Since I last wrote I have been both in Croatia and England. I had a wonderful beach holiday in Croatia. One thing I really like about it there is that there is almost always shade on the beaches and (this is two things) the crystal clear water. I spent some time in Oxford inEngland and then a week in London. When I travel I can´t help but observe the culture. In Croatia it was not all that uncommon to see women looking after their men, even on the beach. One woman was cutting her husbands toenails and another was giving her husband a massage. This is the 6th time I have visited and I have never lived there but it does seem to be to be a rather male dominated society in many ways. My first visit was in 1978 and of course things have changed a lot since then. We spent a night in Zagreb both then and now. Zagreb is now an international city with attractive, well dressed young people, dominating the scene. In 1978 it was very much a grey Eastern European city. I noticed some cultural differences in England too. One man told me he couldn´t have a small dog as real men just do not take small dogs for a walk (I had better not tell my husband this!)
Oxford university has carried out a survey in regards to the best men to marry. This have valued this in terms of equality and Swedish men came out on top. Australian men were at the bottom. Here is the full list:
1. Sweden
2. Norway
3. Great Britain
4. US
5. Northern Ireland
6. Netherlands
7. Ireland
8. Spain
9. New Zealand
10. Japan
11. Germany
12. Austria
13. Australia
Experts actually claim that women are more attracted to men if they believe they will help out with household chores and make an equal contribution to childcare. Well, I haven´t been married to an Australian man but I did live in Australia for the first 25 years of my life and I do visit regularly. I have been married to a Swedish man for the last 33 years. I don´t claim to be an expert but I must say that generally Swedish men do compare well in terms of equality to most of the Australian men I meet. I find the media in Australia is still full of jokes about the fact that real men don´t do the dishes or look after kids. Real (as often depicted in the media) men drink themselves stupid and fall asleep on the sofa while a meal is placed in front of them. This is still amusing to many people. It is something that is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it is hard to actually discuss it. Of course there are caring, helpful and enlightened men in Australia too (I know at least one of them). It would be really interesting to hear someone else´s opinion about this.
Dr Sevilla Sanz, who carried out the survey, wanted to see if there was a correlation between marriage and cohabitation rates in different countries and attitudes toward gender roles in the home. So she collated interviews with 13,500 men and women aged between 20 and 45 from 12 countries, and ranked each country according to an “egalitarian index". She found that women living in countries with more egalitarian men were more likely to take the plunge and get hitched. Women living in countries with a higher proportion of beer-swilling, channel-hopping, couch potatoes were a bit slower to jump the broomstick.
Sweden and Norway ranked highest on the index because, says Dr Sevilla Sanz, “in egalitarian countries there is less social stigma attached to doing what was traditionally women´s work". They were followed by the UKand the US. Australia ranked lowest, because Aussie men are still perceived as being Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee types for whom a kitchen is largely unexplored and dangerous terrain.
