Women of East Germany

This is facinating - a study has found that women raised in East Germany are, well, better. They diet less, make only 6 percent less than men, compared to the West's 26 per cent. They have kids earlier and work full time and have higher-positioned jobs. They have less issues about childcare and balancing work/parenting. Younger childrearing and daycare aren't necessarily positive things in themselves, but the lack of neurosis surrounding them might be. You could argue that sending a kid to daycare at 3 months is too soon, that he needs his mom around him constantly for a little longer. But if the mom, when she does bring him home, feels no guilt, is positive and happy and fulfilled in the time she has with him, that's probably a good thing.

But it makes me think about the positives of growing up in a Communist sustem, which are never, ever talked about. We value freedom above all else, so any system that restricts it is EVIL. But the few people I've met who have grown up under communist rule; my bitchy but brilliant translator in Kazakhstan, Sacha; Xiao Bei, a former Red Guard; the poets we met in Cuba who ran the Writer's Union there; my step-father's good freind who had to build his own computer from the scraps we sent him, piece by piece in the mail. They were so self-sufficiant, such hard-workers, that talking to them made the weaknesses that come from having grown up in the West flare up like a rash.

Sacha had a mind like a steel trap and worked with a focus and energy that blew me away. She wasn't nice, which was startling because, where I'm from, niceness, especially in women, is very important. I mean, most ANTM winners climb to the top based on their "likeability." Presidents are elected based on "likeability." It's a personal softness that indicates the common touch, a relateability. You haven't gotten too big for your britches if you're still likeable.

But Sacha grew up not having the luxury of worrying about things like that. Maybe a little hardship produces personal strength, and we've constructed our culture so much around likeability, commonality, individual convenience and comfort; TV watched alone in our living rooms, ect ect, that we've lost a bit of that strength. I know very strong people from North America, of course. But culturally, comfort has taken a big lead in priorities. Comfort and freedom. Maybe that bubble has burst now, though. We're paying the price for easy luxury.