Dating Macedonian Women

[Amphipolis]

What!?...You're a dude? This is just like the Crying Game all over again. I think I'm gonna vomit.

No offence Karposh, but I once really thought you're a woman because you're always so polite.

The older members of the forum know that I’m a man (I hope), I’ve said this before, many times.

[Karposh]

No offence Karposh, but I once really thought you're a woman because you're always so polite.

The older members of the forum know that I’m a man (I hope), I’ve said this before, many times.

I'm man enough to take that as a compliment. I like to think I'm a nice guy. See Starling, I can be a man and nice at the same time.

PS I knew you were a dude too.

[vicsinad]

Going back to the original topic of the thread, I think there are many reasons why Macedonian women and men don't date one another as frequently as they once did, or as frequently as some may want. Here they are not in any order of importance, in my opinion:

1. When our ancestors arrived in their new destinations (US, Canada, Australia, etc.), they knew much less about the customs, culture and language of the society they transplanted themselves into. This made it necessary to congregate into communities to make life navigable and survivable here. The reliance on other Macedonians to survive in a foreign environment simply meant that their main social circles consisted of Macedonians. It was thus easier to find a suitable Macedonian mate.

Nowadays, however, we don't need these Macedonian communities to survive or navigate society and thus can expand our social circle without it being an embarrassing, confusing or difficult experience. Being that we're much more in tune with the customs, culture and language of our society, we have access to a much larger variety of social circles. We can choose who to associate with based on factors other than language, customs, culture and blood/village relations.

So, the main thing making it more difficult to date one another is this integration into another society, which means more exposure to other peoples and less exposure to your own people.

2. Gocka was definitely right about the gossip factor. Speaking to my wife, she never dated Macedonian guys when she was younger because she heard how other Macedonian girls were talked about who would date several Macedonian boys. The word "slut" and "kurva" was thrown out a lot, and why would she risk her reputation and sanity by dating Macedonian boys, if she eventually wanted to marry one, when she had many more options available that wouldn't result in such negativity? Macedonians are more social/gossipy than Americans in general, who tend to be more private and focused on the individual. Both approaches to life have their ups and downs.

3. Men's expectations. Let's face it: both young men and women put unrealistic expectations on what kind of person they want to be with. Many Macedonian guys want to be with women who can literally pick up after them (wash their clothes, clean their dishes) and serve them (make them meals, etc.). They are accustomed to this for two main reasons: one, watching the relationship between mother/father; and, as Gocka pointed out, having their mothers do everything for them.

I don't come from a household like this. My parents believed in equal work around the house and my grandparents believed in equal work around the house. My baba tells me that after both she and my dedo would come home from work, they would do cooking, laundry and etc. together so they had time to visit with family/friends in the evening. My great-grandfather (perhaps because of his army days) refused to have anyone else but himself washing and ironing his clothes. My mom does as much yard work as my dad (if not more) and my dad usually vacuums and does the dishes but rarely washes clothes or organizes the house. It works for them.

There seems to be a stereotype in Macedonian communities that there were specific roles for the genders and that these roles were natural or god-given. But I fail to see them as such. The only connection women had to the house "biologically" was birthing and infant-rearing. While this is normal, in Macedonia the necessity for women to stay home was compounded by three other societal factors:

A) It was dangerous for Macedonian women to leave the home or the vicinity of the home, because they were at danger of being raped or kidnapped by Muslim bands or Turks, forced to convert to Islam, and then spend their life as a Muslim in an unfamiliar home. It was riskier to send a woman by herself to market in the town to sell apples, for example, so either the men would go or a man would accompany a woman. Thus, women wanted to stay home due to fear, and men wanted women to stay home to protect them, which meant women had access to a narrower and limited types of work they could do (fetching water, maybe working in the fields at harvest time, but mainly making sure the house was in order). So, this evolved into an expectation that women keep the house in order and that that was back then and must be her duty even today.

B) In Macedonia, as in much of the world until the 20th century, most jobs outside the home were exceedingly physical. While there are clearly females who are stronger and faster than some males, the types of jobs available were generally those that required a lot of physical strength, speed and endurance that males generally have more of, meaning they generally accomplished that job faster and easier than females. Today, we have technology that makes these jobs accessible to the physically weaker.

