Are Greek women more neurotic than others?

If you have been lucky to date, marry or related to a Greek woman, you might have heard the stereotypes—“she’s hysterical,” “she makes a big deal out of nothing,” “She’s a nut job,” “she’s a drama queen.” Are these stereotypes true? Are they fair?  And if there is some truth to some of these observations about Greek girl behavior, where do they come from?

From anecdotal accounts, it would seem that out of every three Greek women, one can be characterized as “intense.”  An American friend who had a long-standing relationship with a Greek-American woman characterized Greek girls as “complicated”, “full of issues,” and “problematic.”  He eventually killed the relationship because he just could not handle the extreme emotionality of his partner.  Alternatively, a Greek-American man who had tried unsuccessfully for many years to appease his parents by dating only Greek girls gave it up because as he said, “They’re all crazy.”  He is now happily married to an Irish-German very American woman “with no hang ups.”

From what I have heard from guy friends, both Greek and non-Greek who date Greek women, the verdict is that Greek girls are wracked with insecurities, jealousies, petty disagreements, that present major challenges to relationships for guys who want just a laid-back, live-and-let-live type of relationship.  “My girlfriend would drive me crazy,” Jack confessed.  “When I’d be away, she would text me and call me constantly. She was always checking up on me to see if I wasn’t cheating on her.”  Jack recounts that when he had tried to pull away from the relationship, she would come kicking and screaming at his apartment at 11 at night threatening to kill him. He even had to get an order of protection against her.  “I have found that my Greek girlfriend was more apt to go off the deep end when stressed than the other women I have dated,” Jack describes.   “Latinas when they get mad will fight with you and clobber you in your face, but with Greek girls,” he continues, “they will harp on you till you die.”  Having dated two Greek women in the past, he verifies that they are “something different.”  Greek women tend to be overly dramatic—they threaten to kill you with a butcher knife—or lock themselves up in a bathroom stall and threaten to kill themselves because of what you said about them three months ago.  “They tend to get hysterical,” he comments.

Lets face it—issues, personality disorders, insecurities are not exclusively Greek phenomena, as other cultural groups are not immune to their fair share of madness.  But there might be a basis for understanding some of the extremes in Greek women’s reactions and “neuroses” especially as they manifest in romantic relationships.  In fact, the birth of modern psychiatry might be linked back to the search for the cure for Greek women’s madness from ancient times.  According to Greek mythology, the experience of hysteria in women was attributed to core of their madness.

Researchers at the University of Calgari in Italy in an article entitled “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health,” tell us the back story:

The Argonaut Melampus, a physician, is considered its founder: he placated the revolt of Argo’s virgins who refused to honor the phallus and fled to the mountains, their behavior being taken for madness. Melampus cured these women with hellebore and then urged them to join carnally with young and strong men. They were healed and recovered their wits. Melampus spoke of the women’s madness as derived from their uterus being poisoned by venomous humors, due to a lack of orgasms and “uterine melancholy” [2–4].

Thus arose the idea of a female madness related to the lack of a normal sexual life: Plato, in Timaeus, argues that the uterus is sad and unfortunate when it does not join with the male and does not give rise to a new birth, and Aristotle and Hippocrates were of the same opinion [2–4].

The Euripidy’s myth says that a collective way of curing (or, if we prefer, preventing) melancholy of the uterus is represented by the Dionysian experience of the Maenads, who reached catharsis through wine and orgies [5]. Women suffering from hysteria could be released from the anxiety that characterizes this condition by participating in the Maenad experience. Trance states guided and cured by the Satyr, the priest of Dionysus, contributed to solving the conflict related to sexuality, typical of hysteria disease [6].

Hippocrates (5th century BC) is the first to use the term hysteria. Indeed he also believes that the cause of this disease lies in the movement of the uterus (“hysteron”) [2–4].

