Slippery Slopes

Walking around on the ice has been treacherous, but I've had even more unsettling culture shock in the past few days.  Besides teaching conversational lessons, I also teach "conversation club", which is basically a space for students to converse as much as possible without the restraints of the class structure and with me as a mediator.  We have a booklet to guide our topics, one per day, on everything ranging from "marriage" to "genetics" to, god knows why, "insurance".  Two days ago the topic was "men and women", and yesterday's was "cultural stereotypes".  Of course, since I'm interested in the critical theory of these topics, that's where they ended up.  So I had three sessions of gender issues discussion on Sunday, during which many (though not all) male and female students expressed an opinion of female inferiority in some way.  For example, one young woman said that maybe there are fewer women scientists because women are less capable of concentrating on one thing for a long period of time.  Ironically, she is studying to be a doctor.  The worst, however, was one young man who came into a class late and I asked to comment on the topic of whether gender differences are biological or socialized.  His response was something like "all men are more intelligent than women biologically".  Wow.  I didn't know what to say to something so dramatic and explicit (and not to mention WRONG), even though in retrospect there are many things I wish I had said.  Even after class he approached me and insisted that his statement was a fact.  In cultural stereotypes yesterday there was subtler discrimination expressed by a particular fellow, this time towards women and homosexuals.  And then this man got into a heated argument about the government's involvement in stereotypes with a classmate.  All in all, those two days were very emotionally draining from dealing with high tension and discrimination, in particular towards my own identity as a woman.  I think I also felt shaken up because it was reminder from a new angle that I'm really not in San Francisco anymore.  Needless to say, I was very relieved that conversation club moved on to the topic of "pets" today.

On a lighter note, I would like to put in a couple of words about actually walking around on the ice.  Every trip on foot has ranged from comical to embarrassing.  And I'm still blown away by how well locals deal with it.  Although I have seen some fall, they're more likely to use the ice to slide quickly and effortlessly along their way.  Which blows my mind.  Even more incomprehensible is that women are still walking around in heels.  (And sometimes in miniskirts, too...).  Since either walking on heels or ice usually requires all of my concentration, doing both simultaneously sounds like my chance to become acquainted with the Ukrainian health care system.  Which leads me to believe that these stylish locals must have some trick.  I thought that maybe the heels act as spikes that stick in the ice, and someone else mentioned that heels have less surface area to reduce the amount of not-pushing-off the ground one has to do.  This is clearly a question for science.  In any case, as with most things in life, you never really appreciate friction until it's gone.

Despite bruised hips and egos, we are learning how to walk differently.  I even think I'm sore from developing new muscles for walking on ice.  Here's what I've learned:

• Take small, slow steps
• Watch where you step
• It's easier to lift your hip to move your foot forward instead of pushing off the ground
• Waiving your arms by your side really does help

It's hard to explain using words, so here's a demonstration from the world's best ice-walkers:

Although, to be honest, this next video made me feel a lot better about my own struggle (even the sounds are similar):