Ah yet another issue I’ve been struggling with as an expat in Austria. It’s become blatantly obvious to me in the last few months that Austria is a very masculine society.
Some of you might roll your eyes and think, duh, but it was really hard to figure out. Austrian women are far better supported by their government then American women. Austrian women also have a tendency to be as assertive as American women. They are also far less suppressed concerning their sexuality than American women.
My husband is Austrian and he doesn’t try to put me in a traditional female role. He’s actually my biggest supporter when it comes to pursuing higher education, my career, and my dreams. When it comes to household duties, he grumbles and drags, but if I ask for him to help out, he does.
Then I started working and dealing with Austrians more. I am surrounded by Austrians at work. This is a great thing because I do need to learn how things are done here, but on the other side, it has presented me with culture shock due to the increased exposure to Austrians.
Oh my, how to explain gender roles in Austria vs. America! It’s not entirely this or that in either society.
Okay here goes. American men are struggling with treating a woman as an equal. It’s no wonder. On one side American society screams that women are equal, but on the other side women aren’t supported by the government to emphasis this statement.
This has left both genders in a black hole when it comes to dealing with one another. Women see the opportunity at being treated equal and are grabbing at it. When they aren’t treated equally, they snap and snarl at men. If they aren’t treated like a lady though, they snap and snarl as well.
American men on the other hand do want women to fulfil a traditional female role, but they also have the attitude of, don’t you dare depend on me, I owe you nothing. I want you to fulfill the traditional female role, but without me fulfilling the traditional masculine role of provider. Neither side is being fair to the other. Neither side is making a clear declaration of what they expect of the other. I think it is because neither side knows what they really want.
Austrian men make it clear that they want a woman to fulfil the traditional female role, but they also make it clear that they will then fulfil the traditional male role of provider and protector.
An example. I was visiting friends and the woman was complaining that her boss was an intolerable idiot. Her Austrian husband waved his hand and declared, “Quit your job and let’s have babies. You don’t have to work, so why go through all this drama.”
His wife let the comment slide. She wasn’t ruffled by it. She knows that she will continue to work because that’s what she wants to do, and that’s that. But I think she took it as reassuring that if things did get bad enough at work, she could quit her job and depend on her husband for support until she figured out another plan, whether it was a career change or in fact having babies. There’s comfort in that reassurance.
I don’t in any way want to say that Austrian men are not supportive of their woman going to work. All Austrian women I know are working. I personally feel supported by my Austrian boss, my Austrian co-workers, and my Austrian husband in my pursuit of a career.
I also feel that Austrian men are very aware that I am female and therefore am treated differently because of it. Exactly how I am treated differently is hard to put my finger on it, but I feel the hyper-awareness of the Austrian men of my femininity. Working in America, I didn’t feel that this was such a topic there as it is here.
It would be enormously interesting to hear comments from you all on this topic, whether you are a man or a woman.
No doubt things are different. No doubt its hard to pin down. There is so much varibility from person to person, between different cultures (in the US Euro-based and Chinese cultures for instance are quite different), and age.
Personally, my wonderful Viennese g/f seems to not find Viennese men as interesting as US men (lucky for me). And I think some of this comes from her long history with being boxed in (glass ceiling) by Viennese men. But I think its also that Viennese (in general) are excellent at keeping things the way they have always been. This is both good and bad. One way that its bad, it restricts women (and immigrants) to old roles.
At the same time, the Viennese don’t seem as confused by all of this (gender roles, women’s lib, …) as we seem to be in the US. Clarity is a good thing.
Hi Britta,
I think your blog is very gentle with the male Austrians and our general attitude towards handling the gender issue.
Generally our society is holding women off from professional chances and opportunities – in a typical polite Austrian way. Maybe this is not uniquely done in Austria, but this is where I live and experience it.
Did you ever discuss the “in” issue with female Austrians? I used to try in a medium sized company with more femal than male employees to convince my colleagues that a modern company should not leave out half of the population by only talking in the male version or – at least – call a lady that is department manager “Abteilungsleiterin” and not “Abteilungsleiter”.
