more than a fiction that has become deeply—but very deeply—embedded in our brains?
The Open World Program was authorized by the US Congress in May 1999 and in the past two years has become remarkably well-known in the USA, under the name of the Russian Leadership Program. The original idea came from Dr. James Billington, a prominent scholar and specialist in Russian history and culture, and Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. The program’s aim is to develop and strengthen relations between America and Russia, and to acquaint Russian leaders with the ways in which US leaders in various walks of life operate and achieve their goals, the principles underlying the construction of a democratic society, and so forth.
The focal themes of the Open World Program are diverse, and include the supremacy of the law, reform of the educational system, the development of federalism, health care, environmental protection, economic development, and issues surrounding female leadership and youth policy. Since the program’s inception, the United States has welcomed over 6000 young Russian leaders in society and politics, from various tiers of the 89 constituent units of the Russian Federation, including members of the State Duma (the Russian parliament), mayors, judges, journalists, directors of non-governmental and non-profit organizations, educators, representatives of political parties and political movements, etc.
Anastasiya Beletskaya—who, like me, comes from the Kaliningrad area and who had previously participated in the program (sponsored by the Kaliningrad Region League of Women Voters)—nominated me. I filled out a stack of miscellaneous papers and questionnaires and, with my heart in my mouth, sent my documents off to Moscow (where the first round in the selection process was to be held). Then I waited.
With every passing day, hope grew fainter and fainter, and the trip to America seemed more and more unlikely. Until one fine day I had a call from the Svetlyi Post Office. They wanted me to go and pick up a letter. I opened the envelope with trembling fingers and the first thing I read was: “Congratulations. You are a finalist for the Open World Program theme Women as Leaders.”
Early Days in Washington Having landed on American soil and taken in my first great gulps of American air, I just knew (regardless of how faithless to Russia this might sound) that I would not want to leave. Getting a little ahead of myself, I will tell you that I turned out to be right about that.
The Washington that stood before me was completely different from the way I had imagined it. Knowing that Washington is America’s political, administrative, and cultural hub, I had pictured it as a hulking great gray hoodlum, a huddle of skyscrapers and dusty streets. But it was actually a very likeable city, and not even remotely comparable to my fantasies. On the contrary, Washington is extremely beautiful, with a huge number of flowers and trees, larger and more fabulously lovely than any I had ever seen before, tidy buildings that are most certainly not high-rises, and—something that pops right out at you—unbelievably smooth roads and impeccably clean streets. (Getting ahead of myself again, let me tell you that we could walk around Washington for hours and our shoes would still be spotless, even when it was raining.)
When we arrived at the Embassy Suites hotel—which, luckily for us, was very conveniently situated, right in the center of Washington (and an easy 20-minute walk from the White House and the National Mall)—many of us were absolutely in raptures. Never in our lives had we had lodgings like THIS!
Every day was scheduled literally down to the minute, with one meeting giving way to the next, one unforgettable new friendship morphing into another.
The first place we visited in Washington was the Library of Congress, a magnificent structure built in the late 19th century. With great ceremony we were ushered into the Library’s loveliest room, the Members’ Room, which is the usual venue for very high-level meetings and therefore has heavily restricted access. But we were the lucky ones. Thanks to the staggering organizational abilities of our American hosts, we did find ourselves in that incomparably fine room, feeling like little gems in a priceless historical jewel box. There we met Vera De Buchananne, the Open World program manager, and Natalya Dombrovskaya, the program coordinator, and then embarked on six hours of hard work.
Since we were in the Women as Leaders program, we began with a discussion of the concept of leadership. We talked about who could be a leader and how we (young women with some accomplishments already under our belts) could become more effective leaders, real leaders in our chosen spheres—because you have to agree that being a leader is no simple thing. A leader must be able to organize, to unite her team. She must also know how to listen to her colleagues and make the group’s ideas happen. Of course, being a leader—and, on top of that, a woman—in America is one thing, but being a woman leader in Russia is something else altogether.
Having fought long and hard, American women have forced the male half of the population to respect them, and have proven that they too can be talented leaders, capable of resolving problems of greater or lesser importance as well as any man. A female leader in America today does not cause any big public to-do. And no one ever tries to tell her that she should stick to her knitting—which definitely cannot be said of us.
Russian men oppose tooth and nail the idea of women getting into politics, the economy, or the law. They are more secure and at ease with women working in schools or hospitals, where they are paid peanuts, or staying at home, with their eyes firmly focussed on the old man’s worn-out socks and the piles of dirty dishes. You bet they are, because then the guy can pound his chest and yell, “I am the head of this household! I am the breadwinner! I am a man!” By not giving women a chance to actualize themselves as leaders whatever area, the man is simply hanging on to his place at the center of the universe. After all, that dumb “homemaker” (his wife) wouldn’t make it a day without him. But what if she does get out from under the pots and pans and soiled diapers, and starts making a career for herself? He has no idea what’s happening, that’s what. And why? Easy. Because he was not a good leader himself: he had never bothered to listen to what his wife really wanted. Even though listening is such an easy skill to learn.
