Thread: Статус женщины в России

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

Johanna wrote: What about having your looks judged everytime you go out?

Forgive me for straying from the topic, but I felt the need to give the male perspective on the question of masculine admiration. It would go something like this: Men are always going to admire beautiful women and good looks don't last forever, so enjoy the attention while it's on offer. Men, for their part, are always flattered when a lady tells them that they are handsome.

In the long run, I think all such questions boil down to the fact that men don't understand women and vice versa. Sometimes I think it was part of Nature's design. Other times I just quote the Bible: Male and female created He them, that is, there must be a reason why there are two sexes, a reason why we can't reproduce asexually as some plants and organisms do.

There's nothing wrong with admiration, it's a perfectly natural thing. I too admire handsome men, beautiful women, beautiful pictures, etc. Johanna's point, I believe, was a) to contradict the notion that women don't have to deal with competition; b) that it is discrimination to hire somebody based on their looks. It's just as wrong as judging somebody by their skin.

eta: Besides it's good to remember that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

I can add that if you don't understand women all you have to do is read John Grey's "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" (just kidding) He does have some good points, though. He'll tell you that women value compassion most of all, and surely that's a good quality to spread around the world. The bad thing about the absence of women in politics is that it makes the world unbalanced. Men often start wars, which I for one don't agree with. What was the point of Afganistan? I mean the Soviet-American conflict? Well, I haven't studied the question and I'm no historian, so perhaps there was some sort of obscure reason, but the point is that I want my views to be represented in politics! I am yet to live in this counrty. If ever I have a son, I wouldn't want him to die because some idiot has come to power and decided to send troops to Kuala-Lumpur!

eta: Also, the best times in the English history were when queens were on the throne: Elizabeth I and Victoria. I think that's saying something. In Russia it's Catherine the Great.

I don't think I misunderstood Johanna when she said: What about having your looks judged everytime you go out?

More importantly, I think, ultimately, "the point of the Soviet-american conflict" was testosterone. It has good and bad effects. War is one of the bad ones.

Russia has definitely never been the cutting edge of feminism and emancipation... (can you say it like that?)
There were almost no Russian female writers in the 19th century. For me it's a big downer. I love books written by women because I can identify with their heroines much better. Women as portrayed by men are often rather strange and I can't relate to them - Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary... That's why I love English lit so much - Jane Austen, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot -- lots of wonderful women writers.

Here we have only some children's books' women authors, like Oseeva and Brustein, some poets (poetesses?), like Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva, and some modern writers, like Tokareva, Ulitskaya, Rubina... Dontsova and Co aren't really worth mentioning. I read some stories by Tokareva - not bad, but I'm not a huge fan. As for the others, I'm yet to discover them...

Originally Posted by starrysky

I love books written by women because I can identify with their heroines much better. Women as portrayed by men are often rather strange and I can't relate to them - Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary...

Very interesting comments. As a fan of literature you would know that creating a credible protagonist of the opposite sex is regarded as one of the greatest tests of a writer's ability. You will notice that Tolstoi wrote Anna Karenina after War and Peace and Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is also I think a late work. I suppose only a woman can say how believable these heroines are, but clearly when you say you find them strange you are seconding my point about men not understanding women and vice versa. You probably know that Jane Austen never describes a scene where men are talking among themselves with no women present. She felt that she shouldn't write about what she had never witnessed, but it also says something about how well a female writer can understand men and vice versa.

'Poet' is used for both men and women. In the 19th century, they used to say things like 'authoress' and 'doctress' but nowadays, 'actress' is one of the only such forms in use. You can say woman writer or female priest (not priestess which sounds pagan). I wonder when the Orthodox Church will have female priests.

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

Originally Posted by starrysky

I love books written by women because I can identify with their heroines much better. Women as portrayed by men are often rather strange and I can't relate to them - Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary...

Very interesting comments.

Yes, I agree with Starrysky's comment.

Apparently this also works in cinema. A friend of mine studied cinema at university and one of the first thing she learnt (and told her friends about) was that people always must find somebody to identify with in a film. The most important thing is that the person is of the same gender. The second most important thing is that it's hard to identify with somebody who is much older than themselves.