For example, we have fat and out-of-breath men driving around big construction machines digging up basements in a few hours when back then you only had a shovel and it would take days. Building cars back then required actually lifting large pieces of the metal by oneself; now, one simply has to control the robot, if that. Similarly, back then many jobs were railroad building, logging, mining and the like. Back then (depending on how far back we go), fighting a war meant up close, hand-to-hand (or knife-to-axe) combat. Certainly, throughout history, cultures have trained excellent women warriors in the past, especially because they can be more agile and flexible physically; but war was predominately a man's business because men are stronger and faster, generally. Rudimentary guns also changed this slightly, and thus we saw scores, if not hundreds, of armed Macedonian women rebels during the 1903 Ilinden Uprising (and more-so during the Greek Civil War in the 1940s). Now that warfare is transitioning into more about knowing what button to press than brute force (this is a minimization of what actually goes on), you're finding more women in the occupation of war.

Today, not only are once physically-demanding jobs no longer physically demanding, we have service-oriented jobs, more entertainment jobs, academia jobs, office jobs, recreation jobs, etc. This is helping more women get out of the perceived "domakinka" role. Yet, many men still have the expectation that a woman's primary role is keeping the in order and this clashes with the desire many women have to access the opportunities that modern society is providing them.

C. Finally, last but not least, for whatever reasons, men historically seem to think they are more powerful than women overall and not just physically. Many Macedonian older and young men (though less frequently nowadays) have no problem belittling their sisters, wives, girlfriends or other Macedonian girls. I hear it all the time: calling them dumb, stupid, and to shut up in public constantly. I remember when I was younger at a Macedonian function and my mom decided to join the men in talking Macedonian politics, there was "Zoshto taa zborvit" and "You dun't know vat chu tawkin about, zheno" and "Shto znaje zhena za ovie raboti." I was pissed, and so was my dad, but that's the culture we grew up in: Macedonian men belittling women for what they say and how they think. For some reason, Macedonian men did (and to some extent, still do) think that the "heavy thinking" should be left to men.

This I believe all relates to men thinking they are more powerful -- and generally, just better -- than women. I see this has changed significantly, but it's still not uncommon in the Macedonian communities. I would hate to be a woman in this environment, where I'm not good enough to talk about issues (if I have an interest in them) so I naturally fall into the "gossiping while making dessert" crowd because its easier than having to prove myself based on my sex/gender. (Note: I don't agree with Gocka's interpretation that women are less interested in history, politics, etc. I think they are pushed out of it, intentionally or unintentionally.)

3b. The flip side: many Macedonian young women have unrealistic expectations of Macedonian men.

A. As RtG alluded to, many Macedonian girls think that it's a man's job to bring them money -- and to bring them a lot of money. I've seen Macedonian girls/young women laugh at and belittle men who might have had a crappy car (but worked for it), yet fall in love with a Macedonian guy (who is likely a idiot jerk) driving a expensive, nice car that their parents bought them. Macedonian women sometimes expect their men to provide for them in the same ways that mama i tato provided for them (and mama's and tato's immigrant work ethic mostly always trump any work ethic of spoiled Western kids), and Macedonian women are always (and I say this without hesitation) the first to ask the question: "How much money does he make?" Regardless if it's a baba, tetka, girlfriend, or etc., I rarely hear Macedonian men ask that question, but for a Macedonian woman it's so ingrained in them to ask that question (at least where I grew up), that it appears to be instinctual. Thus, Macedonian women nowadays look to other social circles and peoples for richer and flashier men that can theoretically provide for them in ways Macedonian men can't or won't to the same extent. Blame it on Kardashians or whoever, but it's quite prevalent.

Saying that, I think there is something biological about females seeking out males to be providers, but only to a certain extent. I think culture, and Macedonian culture in the States at least, has significantly magnified the importance of making sure that men are the providers.

