At McCain-Palin rally last September in Cedar Rapids, I was standing along the barriers erected to separate the media area from the crowd and chatted with a local reporter for a while before the pair’s plane arrived and the Top Gun soundtrack began to play. In a playfully condescending tone he developed his idea of the difference between American and European voters, equating Europe with an uptight, overly-assertive woman who chases men down, ostensibly for marrying them, but in actual fact to use them for sex.
“What about America?” I asked him with genuine interest.
“United States is like a man who pays prostitutes. Not for sex. He pays them to leave afterwards.”
Before I took issue with the man over his interpretation of Europe’s slatternly behavior in sexual relationships, I wondered if stereotypical gender roles can impact our perceptions of an economic and political union expansion. Have we reached a point – even in terms of humor – where the enlargement of European Union is less about politics than it is about sexual vagaries? If we settled on such conventions as the idea that European Union is a family, do we also need to use gender pronouns and sexist language?
In the Old World dating scene, a woman who is very sexually active is considered a slut, while men who engage in frequent sexual activity are thought to be great lovers (or, in a worst case scenario, they are more likely to develop prostate cancer). When it comes to the enlargement of European Union, though, just how many partners are too many partners? Maybe it’s time to examine the pejorative overtones of the s-word.
From a numerical point of view, if a woman starts having sex at 18 and sleeps with men until she marries one of them, the number of sexual partners she will average depends on how lucky she is to find a suitable match. It’s a little more complicated than that, however, when you are a few centuries-old and the vow “as long as we both shall live” cannot secure your physical and spiritual oneness.
It is common knowledge, and probably instinctively understood, that courtship has often come to be a vital diplomatic weapon in foreign policy throughout European history. The selection of a partner proved helpful for two countries to make an ally of each other, and kept European diplomats busy trying to enhance marriage opportunities between their masters. Queen Elizabeth’s statesmen used the bait of her marriage to hook numerous suitors, and the negotiations for her hand made her one of the most sought after women in Europe whenever England needed allies. Elizabeth never dashed their hopes, although she was not particularly enthusiastic about marriage. The promise itself turned out to be a great asset to her country.
After carrying out a real opinion poll to find out what my women friends think about the s-word, most of them insisted that such slurs usually come from jealousy or threat: A woman calls another one a slut when she is jealous that the oh-her? type gets the attention, and men use the term when they get rejected. So, what if Miss-legs-in-the-air married the guy instead of rejecting him? Would we hear the s-word after the clergyman’s “If anyone objects to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace”?
When the Accession Treaty was signed in Athens on April 16, 2003, cementing the European Union’s plans to expand to 25 members, Finnish President Tarja Halonen talked about a great celebration in the air reminiscent of a wedding. It seems that, as in relationship tactics, the rules of political courtship are still the same variations of the marriage game: No other dress comes with more anticipation – imbued with hope, promise and intimacy — than the wedding dress.
However, regardless of relationship politics and gender jokes, European Union has to revive the vision that accompanied its birth. The idea of a greater Europe is not to make a dream come true but to make idealism work. Determination is the new hope. The never-ending debate over further enlargement does not necessarily reveal expansion fatigue. If our common interests and shared needs are not enough to inject some much-needed vitality into our European family, maybe now is the right time to investigate our diversities. They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Why should our bedrooms be built of strange politics?
My grandfather was a humble, religious man, born in Northern Greece, in the province of Macedonia. After the Second World War, he never thought that Greece would share a common currency with the people who burnt his family inside a church. That man was afraid of rivers. He believed that the hardest thing in his life had been to go with the river, to stand still until there was no difference between his body and the water tracks. He never made it after all. But his idea of a good time with his grandson was to take him to the riverside.
The European Union expansion story does not end with a wedding dress. But as we keep writing this story, we spin the great wheel of European civilization, sifting through the rubble of our past and finding connection in the most surprising and life-affirming ways. Up ending stories may be a misrepresentation of the complexities of our life. Happy endings rarely mirror back to us the realities of our existence. They capture, however, the intensity and courage with which we weave our existence. They illuminate the hope that binds us to one another and the vision for a new world – not a “happily ever after” world but the world we build through our actions right now.
If there has to be a wedding dress, it’s got to be the perfect one.
* Gianni Skaragas is a published author and screenwriter. His English writings appear regularly in literary journals and newspapers throughout the European world and the United States. He is a Fulbrighter.
By: N. Peter Kramer
