Villains and Superheroes: The Battle of the Sexes

"The man may be the head of the household. But the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head whichever way she pleases.” I was recently reminded of this familiar adage while at the nail salon as my technician, Marina, gossiped away and offered her unsolicited relationship advice. You may recognize this line from the family classic, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when Toula's mother lets her daughter in on a little secret about marriage. But what I came to realize while sitting in the salon chair listening to Marina muse about men, women, sex and relationships, is that she was imparting on me a widespread belief of and inescapable reality for many Bulgarian women, and perhaps more women than we'd like to admit.

These last three months in Bulgaria I am not only rediscovering my identity as a Bulgarian-American, but also as a 21st century woman stuck between cultures and paradigms. With just two years of marriage under my belt, I am still navigating my new identity as a wife, confronted by the complexities of femininity in a time when women seemingly have more autonomy than ever before. We've replaced aprons with blazers, we have abortions and take birth control, we are scientists, lawyers, doctors and vice presidents, we don't change our last names and our husbands are stay-at-home-dads. Yet, as far as the women's rights movement has come, today's politics remind us that we still have a long way to go. We've had an administration that attacks reproductive rights left and right, a wage gap where women still earn 82 cents for every $1 earned by men, and derogatory rhetoric and accounts of abuse beating down the progress women have made over centuries.

Though it's not just bigoted politicians and patriarchal norms that confine the female spirit. We, too, have drank the kool-aid and that has undoubtedly impacted the female subconscious, everything from our hopes and dreams to our ideas about ourselves and our place in society. The psychological tug-of-war I have within myself is more confining than any law or social norm because at the end of the day, I have to look at myself in the mirror and be happy with the woman looking back at me.

In many ways women are like superheroes. We are bestowed with this special power to bring new life to the world, and like with any superpower comes the burden of great responsibility.

What does it mean to be a good wife? What is a happy marriage defined by? Who wears the pants in a relationship? Who turns the head in the marriage? What does a healthy sexual life look like? Does having children offer the purist form of happiness? These meditations whirl around my mind consciously and subconsciously as I try to find myself, my calling, my purpose. Being surrounded by the hyper masculine Bulgarian culture has shed new light on these questions with more complexity, and at times trepidation, about my identity as a woman.

I've grown up in a traditional household where my father is the breadwinner and my mother a homemaker. Despite the sacrifices my mother had to make at the mere age of eighteen-- to start a family and forego her aspirations of an education and a career -- she replaced them with an equally ardent dream of being a mother. I have always idolized my parents' marriage and the affection they have for one another. There is mutual respect and admiration, faithfulness and intimacy. Their bond is a testament to the sacred vows they took: for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part. I also grew up in a household that unequivocally values education. My mother and father have done everything in their power to provide only the best education for my sisters and me, so that one day we can find happiness, fulfillment, and success in our own lives. Throughout all my academic endeavors and professional aspirations, I've always had my parents' unwavering support and encouragement to be the woman I want to be.

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After I graduated college and started dating more seriously. I also remember a subtle caveat communicated to me, indicative of a world view that I have had to internalize my whole life: regardless of my professional aspirations and personal predilections I cannot escape my destiny as a wife and a mother. As a woman I can have any career I want, but I shouldn't have to be responsible for supporting my family, and regardless of my career, ultimately my husband must provide stability and security so that when we start a family, I can stay home to raise my kids.

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with this storyline. Some of the women I admire most in my life live this reality and lead happy and full lives. As a woman in my late twenties (the last year of my twenties actually, eek!) many of my friends and acquaintances are starting beautiful families of their own. In the last couple of years my Instagram feed has transitioned from selfies and pet portraits to baby bumps and swaddled infants. Don't get me wrong, I believe every woman should feel empowered to have children if she wants to; I just wonder if it is truly an autonomous decision or something that awaits us, that we grow into, succumb to? Having children does not undermine women's empowerment. It is the public expectation of such a deeply personal matter, as well as the double standards women are held to that continue to define and confine us.

There is an expectation to have a career, but one that we should be willing to leave and that will allow us to leave when we have children, and simultaneously the expectation that our partners should have stable enough careers to support us for when we are not providing. Today there's even more pressure for a modern woman with career aspirations because we are expected to juggle motherhood and a career. Many women experience maternal bias in the workplace, being shamed for returning to work rather than staying home with their children. (Read how the current health pandemic is exacerbating bias against working mothers) Does that mean we have to rely on a stay-at-home husband? A babysitter? Daycare? What happens when daycare isn't an option? Am I a bad mother if I don't raise my children myself? What if I want to have my cake and eat it too, be at home with my child and go to work? In Bulgarian culture having a nanny is still a progressive notion. You either raise your children yourself or you rely on grandma to watch them. I don't remember ever having a babysitter or a nanny. My mother was with me every day, sometimes with a little help from my grandmother or great grandmother, but never with a babysitter. The truth is, would I raise my children any other way?