The Greek physician provides a good description of hysteria, which is clearly distinguished from epilepsy. He emphasizes the difference between the compulsive movements of epilepsy, caused by a disorder of the brain, and those of hysteria due to the abnormal movements of the uterus in the body. Then, he resumes the idea of a restless and migratory uterus and identifies the cause of the indisposition as poisonous stagnant humors which, due to an inadequate sexual life, have never been expelled. He asserts that a woman’s body is physiologically cold and wet and hence prone to putrefaction of the humors (as opposed to the dry and warm male body). For this reason, the uterus is prone to get sick, especially if it is deprived of the benefits arising from sex and procreation, which, widening a woman’s canals, promote the cleansing of the body. And he goes further; especially in virgins, widows, single, or sterile women, this “bad” uterus – since it is not satisfied – not only produces toxic fumes but also takes to wandering around the body, causing various kinds of disorders such as anxiety, sense of suffocation, tremors, sometimes even convulsions and paralysis. For this reason, he suggests that even widows and unmarried women should get married and live a satisfactory sexual life within the bounds of marriage [2–4].

However, when the disease is recognized, affected women are advised not only to partake in sexual activity, but also to cure themselves with acrid or fragrant fumigation of the face and genitals, to push the uterus back to its natural place inside the body [2–4].

So the ancient experts have spoken:  If Greek women are more neurotic than most, it’s due to lack of sex and a “melancholy” uterus.  If a girl does not get enough, it might translate into erratic behavior.  The cure to get their uterus whammed back into place is by having sex over and over so that the penis like a good hammer or a screwdriver can fix it.  Perhaps.  But why no one has given a name for the same disorder in men is curious.  If the stereotypes are right, then men should be even more neurotic, crazy and violent when they do not get enough satisfaction of their carnal urges.

My hunch is that there are greater societal and cultural forces at play in women’s neuroses.  I believe at the core of Greek women’s “hysteria” is their lack of self-esteem and their harrowing insecurities.  If you are raised in a culture that makes you believe either consciously and subconsciously that you are inferior, second-class, your internal landscape will be skewed so much that you might not even be aware of your own unhappiness.  The backlash Greek women give to their partners might be a repressed expression of their outrage at being oppressed and suppressed.  In fact, those who point the finger and label Greek women with these stereotypes are the ones responsible for perpetuating them.  As Greek women, we come from a long-long tradition of philosophers, historians, doctors pointing out what is wrong with us.  Take the ancient writer Semonides.  He wrote an entire treatise categorizing women into not one but many distinct stereotypical categories.

‘In the beginning Zeus made the female mind separately’ Here he is immediately isolating women – women were made differently and should be treated differently – this was the male justification. He carries on to describe the ten different characters of the female species, these are: the pig (a slob), the fox, earth (glutton), the bitch (‘always yapping’), the sea woman (moody), donkey (promiscuous), ferret (‘she makes any man she has with her sick’), the horse (lazy), the monkey (‘the biggest plague of all that Zeus has given to man’) and the bee lady (a respectable housewife). These characters all lay the basis for the ancient Greek stereotype of women, as is evident, the majority of these stereotypes are negative.

By first stating women have identifiable different minds they can now easily be pigeon-holed. Once this is done it follows (in the Greek mind) that woman now have set capacities, boundaries which they cannot aspire to surpass, whereas men, who are not categorized, have no limit to their capabilities.

One of the main features of Semonides’ prejudice and, indeed the prejudice of the male population of Greece, was the belief that women were autominate – they not only make bad decisions (‘she eats up sacrifices left unburned’ – ferret), they are physically unable to make moral distinctions between right and wrong:’she often calls bad things good and good things bad’ – the Vixen’she knows nothing good or bad’ – Earth ‘when it comes to the bed of love she accepts any partner’ – the Donkey

If we are being raised in a tradition that degrades us, is it any wonder that we might grow up with a fair share of hang ups?  It is a matter of blaming the victim.  If that is the case, most women who have been raised in a hostile patriarchal system can be considered “nuts.”