B. In the States, Macedonian young men are less educated (in my opinion, in general) than American young men, for whom college has become just another part of life. But for Macedonian young men, why go to college when your dad has a bakery, restaurant, shop, etc. that you will soon run? (On another note, most of these are still passed down to men, meaning women end up going to college more than Macedonian men (even if it is just a community college because parents don't want them living in dorms) and thus having degrees at a higher rate...I have not studies to confirm this.) For these men, you'll have a steady job as well as get money much sooner than if you went to college for 4 to 8 years.

So, today there is another class of Macedonian young women who want intelligent and educated men. Sure, some want such because higher education can be correlated with more money; and some others want these kind of men because they don't want to be relegated to working in a bakery or restaurant for 40 years. But I suspect many more want it because it means their men are more aware, open, reasonable, understanding and not as, well, small-minded. Yet, not as many Macedonian men are going to college as non-Macedonian men (or at least American men), and Macedonian women are missing out on some great un-schooled men (by great, I mean solid character and personality) simply because they won't consider being with a guy that doesn't have schooling. Thus, they have limited their options among their own Macedonian community, and want to expand to the greater American community to have a better chance of finding a suitable date.

So, there are many reasons in my opinion. The rest of this is an interesting topic, and maybe later I'll talk more about it. But I do want to say this, as a fun fact:

Goce Delchev dressed in women clothing on certain occasions; he did so in order to appear to be a women so he could avoid capture of the Turkish military. Oh, what lengths we wouldn't go to in the name of liberty and freedom

I also want to say to some older members (Vangelovski): It's one thing to be forceful about your opinions, but that's not the same as being harsh to another member. If you don't think the person is answering your questions or responding to your comments to your satisfaction, exit the conversation and leave it at that. If someone thinks you're being mean or rude, then accept and acknowledge that they think so, even if you don't, and change your style a little if you really want to a)know what the other person thinks or b) if you want to try to change that person's mind.

Saying that, to new members (Starling): This is normal conversation, with men or women, and it's actually been pretty tame compared to many other conversations. Newer members who have a lot to say tend to be questioned, probed and prodded more than others. Call it forum initiation or hazing, but I wouldn't take offense to it. No one here (Vangelovski or RtG or Gocka) are ill-intenioned or bad people. They, like you, have their beliefs and opinions and are strongly attached to them. And Vangelovski in general has a higher standard for responses (sometimes unreasonable), but that standard tends to make people better thinkers and more careful with how they phrase their ideas.

[Gocka]

Always very level headed Mr Sinadinoski.

I'd like to note that although I did say women are not interested in history and politics, I didn't say that their disinterest in these topics is inherent. Yes I'm sure societal issues are largely to blame for this.

I like many of your explanations about the ins and outs of Macedonian dating habits in the USA. We both grew up in different parts of the country, both in Macedonian communities and I have to say, my experiences mirror your's exactly.

Macedonian women, for the most part are very interested in money and status. This comes from a deep rooted sense of superiority usually learned in the household they grew up in. Whether the girl is educated or not, the parents always push the girl find a well educated, highly paid mate. Doctors and lawyers, sound good to the parents and get preference. Go to a Macedonian gathering in NJ, and 90% of Macedonians have a BMW or Mercedes, Mind you this is not because Macedonians in NJ are so successful. Its part of the culture. You have to show how well off you are, even if you are not. I think this is the #1 reason for looking outside the community for an eventual mate. 90% look well off, while only 10% are well off. When you date someone, the image you perpetuate, can lure them in, but once they get close, they will find out the truth. So really we are our own worst enemies in this battle. Our parents push the kids to marry as high up as they can, and that usually means a non Macedonians.

Throw in the other things you mentioned about disrespect to women, mama's boy complex, and the gossip factor, its no surprise why the trend is the way it is.

Modern day femenazis are committing the same injustices upon to women that men have traditionally committed. They are basically speaking for all women, and telling women that they know whats best for them.

[Vangelovski]

Here's an interesting one for all the single lads out there

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=538365506526651&id=516366018726600

[Risto the Great]

A clever young woman using technology to its full potential. She is empowered and beautiful. Bravo.

Every time I try doing that, nobody is interested.

[Vangelovski]

A clever young woman using technology to its full potential. She is empowered and beautiful. Bravo.

Every time I try doing that, nobody is interested.