After we had figured out what leadership is and shared our opinions on the relative ease (or difficulty) of becoming a leader in America and Russia, we finally got to meet our hosts. Karen O’Connor teaches American politics at the American University, is director of the Women & Politics Institute, author of a popular textbook on American government, and editor of the journal “Women and Politics.” Sarah Brewer (or, rather, Dr. Brewer) also teaches at the American University. Amanda Paul, our program coordinator, was studying for her Master’s at the American University’s Women & Politics Institute. And Pamela (I’m sorry, her last name completely escapes me) is a student at the Institute. We spent 10 days with those wonderful women too.
On one of those days, our delegation was fortunate enough to be admitted to a unique public discussion on Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments, which equalized federal funding for men’s and women’s sports. ... Over the 30 years since Title IX passed, the number of women in American sports has grown by 81%. But recently the Department of Education has begun—to general dismay—to attack Title IX and talk about backing off from it. Those who spoke at the hearing—including some prominent and influential American women (congresswomen, an Olympic gymnastics champion, etc.)—were vocally determined that this must not be allowed to happen. And every women’s organization we visited after that told us that the key struggle engaging American women today centered on denying men the opportunity to abolish Title IX. ...
No less interesting and also extremely important were our visits to WISH List [Women in the Senate and House] and EMILY’s List [Early Money Is Like Yeast], two organizations that are basically dedicated to increasing the profile of women in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the governors’ offices.
WISH List supports Republican women running for office. Since its founding in 1992, it has helped over 2,000,000 women throughout the country get into politics. We met with Gail Schneider, its deputy executive director [she is now executive director -- Editor], who informed us that the organization’s main mission was to raise money for election campaigns and promote Republican women in politics. I should mention up-front that all American election campaigns rely mostly upon contributions from the public. People give money to a particular campaign in the knowledge that the candidate, if elected, could change their lives for the better, which will have made their donation worthwhile. Interesting, isn’t it?
EMILY’s List has existed much longer than WISH (since 1985), and is the largest political organization in America that supports Democratic women candidates and also encourages women to vote. And it must be said that in this they have been hugely successful. Since 1985 it has managed to get 11 female senators, 55 female representatives, and seven female governors elected. That is a very good track record, because, for all that men and women have equal rights in America, the more important the position, the less the likelihood of encountering a woman in it. EMILY’s List aims to change all that. ...
EMILY’s List is today hard at work with the candidates it favors: it educates women, offers them training of all kinds, helps them be better communicators, raises their comfort level when speaking on military and political topics, and teaches them how to liaise with the media and the American public. In short, EMILY’s List has become a genuine workshop, where an ordinary woman is made over into a strong candidate, capable of sailing through even the most grueling election campaign.
And when I say “an ordinary woman,” I mean exactly that. The women who most frequently run for election at various levels of the power hierarchy do so with no resources of their own. But EMILY’s List is there to help. It sounds unrealistic, doesn’t it?
What do the members of the organization get out of the work they do? They can hardly be doing it for the fun of it. They probably demand a payback from the candidates after the election. Well, if that’ s what you’re thinking—with all due respect, you’re wrong. The fund-raisers’ only aim is to help women become politically active, to help them change the status quo, to ease them into the political arena. And if only one woman from the entire slate makes it through, that is what it is all about. They ask for nothing beyond that; in fact, by that point they’re already busy with another female candidate, in hopes that she too will do well in the next elections.
Strange and unusual as it may sound to a Russian, there are no bribes given or taken. (If you so much as say the word “bribe,” you get funny looks; no one can understand where the question even came from.) The political environment is still pristine, and anyone who doesn’t play fair ends up dealing with the wholesale scorn of the American public. The idea of equality—the fun of it, if you will—is what American women are currently struggling for. “Yes,” we sighed after every such meeting. “We have a long way to go.” A long way indeed. Unfortunately.
Other Meetings
To acquaint our delegation further with how America works, our hosts set up another important meeting for us, with Liza Maatz, director of Government Relations and Public Policy for the American Association of University Women. Ms. Maatz’s mission is to promote equity and lifelong education for women, and to work for positive change in society. This encounter brought me face to face with yet another glaring distinction between the Russian and American realities.
It is no secret to anyone that the lives of some (albeit not all!) young ladies today center on their dreams of a wealthy prince who will turn their lives into a fairytale. And that’s how they live. . . on dreams and only dreams. They wait, some seeking and some finding. The search for a “deep pocket” that engrosses our naive young coevals leaves no room in their minds for anything other than becoming a lovely Cinderella. Sometimes they forget, the poor things, that a pretty face is definitely not the path to success.