The reaction of the female staff was between looking at me like a lunatic and crucifying me. Men did not even ignore the message or maybe said something like “if you want I don’t care how I spell that…”.
Has anybody ever observed similar attitudes in other cultural regions?
My experience with Austrians is mostly limited to living in Austrian dorm as a student and then short visits with friends made there in the years since (I was a student there in 2001). What that, mostly, boils down to is a skewed view of Austrians as forward-thinking, progressives who are increasingly aware – if not always critical – of the latent and blatant sexism in their society.
The phrase that boggled my mind the most in my time there was, “That’s just the way it is.” I ran up against that with alarming consistency from both men and women regarding the Vienna Philharmonic not allowing women to be members until 1997, the military not admitting women until 1998, the way men openly stare at women but if a woman makes eye contact, it’s considered a come-on…
For as progressive as Austrians are on the environment, health care, transit, organic agriculture and so many other things, the double-standards I encountered regarding gender issues were definitely frustrating for me.
In all fairness, I can cite similar examples in the U.S. The final round of the most prestigious golf tournament in the U.S. is being played today – on a course that refuses to admit women. Sexism in the U.S. military is as rampant as in any other. Two weeks ago I was walking down the street and licked the foam off the lid of my coffee cup, which was interpreted as a request to give a stranger a blow job. We’ve got miles to go in the U.S. too.
That said, I wonder if the crux of it is that Austrians are more resistant to change than Americans. The U.S. is, in many ways, a country built upon the struggle for change, which has also forced more acceptance and equality. Even in origins: the U.S. is the break-away child of an empire; Austria is the seat of a former-empire. In the U.S. we had to fight for equality earlier, because we enslaved people. With the fight for equal rights for all races, came the fight for equal rights for all genders. (Though again, women actually achieved suffrage in Austria before they did in the U.S.)
What shocked me the most in that study is how low Austria ranks in educational attainment for women. I’ve read a bit about how tracking in the Hauptschule system is skewed toward boys (particularly white boys, whose first language is German), but the fact that Austria would rank so low in educating girls when higher education is so financially accessible is troublesome for me…and makes me want to email my male, teacher, Austrian friend and ask – WTF?
I’m certainly not an expert on any of this – particularly on a feminist history of Austria – and I love Austria…but feminism does seem to still be a dirty word there – even more so than it continues to be in the U.S. I feel like the niggling issues that American women have (and I’m yet to meet one who hasn’t had them) in Austria are mostly rooted in a general resistance to change, as opposed to anything more targeted.
It’s just the way it is.
Thanks for your comment JT
I feel like someone has finally put into words what I’ve been struggling with for the last 5 years! I am an IT woman and the only woman in my team. My co-workers are all nice guys, but they can’t help it, they are Austrian males. Some of them have recently had kids or have some on the way and there was no question about who was gonna stay home. Mostly though it was a financial decision not a sexist one, the women just don’t earn enough. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard in an interview that I do make a lot of money, as in I should be grateful. By American standards it is not a lot, it is a fair pay as I am a manager, but I am certainly not overpaid and I worked hard to get where I am. It’s just that I am paid as a man, and that raises eyebrows everywhere I go. If I were a guy playing golf and driving a Porsche no one would question my salary. There were a lot of things I took for granted while I was working in the US, women surely are treated differently here because they are women. In time you learn to work out things to your advantage and you let comments slide. I don’t think any of the Austrian males I have met are chauvinistic pigs, they are respectful and nice for the most part, they just fall into the traditional gender roles, in a country where tradition plays a very important part in daily life. Drop me an email if you’d like to get together for coffee and commiserate
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I enjoy reading your blog and intend to continue visiting it daily.
Austria for me as a housewife has been living horror. The reason why all Austrian womwn work is because should their marriage fail they will be thrown peniless out on the street. It is as simple as that. As a wife you are better off in an Arab country because your husband will buy you jewellry that you can pawn at some point.
Do not marry an Austrian man unless you have a big swiss bank account that he cannot find. I’m 45, have not worked in 19 years and can’t go home because I will lose my kids. He is worth over 6 million Euros, “optimizes” his taxes so that his income shows only €12,000/year. I don’t want to rant, but please be forwarned!