A comment a reader made on one of the dating forums perhaps sums it up, “No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it’s only a question of degree.”

The Big Macho Greek Man Mystique

It’s a phenomenon:  at first I thought it was just one, but I’ve uncovered a series of romance fantasy books featuring Greek lusty men.  What is it that captures the white American female’s imagination so much that not one, but a series of Harlequin-type romance novels that feature a Greek man are on the scene?  There has to be a phenomenon for this.

I believe it has to do with the mystique of the Greek male.  Let’s face it—Greek men are hot, lusty, strong, and passionate.  The American imagination has been set on fire with tales of their machoness, bravery and sexiness.  We have Aristotle Onassis-types to thank for this archetype of the Greek male.  He was arrogant, filthy rich, and good in bed.  Hmm . . .?  Could that be what American women like for all their genteelness and smartness?  They just want a hot-blooded man to control them and put them in their place.  Gathering from what Jackie O. said between her Jack and Aristotle, she had more fun with Aristotle.  He was more down-to-earth and satisfied her sexually. Unlike Mr. President who had a thing with a few too many blondes.

As lovers, most would agree, Greek men hit the spot.  To have a wild Greek summer sex fling is every woman’s dream, even if like Shirley Valentine they are in their 50s with stretch marks.  All those silly “Greek way” jokes aside, Greek men make fine lovers, indeed.  The problem is they are not faithful, at least from the stereotype of them.  In one of these novels, the main characters finds out her sister is bearing the Greek boss’s son (Oh well, I’m sure it’s not the first and last time things like this happen.)  But I think that makes them all the more attractive.  Women like playahs so it seems from deconstructing these romance novels.  And let’s be honest, if you got it, it would be a shame to waste it on just one person.  Make as many women happy as possible—that’s what good studs do.  They sow their seeds in many fields.

The other part of the mystique has to do with money.  The American stereotype sees Greek men as filthy rich or else good with money.  Hmm. . . ? Could that be the reason they are so attractive?  Lets be honest, many Greek men are successful financially.  Some are tycoons.  They dominate in all sorts of industries, start all kinds of empires.  Not that all women are “gold-diggahs” as they say nowadays, but there is something sooo sexy about a man with a thick wallet.  Power is very attractive to women.  It’s like an open-air pheromone.  If you stop to brainstorm ten Greek men you know, I am sure at least five will be mega-rich.  Wouldn’t you want to be that helpless damsel toiling away who gets swept off her feet from the attentions of the big boss?  Women love this kind of attention.

The last part of the Greek macho man mystique has to do with personality.  A big wallet carries a big ego (or is it the other way around?)  The Greek men stereotypes attractive to these kind of women are arrogant and obnoxious.  What’s the attraction?  It comes with the turf.  If you are big with everything, you have to have a big enough ego to cope with it.

You can try to analyze it, but the fact is there—women, especially American women, prefer Greek men.  They prefer big men because they have it BIG—big wallets, big egos, and big d**cks.  I have the example of my aunt, a non-Greek who married my uncle, a die-hard macho Big Boss kinda man.  Even after years of infidelity and cruelty, when asked who she prefers as a husband, she says, “Greeks. Because they are real men, you know?”  Let the women fantasize about getting laid by the tall dark Greek boss. They get what they deserve.

Check the books out:

My Tall Dark Greek Boss Anna Cleary

The Greek Tycoon’s Unexpected Wife Annie West

The Greek Boss’ Demand Trish Morey

Powerful Greek Unworldy Wife Sarah Morgan

Greek Doctor Cinderella Bride Amy Andrews

The Good Greek Wife Kate Walker

 

Cassandra’s Curse

Cassandra that poor fateful figure was cursed to be a smart cookie. The gods could not have cast a more horrendous fate on a female mortal– she had the ability to know everything to see the future unfold in front of her but no one would believe her. She is immortalized in a constellation in he Milky Way, she is sitting on a stool pulling her hair for all eternity. I feel like Cassandra most days. I am cursed with a mind and for a female that is lethal.