But they understand that perfectly well in America. Every right-minded American female is only too well aware that the easiest way to escape poverty is to get a good education, find a good job, and keep on improving her knowledge and skills all the time and in every way. The idea of getting married to for material gain is just stupid to them. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I could not agree more. “Information is the motive force. The more you know (whether you’re a man or a woman), the more certain you will be of achieving success and getting into an excellent career,” Ms. Maatz told us.
Looking over the program of our visit to Washington for the umpteenth time, running down all those significant and important meetings, one thing that really stands out in my mind was the invitation extended to us by Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito.
That meeting made an indelible impression on me. First, because to meet with a congresswoman and shake her hand (which I was fortunate enough to do) is a great honor in itself. And second, because the person we met was an absolutely ordinary woman, one who really knew her stuff yet absolutely did not have an over-inflated sense of her own importance (as so often happens with our politicians, even the petty little ones). When we entered her office, our attention was immediately drawn to the large number of large, eye-catching photographs on the walls. On her desk was a photo of the Congresswoman and her daughter with President Bush, and, since all three were quite informally dressed, I gathered that this had been an unofficial, casual event.
But I was even more interested by the woman sitting on the desk, with her feet on a low table. Not particularly tall, rather thin, with blonde hair, she did not give the impression of being a serious politician. But she most certainly is. It came out in the course of the conversation that she is in her second term in Congress, which is a great achievement.
She is the only Republican, and the only woman, to represent her state of West Virginia. And she beat out her opponent while spending only (!) $1,300,000, against the $14,000,000 paid out by her opposite number No one believed she could win, but she did, against all the odds.
As she herself said, the most important thing in an electoral campaign is sincerity. “The voters can sense when the people on their TV screens are lying and when they are telling the truth. I never promised my constituents anything; I simply asked them to trust me. I told America that I have three children, and I want to make their lives better. And they believed me.” And we went right on sighing, green with envy over what we were hearing.
There is, of course, a colossal difference between the democratic societies in Russia and in America. Just look at the Americans’ knowledge of their rights and duties! And, by the way, when we asked Congresswoman Moore if her job ever puts her life at risk, it took her the longest time to grasp what we were asking her. We did our best to word it correctly: is she ever threatened, intimidated, does she ever feel that she is being pushed out of the political arena? “Oh Lord!” she exclaimed, when she finally understood our question. “No way! That ’s simply impossible! Does that really happen in Russia? I don’t believe it!” We all looked away in embarrassment.
Later, we met with Robert Erlich, governor of Maryland, who told us that women in America are far more active voters than men, which is why male candidates count on women and focus on defending their rights and resolving their problems. Everyone in America realizes that women’s votes are at the heart of any successful election campaign.
Then it was on to meet David Paulson, communications director for the Maryland State Democratic Party, who told us how outrageous he found it that Americans have to be motivated to go to the polls. “Both the Republican and the Democratic party work hard on voter motivation. For instance, we have a database containing the address of every registered Democrat in the state. In addition to that, we know when those people have voted in the past, and who for. This information allows us to keep a handle on the situation and to know who we can count on. We reach out to Maryland’s Democrats, we call them on the phone, write them letters, urging them to vote for the Democratic candidate.”
But what surprised me the most (and I think we all felt the same) was that if someone cannot be bothered to go out and vote on a given day, his party will send someone to transport him to the polling place. Because the party values every single voter. That’s how it works in America!
A Special Day
The National Organization for Women was founded in Washington back in 1966. And since it is the oldest, largest, and most progressive feminist organization in America, I was bubbling over with pride to be the one chosen to go there for my day of leadership shadowing. That was where I made the acquaintance of NOW’s Press Secretary, Rebecca Farmer. And once again, I was surprised. I couldn’t help it. Never had I seen such a well-oiled machine.
NOW’s aim is equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men. American women, note you, fight fiercely for their rights, which could never be said of the majority of Russian women, who obediently put up not only with the blatant infringement of their rights but also with insults and sometimes even physical violence. It must be said that American women are extremely active in this respect, and their efforts extend beyond simply protecting themselves against discrimination. They are also working on behalf of their sisters all across the country.
Their desire to place women on a par with men, to entirely dispense with the notion that women are in some way substandard, sometimes even rises to the level of fanaticism. But it is precisely that fanaticism, which serves to conceals their dissatisfaction with what is happening all around them, that helps them achieve their lofty goals.
NOW is presently working to eradicate the sexual harassment of women by men in the workplace, in schools, and elsewhere in society, and to preserve freedom of choice for women, including the right to an abortion (the very religious and socially influential Republicans are categorically opposed to abortion). NOW is also campaigning to end racism, sexual inequality, and homophobia in America. Its chief goal is to promote social equality and justice. And in pursuit of the Organization’s goals its members regularly organize events, rallies, demonstrations, picket lines, and unsanctioned acts of civil disobedience, and involve themselves in various legal proceedings.