I think I've seen one of yours

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCVRrybYWNE

[Risto the Great]

I find myself becoming increasingly "transparent" as the years go on. Is that a thing?

I also feel like an 18 year old woman sometimes ....

[Vangelovski]

I find myself becoming increasingly "transparent" as the years go on. Is that a thing?

Not sure, but I reckon trans-racial will really take off in Macedonia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkYM2AtOaXk

[Risto the Great]

I don't even know what to say, for once.

[Risto the Great]

It is costing us $6m to ‘solve’ gender pay gap myth

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/judith-sloan/it-is-costing-us-6m-to-solve-gender-pay-gap-myth/news-story/6bae6e2d5639f9acd856692ed77bb9d6?nk=c907bb6267c9cb6cd0d75c91a746fecc-1515371936

When Tony Abbott became prime minister in 2013, he partly fulfilled his promise to abolish several government agencies, commissions, councils and the like — what Sir Humphrey would have called quangos.

He assigned up-and-comers Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer to the task and they went about making a list of these bodies — this was not as easy as it sounds — then prioritising them for abolition or integrating their functions into the relevant department.

They made good progress. Does anyone lament the passing of the Climate Commission or the Australian National Preventive Health Agency? Can anyone even remember the Social Inclusion Board or the Major Cities Unit? My guess is that a tiny fraction of the population would even know what these agencies did, let alone yearn for their return.

Sadly, one organisation that the Abbott government didn’t get around to ditching was the socialist-sounding Workplace Gender Equality Agency. (Several others also survived, in part because they were established by legislation and the Palmer United Party quickly lost the plot in terms of its senators’ decision-making.)

The WGEA was established by the Gillard Labor government and its stated role is to “promote and improve gender equality in Australian workplaces”. To do this, the 25 staff members, 84 per cent of whom are women (where’s the equality there, I ask), who cost the taxpayer more than $6 million, annoy employers by asking them to fill in endless surveys containing badly drafted questions, the answers to which are often known through other sources — most notably the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The organisation laughably provides some sort of consultancy services — free, of course — to employers “to identify areas for focus, develop informed strategies and measure performance against peers over time”. This is called competitor analysis benchmark reporting. The mind boggles.

Mind you, the WGEA has managed only five media releases in the past 12 months. Obviously, the overworked staff members are flat out doing whatever they are doing rather than letting the public know.

Did I mention that one of the press releases was titled “Mother’s Day: let’s value mothers — at work and at home”? And to think that taxpayers have to pay for this *drivel. (Josh and Kelly: your work was unfinished.)

Then there is the real bane of the WGEA — the gender pay gap. It’s like clockwork. Some wage figures are released, the gap between male and female earnings is calculated, and the wailing begins.

Did you know that the gender pay gap in Australia is more than 15 per cent? Did you know that the gap has declined only slightly from the 18.5 per cent recorded in 2014, at the height of the mining boom? Did you know that it will take a lifetime (insert large number of years) before the pay gap is closed?

Let’s face it, the gender pay gap is a favourite leitmotiv of the left. The reaction is always the same: it’s appalling; it’s not coming down; something has to be done.

So let me explain the gender pay gap — and if you won’t take my word for it, refer to the research of Harvard University’s Claudia Goldin. For one thing, even using the earnings of full-time workers to calculate the pay gap is misleading because male full-time workers work more hours a week than female full-time workers.

In Australia, the average number of hours full-time male employees work is 44.7, whereas the figure for female full-time workers is 41.6 hours. This immediately reduces the gender pay gap to a fraction less than 10 per cent.

Let me tell you something else. For lower-paid workers, there is no gender pay gap after taking into account qualifications, work experience and other job-related characteristics. If there is an unaccounted gap between male and female workers, it is among higher-paid workers.

In fact, for lower-paid workers, the occupational segregation that exists — think women as nurses and teachers, men as drivers and garbos — actually helps narrow the gender pay gap. In other words, women’s relative earnings would fall if the occupational distribution of women’s employment were the same as men’s.

In terms of the overall gender pay gap, what the Harvard research indicates is the importance of the wage premium attached to long and unpredictable hours of work as well as the identity of the person doing the work.

