I get a lot stupid skype spam from performance drugs to stock tips but this week I got this:
<blockquote>European and American women are too arrogant for you? Are you looking for a sweet lady that will be caring and understanding? Then you came to the right place- here you can find a Russian lady that will love you with all her heart. Can't find a queen to rule your heart? How about beautiful Russian ladies that have royal blood and royal look?</blockquote>
Too arrogant for you? <em>Really, arrogant</em>?!? Someone caring and understanding? <em>What planet are you living on</em>? And rule your heart? <em>I don't even know what that means</em>. (Oh, and your grammar stinks.)

The whole thing was too much for me. Block user.

However, I did make me think: Ug. It's not that American (or European) women are actually arrogant or uncaring. Rather this spam is directed to men who are looking for a women who will fulfill their idea of how a woman traditionally is supposed to act and behave. And it's a cutting attack directed towards those of us who are "arrogant" enough to pursue careers, equality in our relationships and still think that we are women. <em>Awesome</em>.<!--more-->

After the feminist in me was done fuming--I did get a good laugh out of the second half of the spam about ruling a man's heart. I couldn't help but wonder if this was a nod towards sexual domination. Apparently this is spam that has a little bit something for everyone. That is kind of funny--I mean if you like spam. (Which I don't. Stop spamming me.)

But I was reminded of a comment one of my PhD-pursuing-sarcastic-as-I'll-get-out-friends made a couple of months ago. It was basically this:
<blockquote>What's a nice girl like you doing in Bulgaria for another year? I wonder if you are ever coming home or if the paradise that is post-communist Europe will claim you as another victim.  Given my stereotypical and misinformed view of expats, I find it hard to believe you are still overseas.  I mean, you aren't looking for a wife and you aren't avoiding creditors.</blockquote>
Ha, ha.  The problem is it's only funny because it's <em>kind of true</em>. Certainly not all expats are looking for wives or escaping debts but I think that all of us expats know someone who fits loosely into one of these two categories.

In Bulgaria, I am not sure that men hunting for wives but I've met plenty of slightly older American and British men who are reveling in their renewed bachelorhood with a new young pretty Bulgarian on their arms every time I see them. Men who are nice enough but clearly using their money and their nationality to "trade-up" in Bulgaria. There seems to be some arrogance in this as well--maybe it's not just American women who are arrogant.

None of this is, of course, a surprise.  Isn't the history of marriage and nation building in Western Europe? Using marriage to increase power, renew relationships and secure alliances as well as to maintain control of and limit female sexuality, to identify lines of heredity and inheritance and ostensibly to protect women.  Marriage as an institution to control and center power.

I'd like to think that in the 21st century we've begun to move away from this. But seems in someways inevitable that unequal relationships like this will continue.  When the power structure is uneven and the access and opportunities are so different--it's a system that makes an exchange like marriage seem all the more attractive.  Inherently unequal but attractive nonetheless.

I get it. I just don't like it. And I like it even less when the justification for it is the fact that American women are arrogant.