As I shadowed Rebecca and her colleagues during their working day, I was struck by how flexibly and quickly they resolved various issues, how much emotion they invested in a discussion of a reporter’s offhand comment about NOW. The movements were abrupt, the voices loud, the eyes burned with empathy. Anyone can plainly see that these women are doing what they most love to do and that they give it all they’ve got.
Americans
Before my visit to Washington, I knew little about Americans and the American lifestyle. “They are very precise, very independent, very free,” I thought. In fact, I was sure of it. But I had an awful lot to learn.
First, they simply refuse to believe that such a thing as “kismet” or “fate” even exists. Most Americans feel that no one and nothing, aside from their own selves, is capable of changing the lives they lead. And you certainly can’t say that of Russians. How many of us complain about our lives, our drunken husbands, slacker sons, ill-tempered mothers-in-law, etc.? But of all those thousands of people, only a handful can ever bring themselves to make it different, to stop being fate’s punching bag and start being its darling. The problem is that we don’t want to rethink ourselves and our lives. But rethinking is a never-ending process in America.
A typical example is Ronald Reagan, who remade himself from an actor into a president. And there was nothing peculiar in that. Or, to take another example, and a very symptomatic one: strange as it may sound, there are no retirees in America. It’s just not hip to be retired in the United States. When the time comes, a person simply fires himself, and sets out to rethink who and what he is, so he can do something else with his life before he dies. And there are many more such examples.
Americans never put the brakes on progress and never even try to curb its breakneck speed. And that progress can be seen in the people as well as in the cities. They view any kind of change as a positive factor that presents the opportunity for further development and growth. Their faith that a person can cope with just about anything and their belief in the value of change are probably the reasons why Americans achieve as much as they do. They do not like people who whimper and whine about their bad luck and how things have not worked out for them. “If you don’t like the place you’re living in, move. If you’re bored, find something fun to do. If you’re bald, buy yourself some hair. If you’re flat-chested, do something about it. Live, smile, stay forever young.” That’s the American way.
One other thing I have to mention is that these people have an incredible access to information. I know of no other country where it is so easy to find any piece of information that interests you. But here we come upon yet another paradox, in a land of paradoxes the average American knows virtually nothing about what is happening outside America.
I saw how much people know about the history of their own country, state, or city. They have committed to memory the key historical dates, the names of their presidents and vice presidents, the presidential biographies, and a lot more besides. But all that is only about America. Americans who know everything that goes on in the White House might be completely clueless about the name of the French President, know nothing about news-making acts of terrorism in Russia, and not be able to find a given country on the map.
To some extent, this is not their fault. You be the judge: while our major network news broadcasts lead with stories that keep Russians abreast of world events (in America, Israel, France, you name it), none of the even remotely popular American networks offers a single piece of international news. It all revolves around themselves and what is happening in America.
Americans are perfectly well aware of this, which is why those who have any interest in world news visit certain Internet sites daily and keep a close eye on specialized cable channels that tell them what is going on elsewhere in the world.
Marriage in America
I think it will come as no surprise to anyone to hear that girls in America are not at all keen on early marriage, and young people are in no great hurry to tie themselves down with a family and all the attendant responsibilities. There’ll always be time for that later, they think. And here lurks yet another glaring distinction between our reality and theirs.
The crux for Americans is to get a good education and land a decent job before even thinking about getting married. Although even that schedule is certainly not a given, since if Mr. (or Ms.) Right is not right there, they do not race off looking for their better half, because they know that life still has plenty of surprises in store for them. You will agree that in our society it is all a lot more complicated. Something—perhaps our communist education or some absurd stereotype or other that lives on in our heads—prevents us (not me, mind you!) from taking the broader view of the world and seeing that, in addition to marriage, life is brimful of stupendous things that are not to be missed. How fond people are of saying to us, “You’re not married yet? Oh dear, that’s bad!” They are completely unaware that the person they’ re talking to might have very different interests and priorities in life. Of course, every one of us should create a family, but each in his (and her) own good time. Evidently our society is not ready for that.
When we told Americans that in many Russian hospitals, a 30-year-old woman having her first child is labeled an “older primapara,” their jaws literally dropped. They could not believe what they were hearing. “My mother was 46 when she had me, and that’s normal in America,” Amanda Paul told us. Other American women backed that up: “Over here, a girl of 27 or 30 is considered just a little slip of a thing. What kind of mothers would they make? They still have things to learn. They’re so young.” And that, once again, left us surprised and sighing.
In short, America amazed and astounded me during the 10 days I spent there. It is an uncommon, direct sort of place with its own unique views on the world around. My visit to America taught me a lot about that country and, no less importantly, changed many of my opinions about it.