It is curse for several reasons. One because as a female you are not esteemed for your intelligence. Although more women than ever are going to college, although many more have become professionals than their mothers and grandmothers they are still held to account for the beauty standard. A woman is first judged on the merits of her looks and her feminine wiles. Men size up a woman according to her looks not her brains whether consciously or unconsciously. They tend to feel more comfortable and less threatened in the company of a doe like sweet thing that does her nails and curls her eyelashes and spends a lot of time and energy on her appearance. Shakespeare told no lies when he said a young mans love enters through his eyes. A smart cookie is intimidating and a threat to the male ego so he would rather ignore her or go out of his way to put her down because in essence he views her as a male rival, not as a female sexual conquest. Look at how many men tend to marry submissive, ultra feminine women especially those raised in cultures that hyper accentuate the gender roles.

A woman with intelligence is cursed because she knows and understands just how much she is done injustice to due to the double standard. If she does accept the rigid sex roles of her male glorifying culture, she will not be true to herself and will self censor her ambitions and her opinions maybe her whole self. She will be sacrificing the chance to live her authentic self in order to play the role like some masked figure in Greek drama. If she rejects these strict roles, she will be rejected by her culture. She might possibly wind up without a man because she does not cater to what men are looking for. A pretty face, a good figure, someone who pleases him in bed, someone who does not threaten his ego but actually stokes it. If a woman is just that a pretty face without much brain, well she’ll be rewarded with contentment

Most Greek women, in fact most women anywhere Latinas, Orientals, Arabs, they pimp up and pump up their femininity and play the doll to men who demand them that way. Greek men in fact most men don’t want their women smart, at least not smarter than they are. If you pay attention to the examples around you, you will find that the bigger the ego on the man the bigger his bank account and the bigger the boobs on his wife/girlfriend. Men don’t want women who are smart. Men want women to be beautiful before they are wise. They want boobs not brains. So if like Cassandra you have been blessed-cursed with intelligence over beauty, then cruel is your fate. You will be made to feel like a failure because the package is what is valued and not the goods inside. Of course, you feel ostracized and lonely because all of your other friends, although quite intelligent in their own right, have to play dumb or at least water down their true selves in order to get a man by their side. And let’s face it, the majority of Greek women are very materialistic. They want the man who can provide them with a huge house in the suburbs and two Mercedez, annual vacations to the Greek islands. So rather than struggle to do it their way, they settle for a man who overpowers them, who tells them what to do, just so they can say, “I am married to a wonderful Greek man.”

That is the question– How much do you dumb yourself into a doll to gain a man? How much of self slaughter is a man worth?

Cassandra, poor Cassandra, pulling her hair out. Not a single man would agree to marry such a nut who hysterically cries “Don’t get on that plane. Don’t marry that ass. You will kill yourself.”

Leave a comment and let us know your stories and thoughts on the issue.

Giagia Eats at the Thanksgiving Table

One of the things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving is that we were able to celebrate it at home with all of us together around the dinner table instead of in the hospital.  My elderly mother has gone through a triple laparoscopic hernia operation that has left her in incising pain, constipation, and a miserable attitude.  I am thankful I have her near us, but the inevitability of her decline has left me without much appetite this year.  Firstly because on rising early to prepare the turkey and all the trimmings I found her shivering in a bed soaking with cold urine and stinking with the piercing smell of ureaic acid.  She has trouble containing herself ever since the massive surgeries on her intestines left her muscles weak and the one inch holes, five in total,  they drilled into her to push through a snake scope with a roving camera lens at the tip of it.  Then after the meal, because she was not able to relieve herself for over five days, I had to administer an enema.  It would have worked instead she stubbornly insisted that she could not walk to the toilet so I had to wrap a black over-sized recycling bag under hear and wait until she had relieved herself of the pressure she said was like when you bear down to give birth.