If it's true, this explains why films such as "Moskva slezam ne verit", "Lace" and "Sex and the City" have been successful. (And countless similar) All are built around 3-4 well-portrayed women -- so there are several possible characters for female viewers to "identify" with.

Compare with an action films which has *maybe* one woman in them... Who is mostly there for "decoration". And have you noticed how stupid these women tend to be? They always get themselves captured, tied up or trip and fall ETC! Just irritating!

Originally Posted by Johanna

The most important thing is that the person is of the same gender. The second most important thing is that it's hard to identify with somebody who is much older than themselves.

Yes, but mostly true for the average mindless non-thinking git! Intelligent viewers do not need these crutches.

Originally Posted by Johanna

If it's true, this explains why films such as "Moskva slezam ne verit", "Lace" and "Sex and the City" have been successful. (And countless similar) All are built around 3-4 well-portrayed women -- so there are several possible characters for female viewers to "identify" with.

But men do not watch Sex in the City because they find the premise of the show rather sick and twisted, though. Sex in the City is designed for only the most stupidest and unrealistic female audiences who usually have a self worth issue. At least Moscow doesn't believe in Tears has a strong man in it!

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

Very interesting comments. As a fan of literature you would know that creating a credible protagonist of the opposite sex is regarded as one of the greatest tests of a writer's ability. You will notice that Tolstoi wrote Anna Karenina after War and Peace and Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is also I think a late work. I suppose only a woman can say how believable these heroines are, but clearly when you say you find them strange you are seconding my point about men not understanding women and vice versa. You probably know that Jane Austen never describes a scene where men are talking among themselves with no women present. She felt that she shouldn't write about what she had never witnessed, but it also says something about how well a female writer can understand men and vice versa.

Uh-huh. Jane Austen was criticized quite a bit by some for her portrayal of men, or non-portrayal of the political situation of her time -- Napoleonic wars. And, alas, Charlotte Bronte is rejected by many men as sentimental drivel. But this doesn't change the fact that the works of these authors appeal to women as no men's work does. Of course, all women are different, some don't like Austen, but being on a few boards devoted to these writers and especially! the screen adaptations of their novels, I'd say there's a fair number of very ardent fans. I do love a lot of things written by men but for different reasons. Women in them are mostly just beautiful appendices to men, as Johanna so rightly pointed out. They are not interesting characters with thoughts, views on life, etc. Even Anna Karenina -- as fully realised as she is -- her whole life is taken up with being dependent on a man's love, it's like she can't stand on her own, doesn't have any interests in life and so on. Jane Austen's women, although their lives are so centred on getting married, are interesting personalities in themselves. And I'm not even talking of Charlotte Bronte -- her heroines are models of independence.

I wouldn't presume to say that Anna Karenina could never exist in reality or that she's a badly written, one-dimensional character. But I think she's not a common type. Perhaps her description lacks some traits that would make her more recognizable to women. Mind you, I read "Anna Karenina" about 10 years ago, so I can't pretend to remember it very well. I actually never was very interested in her and Vronsky's storyline, Levin's character journey and his love for Kitty were more interesting to me in teenage years. And I do like Tolstoy's other female characters, like Natasha and Princess Maria from "War and Peace" -- they're excellent, outstanding characters, and very believable.

This is probably entirely off-topic, but a survey was conducted a few years ago which has shown men and women's differnt preferences in literature.

The novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional responses. That which means most to women is about deeply held feelings, a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion, research by the University of London has found.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/ap...ooks.booksnews

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

'Poet' is used for both men and women. In the 19th century, they used to say things like 'authoress' and 'doctress' but nowadays, 'actress' is one of the only such forms in use. You can say woman writer or female priest (not priestess which sounds pagan). I wonder when the Orthodox Church will have female priests.

Not in my life, perhaps. Thanks for the clarification, Martin, I did feel that 'poetesse' is not a word which is widely used in English, it's said in my copy of Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary that this is an old-fashioned word. Though in Russian "поэтесса" is perfectly normal.

Originally Posted by DDT

At least Moscow doesn't believe in Tears has a strong man in it!

There now! You've fallen into your own trap -- didn't you say that only gits have need of a character in a film/book to identify with? And who is that strong man -- Gosha the alcoholic?
(all this is tongue-in-cheek, not to be taken too seiously -- I do like Gosha despite his faults, he's a good guy).