A proportion of customers don’t just want any lawyer or surgeon; they want a particular lawyer or surgeon and they are prepared to pay for this. These workers are not interchangeable, one with the other.

In turn, female workers, even very highly qualified ones, are less inclined to take on work that involves long and unpredictable hours because it is impossible to balance the demands of work with family responsibilities.

What this means is that women will often select occupations in which work-life balance is a distinct possibility but there is a relative pay penalty for doing so.

Now, unless the WGEA thinks it can convince women that they don’t want to drive some sort of balance between work and family — and it would be a brave thing even to say so — the economics of work will mean that the gender pay gap is likely to persist. It doesn’t mean that women are paid less for doing the same jobs as men; it just means they choose to take jobs while still caring for their children (and elderly parents sometimes) as best they can while still pressing on with their careers.

Astonishingly, in these times of budgetary pressures, the Coalition government has not sought to abolish the WGEA. Sadly, the largely unnoticed work of the WGEA chugs along, imposing high information and regulatory costs on businesses by insisting they provide all sorts of information about pay scales, recruitment and retention, pay gap audits and so on.

That the information collected is woefully inaccurate doesn’t seem to faze the staff of the WGEA. But that’s government these days — use taxpayer dollars to undertake substandard work that goes largely unnoticed.

Less than 10% and mostly because the women do not want to work as much as men possibly for the reason they may have bonded to those little things that spat out of their (female) genitals called babies ...

But let's not talk about the gender death gap. Because that is totally without ambiguity.

[Tomche Makedonche]

Going back to the original topic of the thread, I think there are many reasons why Macedonian women and men don't date one another as frequently as they once did, or as frequently as some may want. Here they are not in any order of importance, in my opinion:

1. When our ancestors arrived in their new destinations (US, Canada, Australia, etc.), they knew much less about the customs, culture and language of the society they transplanted themselves into. This made it necessary to congregate into communities to make life navigable and survivable here. The reliance on other Macedonians to survive in a foreign environment simply meant that their main social circles consisted of Macedonians. It was thus easier to find a suitable Macedonian mate.

Nowadays, however, we don't need these Macedonian communities to survive or navigate society and thus can expand our social circle without it being an embarrassing, confusing or difficult experience. Being that we're much more in tune with the customs, culture and language of our society, we have access to a much larger variety of social circles. We can choose who to associate with based on factors other than language, customs, culture and blood/village relations.

So, the main thing making it more difficult to date one another is this integration into another society, which means more exposure to other peoples and less exposure to your own people.

2. Gocka was definitely right about the gossip factor. Speaking to my wife, she never dated Macedonian guys when she was younger because she heard how other Macedonian girls were talked about who would date several Macedonian boys. The word "slut" and "kurva" was thrown out a lot, and why would she risk her reputation and sanity by dating Macedonian boys, if she eventually wanted to marry one, when she had many more options available that wouldn't result in such negativity? Macedonians are more social/gossipy than Americans in general, who tend to be more private and focused on the individual. Both approaches to life have their ups and downs.

3. Men's expectations. Let's face it: both young men and women put unrealistic expectations on what kind of person they want to be with. Many Macedonian guys want to be with women who can literally pick up after them (wash their clothes, clean their dishes) and serve them (make them meals, etc.). They are accustomed to this for two main reasons: one, watching the relationship between mother/father; and, as Gocka pointed out, having their mothers do everything for them.

I don't come from a household like this. My parents believed in equal work around the house and my grandparents believed in equal work around the house. My baba tells me that after both she and my dedo would come home from work, they would do cooking, laundry and etc. together so they had time to visit with family/friends in the evening. My great-grandfather (perhaps because of his army days) refused to have anyone else but himself washing and ironing his clothes. My mom does as much yard work as my dad (if not more) and my dad usually vacuums and does the dishes but rarely washes clothes or organizes the house. It works for them.