It is the a day like Thanksgiving day when you must enumerate all the things you take for granted that are so incredibly precious to your well-being, like being able to take a normal poop without soiling your sheets and smelling like shit the entire day.  Realizing that because people live longer you will have your elderly parents around longer.  And because they live longer, you might have to witness their subtle or not so subtle decline.  We have reversed roles: I bring her tea in the morning, I change her diapers, I admonish her to stop her whining.  I have to carefully wipe away any traces of feces around her wrinkled haunches and sagging abdomen riddled with pock marks and black-and-blue blotches and ditches where the scalpel has ripped that most precious ground, the flesh that bore me once.  It is like witnessing the desecration of a temple.  Somehow this sort of thing should never have to happen to mothers, the sacred bearers of life in their most holiest of parts.  But there it is—I’m baby wiping down my 74-year-old mother on Thanksgiving Day and feeling sorry for myself because from now on I am an emotional orphan as I play mother to my mother.  But the big difference is while babies get better and stronger and more independent a little each passing day, elderly mothers get worse, more feeble, and more vulnerable the closer they get to their big day.

Sometimes I wish we could live life in reverse, just like that movie with Brad Pitt, where he starts off a wizened old man and lives backward until he becomes a child and then disappears as a fetus.  George Carlin had the same joke:

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating …and you finish off as an orgasm.”

But it goes to show how the beginning of life and the end of life are full circle, one and the same.  You are born toothless, cranky, vulnerable, without bowel control  and wind up the same way when you are ready to enter the grave; from womb to tomb you are the same.

Witnessing your mother deteriorate before you makes you appreciate every little thing you take for granted—that you don’t need anyone to butter your roll or that you can hop in your car and drive to the mall or that you can even walk down the block to the CVS and buy yourself some aspirin.

And you appreciate that as a Greek family you keep your elders at home and not in some nursing/rehab home (unless really really necessary).  So many Greeks I know keep their mothers and fathers at home close to them even when like Kiria Eleni’s mother could only walk on the tips of her shoes, needed to have her food mushed for her, and rock in the chair singing old Cretan ballads and farting.  Or Steve’s great-grandmother who at 98 or 99, no one knew for sure how old she was because the village did not keep that accurate birth records, would escape from their two-family house and chase after traffic thinking cars were sheep she had to guide back into the manger.  Steve had his mother, his grandmother and his great grandmother living under the same roof so he’d call his giagia “Mama” and her mother “giagia.”  A child with three mothers in the house experiences a sense of family few kids can.  In Greece, we don’t pack our elders away in some retirement home; we see them as our greatest receptacle of wisdom, culture, and knowledge so we sit them at the head of the table (even if they are feeble and cannot contain their bowels.) Even with the bittersweet sadness that a Thanksgiving dinner with a giagia in decline brings, I am grateful to have her at the head of the table.  I am grateful to be Greek American.  Where else can you have your turkey AND tzatziki and eat them too?

Winter Has Come

Every summer when I’d visit Greece growing up in the 8os and 90s, we’d play out the typical Greek American vs. Greek Greek competition with my Greeky Greek cousins who stayed behind.  “Kala,” they’d say, “Greece is better than America. We enjoy the life here. You are slaves to the capitalism.”  My aunts, those know-it-alls, would chime in, “Kai bebai, you are the robotakia, with your gravatakia and balistakia going to work every day. No freedom, you are economic slaves.”

We’d argue back, “Ta chalia sas echete.” How can you be proud of a country that takes two years to fulfill a request for a new phone, where you can’t be sure you can get to work because you never know which union of which mode of public transportation will strike (they have a website dedicated to letting you know who, where and how long will be holding an apergia now called apergia.gr).  You can’t build a country when no one works or tries to work but still wants a BMW, Diesel jeans, and Nikes, and Ray Bans to boot.  “You guys, the Greeks, are the Arabs of Europe,” one cousin remarked.  “No, they’re the Puerto Ricans of Europe,” said another.