Seriously though, I can read a book/watch a movie where there are no characters to identify with, and might even appreciate it. Think "Crime and Punishment". Raskolnikov is as far from me as Katmandu, but I agree that it's a great book. Just not a favourite. I don't feel the compulsion to reread it many times. But for a book to become a classic there must be things which everyone can relate to -- universal cross-gender human feelings and emotions, if you like. I know of a few women who positively worship Dostoevsky. The writer Sue Townsend is one of them.

After going outrageously off-topic, I'll add that I agree with those who said that politics is a dirty business. Or at the very least a very complicated one. When I tried last year to get my head around what happened in South Ossetia, it was positively spinning, until I ultimately gave it up as a hopeless business. But politics is extremely important as it affects our lives in a crucial way, so I still think that women must participate.

I, for one, have never understood that identification thing. I do not identify with characters in a movie or a book. I always remain a spectator. There may be characters I like or don't like, but I wouldn't call that identification.

Robin

Humans were animals once, there's no need to point out many instincts we inherited from our past. The natural selection has never fully stopped, just slowed down maybe.

The gender role of a male is protection and provision of means for survival while the gender role of a female is childbirth and caring for the young. I did not invent that. Don't get me wrong here, I am a supporter of emancipation even though I think that this very thing made many women and men unhappy. The boys are brought up to be strong, they are taught to be protectors and getters. Our mothers tell us that we (boys) have to care for women since they are weak and need special attention. OK. When we grow up and facing emancipation we discover that women don't really need all of that. Errr... Ok. But then we also find out that women still are much more emotional than men. We are confused. We also think that there's no place for emotions in politics. Anybody remembers Cleopatra?
So, either women have to suppress all emotions and become cold and rational (thus removing all differences with a male politician) once they're in politics or they have no place there.

I don't say that men are perfect politicians, in fact, i think it's impossible to be a good politician. You HAVE to break some necks when you are responsible for a whole nation. I insist on the last statement and I think there's no alternatives. You can't be good to everyone. I just think that men are more suited for breaking necks than women.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

I, for one, have never understood that identification thing. I do not identify with characters in a movie or a book. I always remain a spectator. There may be characters I like or don't like, but I wouldn't call that identification.

But if you like a character, there's a reason for it, right? You understand their feelings or what they're going through, because you might have experienced the same thing in your life or something similar. As we're all human beings, we can all relate to a character being sad, cheerful, indignant, or disappointed, or having any other feeling. With age, you come to experience more things, like jealousy, for example, which you might not have felt in childhood when you wouldn't really understand a character being jealous in a film/book.

It's a staple of good writing -- describe things that people can relate to. I, for one, love it when the author tells us what the character eats, or describes the nature and the weather in an evocative, artistic way, so that I an actually hear the roaring and howling of the wind, the pounding of the rain on the window-panes, or maybe see the clear crisp air of an early autumn day... All these things give the work of art more realism, whilst still being seen through the author's eyes. And I can relate better to those things because I have experienced them.

From Wikipedia:

"Identification is a term used in literary and film studies to describe a psychological relationship between the reader of a novel and a character in the book, or between a spectator in the audience and a character on screen. In both cases, readers and spectators see themselves in the fictional character.

Identification is usually supposed to be largely unconscious: a reader may be aware that she likes a given character, but not that she actually see that character as an alter ego, a version of her, or a projection of her aspirations for herself. It would be a mistake to think all heroes foster identification, or that all villains inhibit identification—many, perhaps even most, characters elicit some degree of identification on the part of the reader or spectator."

Originally Posted by Ramil

The gender role of a male is protection and provision of means for survival while the gender role of a female is childbirth and caring for the young. I did not invent that. Don't get me wrong here, I am a supporter of emancipation even though I think that this very thing made many women and men unhappy. The boys are brought up to be strong, they are taught to be protectors and getters. Our mothers tell us that we (boys) have to care for women since they are weak and need special attention. OK. When we grow up and facing emancipation we discover that women don't really need all of that. Errr... Ok. But then we also find out that women still are much more emotional than men. We are confused. We also think that there's no place for emotions in politics. Anybody remembers Cleopatra?
So, either women have to suppress all emotions and become cold and rational (thus removing all differences with a male politician) once they're in politics or they have no place there.