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Which reminds me of the other elephant in the room. Do I even want to have children? As a young woman I never had a desire to have a big family. Until recently, I really contemplated whether I want to bring children into this world at all. Can my husband and I afford to raise children? Do I want to devote the rest of my days raising another life? Am I ready to give up the relationship I have with my husband now? What does the future look like for the next generation anyway?

Over the years as I have learned to live in my own skin, I have become less concerned with the expectation of others, but more so the expectation I have for myself. And the bare naked truth is I am terrified of the idea of having children - the pregnancy, the labor, the parenting - all of it. It's the only thing you can't take back in life, no do-overs, no divorce, no moving, no quitting. Parenthood is forever. And then my mind wanders...would I be depriving myself of the greatest gift? Would I be passing up the blessing of a lifetime? Would my life feel incomplete? In many ways women are like superheroes. We are bestowed with this special power to bring new life to the world, and like with any superpower comes the burden of great responsibility. You have to learn how to control your power and when to use it. But if women are superheroes, what does that make men in this story?

Discrimination against women is everywhere. It's in our traditions in our figure of speech, on the billboards and at the dinner table.

Sofia is a multicultural metropolitan city brimming with innovation and progress like any European capital. But among the cutting-edge institutions, avant garde art, and newly constructed metro stations there is a deeply backward society whose views about women are as decrepit as its crumbling communist blocks. Here, the discrimination against women is more overt and in your face. Women are objectified and sexualized on every street corner. Coffee vending machines are painted with collages of women in lingerie, because who doesn't need a dollop of sex appeal with their morning cup o' joe? I am ogled every time I walk down the street. It's nice to feel recognized when I get dressed up, but not to the point where I feel embarrassed for being beautiful or question whether my outfit is too provocative. Rather than stare bigotry in the face, I cross the street and look the other way.

Bulgaria has an addiction to plastic and it's not just at the grocery store. I swear, every other woman I see has a lip injection or breast implants, and let me tell you, it's not because the best plastic surgeons happen to live in Bulgaria. Sitting in the back of a taxi one day I listen as the cab driver rants about a news story of an eighteen-year-old being pulled over for speeding down the highway at midnight. "A woman none the less! She could have killed someone! And to think that girl will be a mother one day," he shakes his head and mutters in disappointment. Just like that, this stranger, whom the young girl will never meet in her life, has robbed her of the autonomy and the freedom to decide her destiny.

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Discrimination against women is everywhere. It's the traditions, in the figure of speech, on the billboards and at the dinner table. Needless to say, machismo permeates Bulgarian culture. This exaggerated sense of masculinity inevitably results in a polarization of the sexes. At once men become the villains of their own story, brutish, stubborn and unfaithful in contrast to their soft-spoken, loyal, and manicured protagonists. Indeed, the only way a woman can get her husband to listen to her is by manipulating him, that is to say "turn his head whichever way she pleases." That is not the kind of marriage I have. I am not that kind of woman. Or am I?

Am I not a woman who likes to get a manicure and complimented? To have my door opened and my chair pulled out? To get taken out and taken care of? To feel protected and secure? I don't want to have to work harder than my husband, and regardless of my career, ultimately my husband should provide stability and security so that when we start a family, I can have the luxury of staying home to raise my children...

There, I said it. Does that mean I submit to a life of belittlement? Does it make me weak? Does it make me less of the woman I want to be and more of the woman I should be? I am still coming to terms with the juxtapositions that I live with as a woman - wanting a career and to stay at home to raise my children one day, believing in chivalry and women's empowerment, getting married and not changing my name, taking care of myself and wanting to be taken care of. Instead of seeing these notions as contradictory, what if we see them as part of being human? Maybe then men and women can stop playing villains and superheroes and start seeing each other as people.

Being in Bulgaria makes me feel sorry for the women who have to alter their faces and bodies to fit a certain image of femininity. I feel sorry for the women who have to manipulate their husbands just to be heard. I feel sorry for the women who have to endure infidelity and abuse and still have to greet their husbands with dinner on the table. I feel bad for the little girls whose fate as a mother has already been determined before she hits puberty.

And then I feel grateful for the men in my life. I feel grateful for my husband who loves and respects me, who challenges me to live outside the box and take risks. I feel grateful for my father for giving me a world-class education, for teaching me what unconditional love is, and for giving me the choices I have today. In the brief time that I have come to make a home in my homeland, I have also come to recent Bulgaria for many things, things people warned me about, things I thought I was prepared for, and things utterly out of my control. But it is part of the journey of self-discovery and understanding where I come from, who I am, and who I want to be, in spite of all my efforts to change my past.