As an “Amerikanaki” I was made to feel like some sort of foolish ant that slaves all summer long while my carefree cousins, the grasshoppers, fiddled and sang and drank their cares away on the Cycladic islands.  I had a feeling that that derogatory term they had for us, “ta Amerikanakia,” hid an underlying envy for us who came from the dominant culture they were trying to emulate but also honestly expressed their Greek arrogance, the playing it “manga”.  The Greek way was always about getting something for nothing, or at least the minimum you had to put in.  It was about enjoying the day, taking it easy, making time for what was really important–a good meal, a pleasant chat with a friend, having “kefi.”  Having kefi for living did not involve having a stressful career, just a sure and steady paycheck to live decently.  The ideal career was in civil service–great benefits, security, and less stress.  This was not a bad way to go.
They would look down upon the poor suffering fools their cousins in America; they had heard stories of our starting work young at age 14 or younger if our parents owned a food establishment.  How we had to go to school and then work till 10 without much time for hanging out.  They heard about our regimented lives and how we cherished the trips to Greece because of all the fun we had been deprived of.  It was as if our Greek cousins were rubbing it in our face; like we were fools to work so hard and not enjoy ourselves.  As if we had chosen the wrong way to live our life.  “Pity them the poor slaves” was the message.

But now, 30 years later, the proverbial winter has set in.  The grasshopper is starving and going around begging to his more responsible, albeit less exciting cousin, the ant.  The truth is our Greek cousins had been living in a bubble for several decades, but now it has burst.  You cannot get something for nothing. Your days in the sun cannot go on indefinitely if no one is working to pay the taxes that pay for the clean up of the beaches, the ferries to and fro.  While we do overwork ourselves to the point of depression to the point of disconnect with other fellow family and friends in the US, thanks to the ingrained Protestant work ethic, we cannot be ridiculed for doing the right thing.  That piccaro philosophy that glorifies cheating if you can get away with it is not something we adhere to in America.  Honest hard work pays off here and we look up to those who accomplish their goals the right way–by working hard and rising through the ranks from bus boy to franchise owner, from store clerk to CEO.  With the crisis ever looming in Greece, where so many of our cousins have had to flee for food and a paycheck, it seems as if we, “the Amerikanakia”, have made the better choice.

The difference in the fable is the end: in answer to the starving grasshopper, the ant says,”You sang all summer long, now dance” and left him to starve.  We do not let our cousins starve, but invite them into our storehouses so they can eat because it’s better to have a beach dance party when everyone in the family is fed and happy.

The Ebb and Flow of Immigration to and from…

We have been hearing for the past three years about the Great Greek Crisis and how it has uprooted many young professionals and even entire families in search of work and career opportunities in other countries.  For this month’s issue spotlight at www.greekamericangirl.com, we will be looking at the waves of immigration to and from Greece and the New Diaspora.  Why have Hellenes opted to leave Greece while others have decided to move back?

 

Immigration Trends

According to a study published in The Modern Greek Language Journal, immigration from Greece to the US started in earnest in the late 1880s spurred by the need for industrial workers and railroad workers.  The influx of Greeks continued to rise after the First World War and successively with the Second.  It wasn’t until the 80s t hat immigration slowed due in part to the improvement of living standards in Greece.  It reached a trickle in the 90s prompting the noted sociologist Theodore Souloutas to say that immigration from Greece would halt and mark an end to the wave of new Greek blood into the US.  According to recent estimates, there are approximately 4 million Greeks that comprise the Diaspora, close to 50% of the mainland population.  However, since the Eurozone crisis, Greek immigration is on the rise.  Just a quick stroll through the streets of “Little Greece” here in Astoria and you will note the niceties of the “pure Greek” accent in couples holding hands or young beauty queens with perfect lipstick to match their jeans. The Immigration Advocacy Services in Astoria, a nonprofit organization that helps newcomers navigate residency paperwork, staff have observed a 50% rise in Greek clients in just the past year.  So pronounced is the exodus that web-based documentaries such as NewDiaspora.com have sprung up to gather the stories of those ousted by the Crisis.  A startling undercurrent of transmigration has occurred with the Greeks on the mainland themselves emigrating to other parts of Greece which are more rural and less expensive as a result.