I don't say that men are perfect politicians, in fact, i think it's impossible to be a good politician. You HAVE to break some necks when you are responsible for a whole nation. I insist on the last statement and I think there's no alternatives. You can't be good to everyone. I just think that men are more suited for breaking necks than women.

Those are all very interesting thoughts. I'm not sure I even know what to say...

Yes, I suppose you might be right about feminism not being SUCH a good idea. It has messed things up a bit. ekaternak also wrote about it:

Originally Posted by ekaterinak

women are grown up in air of double standards. On the one hand we must be tender, gentle, weak (like a little bird), we should concentrate our thoughts on children, perspective of maternity, marriage and so on. On the other hand we must be ready to earn enough money to carry about our children, parents and ourselves (I meant "себя самих" sorry for my English). It is very hard to run on the both roads. I would say that it is two equal carriers instead of one. Now most of men have only one.

I agree with this. The woman now has to do EVERYTHING -- bring up children, work at an official workplace, and do all the housework. Not fair. But that wasn't the idea of feminism -- to make women's hard lives even harder. I believe the initial idea was to make men look at a woman with respect as an equal. Instead of that infamous formula, "Женщина -- друг человека".

Women/females are initially in a more vulnerable position than men/males because they are the ones who have to invest a lot of time, energy and resources into giving birth and bringing a child into the world.

From "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins (great book, btw):

"Sperms and eggs contribute equal numbers of genes, but eggs contribute far more in the way of food reserves: indeed, sperms make no contribution at all and are simply concerned with transporting their genes as fast as possible to an egg. At the moment of conception, therefore, the father has invested less than his fair share (i.e. 50 %) of resources in the offspring. Since each sperm is so tiny, a male can afford to make many millions of them every day. This means he is potentially able to beget a very large number of children in a very short period of time, using different females. This is only possible because each new embryo is endowed with adequate food by the mother in each case. This therefore places a limit on the number of children a female can have, but the number of children a male can have is virtually unlimited. Female exploitation begins here."

Of course, females don't agree with this state of things, since both sexes are interested in the procreation of children. So this is where the battle of the sexes starts. Women have long been protected by social institutions such as marriage from man having it the easy way and leaving the woman 'holding the baby'. Now family is treasured much less and that's a bad thing. Not just because marriage is better and fairer to the woman, but also because no one cancelled STDs yet.

As for the politics, the only thing I know is that men make decisions which influence women's lives directly. It's not fair. If you've seen "Lord of the Rings", there's a moment when Eowyn draws a sword and tells Aragorn: "Women of this country have learned long ago: Those without swords can still die upon them." So men start wars (old men, I might add), but it's not only young men, soldiers, who die, it's civilian population as well. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, millions in Russia during WWII -- they were not responsible for the decisions of their military hothead leaders.

I still don't think that the main reason of WW2 was testosteron. The world would be easier to live in if hormones were the only reasons for things.

Originally Posted by starrysky

The woman now has to do EVERYTHING -- bring up children, work at an official workplace, and do all the housework. Not fair. But that wasn't the idea of feminism -- to make women's hard lives even harder. I believe the initial idea was to make men look at a woman with respect as an equal. Instead of that infamous formula, "Женщина -- друг человека".

You forgot that she *should* do all these things AND still look great...!
Never mind the fact that a manicure takes at least an hour, gym takes 1.5h and it's hard to be productive and pleasant while you are starving yourself on a diet. ETC!!

Frankly, feminism didn't really work out quite as intended, I think.. I don't know what the solution is.

The other side of this is: How does Feminism and the new role of women affect MEN? I think there are some very "mixed messages" to men about what exactly women want from them. Personally I am guilty of this too.

I guess that it is not really realistic to expect a man to be both "sensitive, understanding" and "good at discussing feelings"... and macho and attractive in *that* way at the same time. (....anymore than there are "sexy" women who are interested in Formula 1 and icehockey....)

And how does all this affect society in general?

But do agree that female leaders are a LOT more peaceful and prone to co-operation and negotiation. Rather than taking to arms (=starting a war). Since wars are the cause for so much terrible suffering it must therefore be a good thing with female leaders.. But I am not sure I personally would like to be one...


ONE LAST THING: How about this one... I am sure everybody has already heard it... Will men turn into women due to contamination of drinking water by "the pill"?

