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Living or traveling abroad, you may have noted the locals' uncanny ability to recognize you as an outsider, even if you are not sporting a baseball cap, unfolding a map or speaking English. For women, this can be unpleasant or even dangerous in countries where Western women, particularly those from the US, are often assumed to be like some of their cinematic counterparts: unintelligent and promiscuous.
Such misconceptions about US women persist around the world. Even in Italy and France -- democratic countries where women enjoy equal rights and participate fully in society -- some men would beam upon learning of my nationality, assuming that they had gotten lucky and met an "easy American." In other countries, where traditional gender roles are more ingrained and accurate information about the United States is hard to come by, your nationality can have more profound consequences, both in the office and around town.
Monster Members’ Stories and Advice
Monster member Rose Brayboy experienced the need to change her behavior -- and her dress -- during her first trip to Morocco. "I went to the post office in shorts,” she says. “Because the line was so long, I left my friend in line and went to sit on the windowsill to smoke a cigarette while I waited. I had no idea that a shorts-wearing, cigarette-smoking female was such an affront to their culture."
Fortunately, Brayboy learned her lesson from the experience, realizing that "cross-cultural sensitivity has national and international implications. We should all be more aware of ourselves and our effect on others."
German expatriate Barbie Bali-Sharma, who has lived in Kenya for the last 44 years, made changes in her own behavior as she adapted to her adopted culture. Having borne witness to "a long span of time in which the culture has evolved in many ways," Bali-Sharma has also watched herself change and realized that "it's up to me how I am treated on the whole."
Not everyone embraces the power of the individual in the same way Bali-Sharma does. "Adapting to another culture can involve some difficult aspects,” she explains. “Many simply must experience resignation.” Indeed, as a woman living in a culture where the role of women is vastly different from that in your native country, it helps to realize that one person can't hope to reinvent an entire nation's culture and history.
Yet Bali-Sharma has found ways to work within the system. ”In Africa and developing countries elsewhere, it is still a man's society, but we (Kenya) also profess to be a democracy, and things are changing," she says. "It's up to the individual how you put your foot down on the matter."
To a great extent, Bali-Sharma accepts the role of women in Kenyan culture. "I am quite prepared to take it that the woman is supposed to be the shadow behind the husband," she says. Still, she manages to run her own business, a successful travel company called Smart Tours and Travel Limited.
For women relocating to another country for work, the corporate environment is critical. "For women coming from the West, Kenya is a completely different world from what they are used to,” says Bali-Sharma. “It depends, though; if they come here and work in an American environment, they will not have many problems."
Sylvia Knoss, a German cross-cultural trainer, came to a similar conclusion after working at the German embassy in Korea. "Confucianism imbues every aspect of Korean life with a hierarchical attitude, which is applied in terms of age and gender,” she says. “Because of this, people often did not accept me, which made it very hard for me."
“I think the most important thing may be to have a big company in the background,” she adds. “If you are working for a smaller company, it will be very difficult to be successful. But in a larger company, the prestige of the company name can counterbalance some of the gender discrepancy."
Tips for Western Women in Non-Western Countries
- Do not expect to change the culture. Remember that the beliefs you encounter are products of culture and history, and those are hard things for even the most resolute individual to combat. If you want to make a difference in the way people treat you, change your own behavior.
- Before you go, seek out cross-cultural training. When it comes to gaining the respect of your international colleagues, first impressions count, so you should do everything you can to avoid committing international faux pas in your initial time on the job.
- Try to find a mentor, another expatriate woman in business who has already made it through the rough transition and has figured out how to work within a system that seems to work against women.