Reverse Immigration

Concurrently, and quite counterintuitively, a reverse migration phenomenon has taken place.  A current study, entitled Cultural Geographies of Counter-Diasporic Migration: The Second Generation Returns ‘Home’ and spearheaded by the University of Sussex School of Migration Studies, aims to trace this growing trend.  There appears to be evidence of a steady stream of  second generation Greeks opting to return to the motherland.  As the study notes, “demographic data from various parts of the world with a history of postwar mass emigration (such as Greece and Cyprus) show that second-generation return is a growing phenomenon.”  In 2011, the relative share of returning nationals within the total number of immigrants was 54.5% according to Eurostat, a data gathering arm which collects info by the national statistical authorities of the EU Member States.  The population of Greece itself was calculated as 10,815,197 in the 2011 census.
But some who have returned have deep regrets about their move.  Take Filippos Katampouris, as interviewed in a recent Radio 4 segment on the BBC.  With a degree from a Greek university and a Masters in technology management from the UK, he returned to Athens as a marketing researcher.  But when the crisis hit he was reduced to working in the fish market alongside his father just to make ends meet. A survey conducted by Focus Bari found that seventy-six percent of the 444 interviewed emigration is the best way to cope with the country’s financial crisis while almost seven out of 10 of those polled said they have been significantly affected by the crisis. Only 14 percent of those surveyed said they stay in Greece because they take the view that they can help improve the situation.
HOWEVER, even though many are scrambling to leave Greece for better prospects abroad, there are those who have returned and made a life for themselves there somewhat happily.  Take Alexia Kostopolou, a lawyer centered in the university section of Athens.  She states, “I personally wanted to come back to Greece because I have all my family here and also I love the way of life here.  I was in the US 13 years before I came back.  I loved the US and the years that I spent there but it was time to move on for me.  I am not regretting my choice since at that point it seemed the best and I love my life here, personally and professionally.” Her friend a pharmacist, Mario, has been back for five years coinciding with the start of the crisis.  He claims the lure is the quality of life one can receive in Greece as opposed to the more hectic work-oriented countries.  He has never regretted his choice, but has grown better at managing his money as he has cut costs considerably and is not spending as much money as he was used to in the UK.
In fact, most young professionals I interviewed would have chosen NOT to move from Greece had it not been for the crisis.  Antoinette Cocorinos, a 30-year-old with advanced marketing degrees in strategy management, was forced to move twice, once from Greece and another from Brussels, the city she was born and raised in, due to the crisis.  But given an option, she would have chosen to remain in Greece.  But given that her job and her fiancé were located in the US, she moved.
The Greeks have had a long history of migration and are rather a restless lot.  While true there is an exodus of young professionals to other shores, many still choose to stay and be part of the solution to the crisis.  Whether coming or going, however, Greeks will survive and most likely thrive like they have done for thousands of years on any soil.

The Greek Ego vs Hellenism

Beware: Greeks Hardly Ever Give to Greeks

I heard a telling story just last week that captures precisely the theme of this post.  The local Greek Orthodox parochial school around the corner thrives on Greek parents eager to instill in their offspring the values of Hellenism, “philotimo,” Greek language and culture, and the jewels of Orthodoxy.  It thrives equally on the tuition payments those parents make to send their children to it.  A friend who is a single parent with one child was having difficulty affording the tuition.  She spoke to the director about her situation, but unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done for her.  After a few weeks, out of the blue, it turned out that her son would be allowed to attend after all.  As it happened a munificent benefactor had gifted the school with a $20,000 donation to be used for children who could not otherwise afford to attend but wanted to stay true to their roots.  The donor, however, was not of Greek descent–she was a Jewish.