Originally Posted by The Daily Mail

The fertility of a generation of men is being put at risk because a hormone found in the Pill is getting into drinking water, scientists fear.

Pollution due to the chemical, a powerful form of oestrogen, is causing up to half the male fish in our lowland rivers to change sex, research shows.

Experts believe the hormone could be getting into drinking water and affecting men's sperm counts. They say sewage treatment does not remove the chemical entirely from drinking supplies, although the water industry insists there is no evidence of a risk to health ...... Full story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...ing-water.html.

Back in university I had a professor who was engaged in humanitarian activities, including care for refugees from Chechnya. She said that people fled having just what was on them. No much help was available so they went mainly to abandoned houses in the countryside.

Inspite of the fact that many of them had university degrees, their lifestyle became very patriarchal. That was just the best strategy in those conditions.

In the modern society the family and man/woman relationships will change. Mr. Engels keeps being right.

Starrysky wrote: Women in them are mostly just beautiful apendices to men.
That should be appendages.

Appendgage = Literally, something useless attached to a more important thing.
Appendix= Additional material placed at the end of the main body of a scholarly work etc., also a part of the human body.

You probably know this but just got mixed up as the words are quite similar and have the same origin.

Originally Posted by starrysky

Of course, all women are different, some don't like Austen, but being on a few boards devoted to these writers and especially! the screen adaptations of their novels, I'd say there's a fair number of very ardent fans.

True, but with all of these adaptations, I think that right now a reaction is beginning to set in against this 'Jane mania'.

Originally Posted by starrysky

Levin's character journey and his love to Kitty were more interesting to me in teenage years.

That should be: his love FOR Kitty.This belongs in the Anna Karenina topic in the culture section, but since you mentioned it here, I will say that you are the first person I have heard express an interest in Levin's character journey. For many people (myself excluded) Levin, with his strongly held views on agriculture, is just a another way of saying boredom.

Originally Posted by Ramil

I still don't think that the main reason of WW2 was testosteron. The world would be easier to live in if hormones were the only reasons for things.

Really? The world would be easier to live in if there were no hormones at all, but maybe it would also be a little duller .

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

Originally Posted by Ramil

I still don't think that the main reason of WW2 was testosteron. The world would be easier to live in if hormones were the only reasons for things.

Really? The world would be easier to live in if there were no hormones at all, but maybe it would also be a little duller .

Someone mentioned Richard Dawkins and his books.
Gosh I can't stand Dawkins!

All he seems to be doing is piggy-backing off Darwin's existing work, and ridiculing people who believe in a higher power. What does it matter to him?

I have seen a few interviews with him and i think he has a really nasty personality; making fun of nice and honest people and always manipulating those he's speaking with.

Sure - religion has many faults and religious people often do stupid things. But that doesn't prove anything regarding Gods existence and it doesn't mean that self-indulgent, materialist hedonism is better.

A lot of people in the UK really like Dawkins though.

Originally Posted by ekaterinak

It will be bad if women be there only. I support equal rights for this activity only. If the result which we (people) have now is not quite good why will we (people) not taste another way? Women in politics is a variant. Why not?
I like Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3han ... %C3%B3ttir), Helen Elizabeth Clark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Clark), Radmila Šekerinska (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radmila_%C5%A0ekerinska) I suppose that they are not the meanest persons.

Good examples Katia!

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

Starrysky wrote: Women in them are mostly just beautiful apendices to men.
That should be appendages.

Appendgage = Literally, something useless attached to a more important thing.
Appendix= Additional material placed at the end of the main body of a scholarly work etc., also a part of the human body.

You probably know this but just got mixed up as the words are quite similar and have the same origin.

No, I didn't know about this, in fact, I didn't even know the word 'appendage' existed (well, maybe I saw it once somewhere but it didn't register), so thank you for the correction.

Originally Posted by Johanna

All he seems to be doing is piggy-backing off Darwin's existing work, and ridiculing people who believe in a higher power. What does it matter to him?

I have seen a few interviews with him and i think he has a really nasty personality; making fun of nice and honest people and always manipulating those he's speaking with.

Sure - religion has many faults and religious people often do stupid things. But that doesn't prove anything regarding Gods existence and it doesn't mean that self-indulgent, materialist hedonism is better.

