Zsuzsa Beres and her husband Fred have often donated boxes of books to Treehugger Dan's. Zsuzsa is not only one of the early founders of the green and feminist movements in Hungary, but is also an editor at Elle Magazine. When I went over a couple weeks ago to collect some books from them, we got to talking about gender roles, relationships, cross-cultural relationships in Hungary, etc. For the last couple years, Zsuzsa has held  Elle Power Women Salons for professional Hungarian women, and suggested that I come to the next one as their guest and be in the hot seat. It was also timely because Elle ran a feature on me and Fair Trade in the October issue.<!-- pagebreak -->

The provocative starting point was, "Why are Hungarian women conservative?" I had a problem from the start as to how to formulate an answer to this. I do not classify people this way. Just like when someone comes in to buy a book and they ask if I have just US or UK authors, I am at a loss. I do not think this way. All the books are in English. I don't care if they are Australian, South African, British, Jamaican, Irish, Indian or American writers. Is it a good read or bad? Would you like to buy it or not? I guess it is the same for me with me for people.

Of course, it is also difficult to generalise, but I do think both Hungarian women and men are conservative in their gender roles. Coming from my northeast coast US liberal arts college environment, this is difficult, if ever, to adjust to. Although I must admit, I am very gratified when a girlfriend insists on ironing my shirts (even though it is my shirt and I should iron it). But I have also found that many Hungarian women, even those with three degrees, act dumb because they think (often rightly) that this attracts Hungarian men. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I do not fit that model. My socialisation has brought me to have different expectations from a partner, a much more equal division of repsonibilities and roles. I am just as responsible to do the washing up and cooking as my partner is to take out the trash and fix a door. Ideally, all these tasks can be enjoyably shared. I hate cleaning the
flat, but if it is my mess, I do not expect someone else to clean it up. And for me, cooking is a joy, a way to relax, and a way to give something nice to the people I care about. But in Hungarian relationships, more
often than not, looking around at the couples I know, so many women still run home at night after a full day of work to cook for their 30+ year old son or their boyfriend/husband.

In the end, I have no answer to the question. All I know is what I see superficially. And that is Hungarian men (and quite a few foreigners too) having "conservative" expectations of gender roles in a relationship, and
Hungarian women re-enforcing those roles. The question is, are they comfortable and happy this way? I hope they are happy, but that kind of relationship is not for me. Some of the Elle Power Women are happy in their
more conservative roles, some got divorced because of it, and some have a more liberal relationship with their partner.

When questioned where I go to meet new people, it is basically the bookstore and its associated events, or Hungarian folk dancing. The 12 women (many of them have been featured in Elle, and a disproportionate number of whom work as "coaches.") pointed out that at folk dancing, while many of the people are single and don't smoke,  they also tend to be much more socially and politically conservative. Therefore, they advised that I should try salsa dancing, yoga, mixers, and cooking classes to find "az igazi." Armed with some positive pointers from the Elle Power Women, let's see what the new year holds.