There seems to be a stereotype in Macedonian communities that there were specific roles for the genders and that these roles were natural or god-given. But I fail to see them as such. The only connection women had to the house "biologically" was birthing and infant-rearing. While this is normal, in Macedonia the necessity for women to stay home was compounded by three other societal factors:

A) It was dangerous for Macedonian women to leave the home or the vicinity of the home, because they were at danger of being raped or kidnapped by Muslim bands or Turks, forced to convert to Islam, and then spend their life as a Muslim in an unfamiliar home. It was riskier to send a woman by herself to market in the town to sell apples, for example, so either the men would go or a man would accompany a woman. Thus, women wanted to stay home due to fear, and men wanted women to stay home to protect them, which meant women had access to a narrower and limited types of work they could do (fetching water, maybe working in the fields at harvest time, but mainly making sure the house was in order). So, this evolved into an expectation that women keep the house in order and that that was back then and must be her duty even today.

B) In Macedonia, as in much of the world until the 20th century, most jobs outside the home were exceedingly physical. While there are clearly females who are stronger and faster than some males, the types of jobs available were generally those that required a lot of physical strength, speed and endurance that males generally have more of, meaning they generally accomplished that job faster and easier than females. Today, we have technology that makes these jobs accessible to the physically weaker.

For example, we have fat and out-of-breath men driving around big construction machines digging up basements in a few hours when back then you only had a shovel and it would take days. Building cars back then required actually lifting large pieces of the metal by oneself; now, one simply has to control the robot, if that. Similarly, back then many jobs were railroad building, logging, mining and the like. Back then (depending on how far back we go), fighting a war meant up close, hand-to-hand (or knife-to-axe) combat. Certainly, throughout history, cultures have trained excellent women warriors in the past, especially because they can be more agile and flexible physically; but war was predominately a man's business because men are stronger and faster, generally. Rudimentary guns also changed this slightly, and thus we saw scores, if not hundreds, of armed Macedonian women rebels during the 1903 Ilinden Uprising (and more-so during the Greek Civil War in the 1940s). Now that warfare is transitioning into more about knowing what button to press than brute force (this is a minimization of what actually goes on), you're finding more women in the occupation of war.

Today, not only are once physically-demanding jobs no longer physically demanding, we have service-oriented jobs, more entertainment jobs, academia jobs, office jobs, recreation jobs, etc. This is helping more women get out of the perceived "domakinka" role. Yet, many men still have the expectation that a woman's primary role is keeping the in order and this clashes with the desire many women have to access the opportunities that modern society is providing them.

C. Finally, last but not least, for whatever reasons, men historically seem to think they are more powerful than women overall and not just physically. Many Macedonian older and young men (though less frequently nowadays) have no problem belittling their sisters, wives, girlfriends or other Macedonian girls. I hear it all the time: calling them dumb, stupid, and to shut up in public constantly. I remember when I was younger at a Macedonian function and my mom decided to join the men in talking Macedonian politics, there was "Zoshto taa zborvit" and "You dun't know vat chu tawkin about, zheno" and "Shto znaje zhena za ovie raboti." I was pissed, and so was my dad, but that's the culture we grew up in: Macedonian men belittling women for what they say and how they think. For some reason, Macedonian men did (and to some extent, still do) think that the "heavy thinking" should be left to men.

This I believe all relates to men thinking they are more powerful -- and generally, just better -- than women. I see this has changed significantly, but it's still not uncommon in the Macedonian communities. I would hate to be a woman in this environment, where I'm not good enough to talk about issues (if I have an interest in them) so I naturally fall into the "gossiping while making dessert" crowd because its easier than having to prove myself based on my sex/gender. (Note: I don't agree with Gocka's interpretation that women are less interested in history, politics, etc. I think they are pushed out of it, intentionally or unintentionally.)

3b. The flip side: many Macedonian young women have unrealistic expectations of Macedonian men.