I guess he would have been wiser to stay off religious topics. But "The Selfish Gene" is a very interesting book which helps to understand all sorts of things about human nature, the nature of aggression, etc. At least I certainly learned a lot thanks to it. He did not simply recapitulate Darwin's work, what he did was explain the workings of the genes in a very simple, non-technical language.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Frankly, feminism didn't really work out quite as intended, I think..

It was carried a bit too far! As usual, the happy medium is difficult to achieve. But a lot has been done, I think. We are used to women today being on an equal footing with men, but just a few centuries ago it was quite different.

Take "Pride and Prejudice", for example (heh, reverting to Jane Austen again). Here we have this family of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters. Because Mr and Mrs Bennet haven't been able to produce a male heir, after Mr Bennet's death the whole estate passes not to his daughters but to a distant cousin, Mr Collins. And Mrs Bennet and her daughters are left pretty much destitute on the street, unless the girls marry well. And you can be sure that Mr Collins, despite being a clergyman, is not going to be honourable and generous and refuse the inheritance. That's the law, eh? Would any woman like to be in such a position today? When all her property belongs to her husband and she can't dispose of any part of it? When she is forced to marry somebody 20 years older than her just because her young lover doesn't have a fortune and the family would never agree to their marriage? All those things are gone thanks to the emancipation of women.

Henry VIII strove to have a male heir that his first wife couldn't give him. She did give him a daughter but he was convinced that the country couldn't be ruled by a woman. In pursuing his heart's desire he divorced his first wife -- causing a disruption with the Pope and the Catholic church along the way -- and provided himself with a second wife, Anne, who, alas, gave him a daughter as well, which condemded her to death. Yet it was this girl, who became one of the most loved and famous monarchs of Great Britain - Elizabeth I. Yes, I just love this old movie -- "Anne of the Thousand Days".

Or I might mention the fact that in recent past even girls were considered undesirable in some Eastern countries, like China, which doomed them to being killed right after birth.

So, yeah, to sum it up, I see feminism as a good thing, on the whole. A lot of people are just plain ignorant of its origins and the only thing they know is that it's stupid for a woman to take offence when a man is trying to be gallant and holds the door open for her. Yep, that's a bit ridiculous. But that's not what feminism is truly about.

The term Feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing more rights and legal protection for women.
Feminism has altered predominant perspectives in a wide range of areas within Western society, ranging from culture to law. Feminist activists have campaigned for women's legal rights (rights of contract, property rights, voting rights); for women's right to bodily integrity and autonomy, for abortion rights, and for reproductive rights (including access to contraception and quality prenatal care); for protection of women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape;[1][10][11] for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; against misogyny; and against other forms of gender-specific discrimination against women.[12][13][14]

Originally Posted by Johanna

ONE LAST THING: How about this one... I am sure everybody has already heard it... Will men turn into women due to contamination of drinking water by "the pill"?

That's bad... I hope "The Daily Mail" is exaggerating a bit, though with the current state of ecology...

Originally Posted by Johanna

I guess that it is not really realistic to expect a man to be both "sensitive, understanding" and "good at discussing feelings"... and macho and attractive in *that* way at the same time. (....anymore than there are "sexy" women who are interested in Formula 1 and icehockey....)

No, it's not. No one's perfect, so it's better not to expect that there'd ever be full understanding between men and women. John Grey (I swear I haven't paid been paid to advertise him ) talks very interestingly about it, but his book is basically a few good ideas which are repeated over and over again for 300 pages.

Originally Posted by Martin Miles

That should be: his love FOR Kitty.This belongs in the Anna Karenina topic in the culture section, but since you mentioned it here, I will say that you are the first person I have heard express an interest in Levin's character journey. For many people (myself excluded) Levin, with his strongly held views on agriculture, is just a another way of saying boredom.

There's language interefernce for you. Since it's 'любовь К кому-либо' in Russian, I unconsciously used 'to' instead of 'for'.

As for Levin... Well, since he expresses Tolstoy's own views on life, yes, it was very interesting. What would be the English for 'смысл жизни', by the way? The meaning/sense of life? It so happened that I read "War and Peace" only a few months ago, and I thought that I would've perhaps enjoyed Pierre's reflections very much as a teenager, since his journey is all about coming to terms with life and death.