Aggressive Czech guys may startle visitors

By ASHA ANDERSON
School of Communication
University of Miami

PRAGUE— “Hey, you give me kiss? You give me kiss?”

“No, I won’t give you kiss. Get out of here!” I barked.

My roommates and I started walking faster, but the two Czech men were persistent in following us.

It was my second day in Prague and I was anxious to see the city, sample the food, take in the smells and observe the locals.

But this was not what I had in mind.

“Please, I love you!” one of the men pleaded. His broken English made one of my friends crack a smile, but I was rapidly becoming annoyed.

The guys had been following us for a couple of blocks when the escalator to the subway appeared 10 feet away. In a desperate attempt to lose the harassers, I darted towards the down aisle. Just as I thought that I had made a clean getaway, one of the guys managed to tap my rear end.

By the time I reached the bottom of the escalator, I was a combination of shaken and furious. At that moment, I hated Czech men. The incident was thoroughly degrading. I began to wonder how safe Prague was going for the young American women in my group.

Incidents occurring over the next couple of days mirrored the experience that I had walking to the subway. Besides the unavoidable cat-calls and blatant stares, females in our group had been grabbed, had their thong straps snapped and been otherwise harassed.

The abundance of these sour accounts soon prompted action from our professors. As a group, the ladies were instructed to dress more conservatively and always travel in groups. Czech men, we were told, are culturally more aggressive than American men.

Suddenly, I began to question my decision to spend my summer studying in Prague.

“Is it safe for me here?” I asked myself. “Do all Czech men act like this? How far will they go?”

According to Michael Jones, a 31-year-old writer-designer for the Czech-language Maxim magazine, the country’s No. 1 men’s magazine, harassers like the ones I encountered by the subway are probably harmless.

“Sexuality is a lot more open here.” Jones said. “Men are more likely to make inappropriate comments, but its all in good fun, if not particularly good taste.”

Aneta Krumlova, a 20-year-old native Czech, agrees with Jones’ evaluation of Czech men.

“Sex is very open here. Czechs are like that.” Krumlova said. “They can be very aggressive. You can’t go out without the guys following you and trying to get you to talk to them.”

According to Jones, this behavior is innocent and not exclusive to men.

“It’s more acceptable here to confront people for sex. It’s not malicious or dangerous, no one expects people to be freaked out or offended by it.” Jones said. “Men find women here very approachable because they are also very open about sex.”

However, Krumlova admits that she does not always appreciate aggressive advances.

“Many of the guys can get really arrogant, especially when they have a couple of drinks,” she said. “They always want to have power more than the girl has.”

According to Krumlova, this translates not only to how Czech men treat women on the street, it also applies to how many treat their girlfriends and wives.

“They will take you out when they feel like it and show you off, but if you want to go out with your friends, it’s never allowed.”

Jones agrees that, on the surface, women in Czech society seem subordinate to men, but argues that it is not always the reality. There are many women throughout the country, he says, that hold important government and business positions, and Czech men have the utmost respect for them.

A good indicator of the Czech male attitude towards women is the Maxim translation dilemma. According to Jones, when the staff converts one-dimensional interviews of half-naked buxom beauties from English, they are tasked with conducting outside research to make the women sound more sophisticated.

“Czech people are very well-educated and like to think of themselves as well-read, so they have come to expect substance,” Jones said. “They often have a problem with the banality of interviews if we translate them directly from English, so we try and find out more about the women to make for worthwhile reading.”

Also, Jones said, all of the analysis that Maxim has obtained from focus groups suggests that the Czech man’s biggest complaint with the magazine is that they need more hard-hitting journalism. This is the opposite of what American Maxim readers want, which would imply that the Czech readers are less concerned with superficial content and glossy pictures of attractive women.

After talking with Jones and Krumlova, I was reassured about my safety in Prague. Though more aggressive than what I am used to in America, Czech men seem to act according to cultural standards that say that it is okay to approach women, even if those tactics border on aggressive. Moreover, the behavior is almost always benign.

Women in this country learn to be prepared with clever comebacks and seem unaffected by unruly male behavior. The society as a whole is more open about sexuality, so suggestive comments are not offensive.

I was most surprised by the fact that Czech men do not appreciate reading material that is demeaning to women. They have respect for females and do not want to insult their intelligence by reading something that is purely superficial.

How does this all relate to my experience in Prague?

For one, I learned to relax a bit about the Czech male behavior, if not feel a little silly for getting offended in the first place.

Second, I was able to discover more about the culture as a whole by examining one aspect of everyday life.

But most importantly, I was forced to open my mind to a different style of thinking and behavior, to step out of my comfort zone and, if only for a short time, adapt to someone else’s.

---