A. As RtG alluded to, many Macedonian girls think that it's a man's job to bring them money -- and to bring them a lot of money. I've seen Macedonian girls/young women laugh at and belittle men who might have had a crappy car (but worked for it), yet fall in love with a Macedonian guy (who is likely a idiot jerk) driving a expensive, nice car that their parents bought them. Macedonian women sometimes expect their men to provide for them in the same ways that mama i tato provided for them (and mama's and tato's immigrant work ethic mostly always trump any work ethic of spoiled Western kids), and Macedonian women are always (and I say this without hesitation) the first to ask the question: "How much money does he make?" Regardless if it's a baba, tetka, girlfriend, or etc., I rarely hear Macedonian men ask that question, but for a Macedonian woman it's so ingrained in them to ask that question (at least where I grew up), that it appears to be instinctual. Thus, Macedonian women nowadays look to other social circles and peoples for richer and flashier men that can theoretically provide for them in ways Macedonian men can't or won't to the same extent. Blame it on Kardashians or whoever, but it's quite prevalent.

Saying that, I think there is something biological about females seeking out males to be providers, but only to a certain extent. I think culture, and Macedonian culture in the States at least, has significantly magnified the importance of making sure that men are the providers.

B. In the States, Macedonian young men are less educated (in my opinion, in general) than American young men, for whom college has become just another part of life. But for Macedonian young men, why go to college when your dad has a bakery, restaurant, shop, etc. that you will soon run? (On another note, most of these are still passed down to men, meaning women end up going to college more than Macedonian men (even if it is just a community college because parents don't want them living in dorms) and thus having degrees at a higher rate...I have not studies to confirm this.) For these men, you'll have a steady job as well as get money much sooner than if you went to college for 4 to 8 years.

So, today there is another class of Macedonian young women who want intelligent and educated men. Sure, some want such because higher education can be correlated with more money; and some others want these kind of men because they don't want to be relegated to working in a bakery or restaurant for 40 years. But I suspect many more want it because it means their men are more aware, open, reasonable, understanding and not as, well, small-minded. Yet, not as many Macedonian men are going to college as non-Macedonian men (or at least American men), and Macedonian women are missing out on some great un-schooled men (by great, I mean solid character and personality) simply because they won't consider being with a guy that doesn't have schooling. Thus, they have limited their options among their own Macedonian community, and want to expand to the greater American community to have a better chance of finding a suitable date.

So, there are many reasons in my opinion.

I think the question that needs to be asked is whether all these factors that have been pointed out are indeed specific to just us Macedonians only? i.e. First generation migrants sticking to their ethnic communities with subsequent generations branching out?; Gossip factors within tightly knit ethnic communities?; Men’s stereotypical expectations and roles for wives?; Men’s perceived superiority over women?; Women being told to aim high for a partner? i.e doctor, lawyer etc; Women’s stereotypical expectations and roles for husbands i.e. expecting men to be able to provide for them and favouring those who are well off?, etc…

Do you think any of these factors greatly differed within the migrant communities of Croatians?, Indians?, Persians?, Chinese?, Italians?, Mexicans?, Somalians?, Irish?, English?, etc...

I would say the reality is, not that much.

[vicsinad]

I think the question that needs to be asked is whether all these factors that have been pointed out are indeed specific to just us Macedonians only?

Perhaps that's a good question to ask in relation to the discussion that evolved into gender roles, stereotypes, and equality. But I don't think answering it would necessarily apply to the initial question, which I was addressing:

Why is it so hard to date another Macedonian women

Gocka:

We both grew up in different parts of the country, both in Macedonian communities and I have to say, my experiences mirror your's exactly.

The faces are different, that's about it!

[Tomche Makedonche]

Perhaps that's a good question to ask in relation to the discussion that evolved into gender roles, stereotypes, and equality. But I don't think answering it would necessarily apply to the initial question, which I was addressing:

Why is it so hard to date another Macedonian women

And all I'm simply saying is that if the same question was posed by a Croatian, Italian, Indian, Englishman, etc regarding women belonging to their own ethnicity, you would likely get similar responses to the ones Macedonians come up with.

Wouldn't it therefore be more reasonable to conclude that people who date partners outside their culture in a multicultural society has more to do with the greater partnership options provided to them as a result of their integration within a multicultural society; as opposed to any of the perceived discrepancies (which appear to be universally shared) within their own ethnic communities?

[Vangelovski]

[url]But let's not talk about the gender death gap. Because that is totally without ambiguity.

C'mon RtG, that's easily solved. Fluidity - identify as a woman and breach the gap.

No imagination. Luckily millennials have arrived.