CON #3: Inequality

This is a sort of a continuation of my first con post - low life standard. With the kind of standard like here in Serbia, you can expect many other social issues to follow, such as poverty, unemployment, inequality, and overall injustice towards people...

When walking the streets of Belgrade, the most noticable, at least to me is how inequal people are, mostly in terms of their earnings. There is also a certain inequality when it comes to gender and even ethnicity to some extent (this does not refer to all of the minorities here, only to Gypsies, who are one of the major ones).

When talking about gender differences, in Serbia you will rarely see women doing 'male' jobs and vice versa, for example women working as construction workers, policemen, bus/trolleycar drivers (trolleycar is the most common form of public transport in Belgrade, next to buses). I have only seen one female trolleycar driver and I must admit I was a bit surprised, because in our society that isn't quite 'expected' from a woman to be doing. I find the explanation for this in serbian traditionality, that is still widely present, even in cities.

Traditional serbian way of living is deeply rooted in patriarchal believes, where man is the head of the house and women are treated more like servants, than loving wives. Thus, they should only take care of the house and children and are not entitled to their opinion. This way of thinking has stuck to these days, even though we are not really paying attention to it, since it's been a part of our every day life for such a long time and is perfectly normal to us. So from a woman is still expected to be doing these lesser jobs, cooking, cleaning, selling stuff so they are pretty much underestimated from the beginning of their life. I find this rather negative and it bothers me how much Serbs refuse to change. Change in this case, means progress. Every wealthy society today is quite open-minded and prone to some changes (a.k.a. evolution) as the time passes by. To me it seems like serbian society has stuck in time. If you try to talk about this to an average Serb, he will say to you that all that is 'western propaganda' and that he will never accept it, bla bla. Not much you can do. I am no feminist or anything (I despise that term), I just find that all people should live in a sort of sinergy, encourage and help each other and not limit themselves by setting these silly boundaries.

Just an ordinary day...

Next, when talking about differences in income, they are immense. In one corner of the street, you will see old people - beggars sitting on the concrete, freezing and in the other corner young girls on high heels, all dressed up ready for shopping. Sadly, in Belgrade it is an ordinary sight. I have to rephrase the sentenced I used earlier, when I said that Serbia is a poor country. Well, yes and no. When you look at our citizens most of them are poor or live average, but then again, there are people who are rich and loaded with money. You will see them most often on television (which I don't watch), where they preach about their hollow personalities and lifestyle and brainwash others (those in poverty). Our politicians as well, are loaded. So it makes you kind of think, how can some people beg on the street while others drive in a limo??

Something is not right here, since there is enough money for everybody apparently, it is just not evenly distributed. But it will take ages and ages until the situation here turns for the better. Root of the problem lies in ourselves and if we do not make changes, no one will. But Serbs apparently refuse to take a look deep inside themselves and question certain things, since they are busy watching these 'starlets' taking their clothes off on TV. They rather choose to stay brainwashed, and brainwashed means obeyable and silenced forever and that's exactly what the rich want.