Her story reminded me of a similar situation I had been through.  During my financial struggles as a single parent, I too remember approaching the secretary of a very big and well-endowed Orthodox parochial school (associated with the most populous Greek Orthodox parish in the US) when I could not afford the payments for her after-school Greek program.  Although I did want my daughter to continue learning Greek, I also was too embarrassed to approach the Philoptochos or some other benefactor for some funds.  So basically my child was dropped from the program.  There was no system in place to alert the hierarchy of cases worthy of need.  Yet I couldn’t help but wonder as I freshened up in the bathroom of the church/school, beautifully expanded and redesigned with milky-white marble countertops and shimmering silver toilets and complimentary toiletries, how much would it have taken to help a poor struggling divorced mother pay her child’s after-school program dues in light of the hefty costs of renovating the parish wash room?  It was an irony yet again.  It had to take a Jewish woman to pay the dues of a Greek child; the costs of renovating a bathroom were way grander and more important than paying the dues of another.

This is typical of the way Greeks, especially Greek Americans around the NY metropolitan area, operate.  Their philanthropical thrust is geared toward erecting churches, expanding parish reception halls, and naming entire wings of school building after themselves, but very few contribute to the real human church, the koinos.  I can expand the concept and state that while Greeks love to contribute to the ethos of Hellenism and all of its grand ideals, they are paupers when supporting each other.  They care little for supporting their blood-and-bone brother Greeks. They give their millions to expanding churches, lots of churches, but the buildings and physical structures that distinguish them, not the blood-and-body church comprised of actual people (which is the technical definition of “ekklesia”; it’s the people, not the building that makes a church.)     In fact, it might just be the opposite.  Due to their pride, ego and extreme independence, and quite honestly envy and ambition to be number 1, one Greek, except say when there are blood lines and familial chords that bind, might go out of his or her way to keep another Greek down.  Unlike other cultural and ethnic groups we all know through our everyday interactions in this multicultural city, (ehem, they are celebrating their New Year this weekend), who stick by each other and work to promote each other’s success without too much vying for top dog, Greeks literally “vgazoun to mati tou allounoun” (“gorge the eye out of another Greek.”)

While there are so many wealthy Greeks, very few give to charities and causes that support people, especially other Greek people.  Out of the 30 or so not-for-profit organizations founded around elements of Greek culture, less than ten give aid and grant programs that deal directly with community.  The majority of Greek philanthropic organizations give to churches; some in fact are created just for this purpose. While it is wonderful to give to a church, not enough is done to help social issues that affect the Greek community. (Greeks suffer from many types of mental illnesses, domestic violence, drug addictions, and poverty).  I have a hunch that one of the reasons this is the case is due to pride and what I call “conspicuous charitableness.”  If you donate $3 million to expand a wing in a school, you can get your name emblazoned on gold lettering to name it and henceforth, all who go through its doors will know it was your charity that made it all possible.  On the other hand, giving a donation to allow for underprivileged youth to attend Ionian summer camp is not something tangible.

Greeks also tend to be cliquish, especially around geographic lines (witness how many “syllogi” based on geographic origin to the mainland abound).  While this drive helps inter-cooperation within a specific group, it does little to forge union and identification across national lines.    In many ways, even after all these thousands of years, we have not advanced beyond the bounds of our city-states in our mentality, with so much bickering among the Spartans, the Athenians, the Thebeans, the Cretans, the Macedonians.  Perhaps this provincial affiliation, more asphyxiation, is at work that separates more than unites.

I suspect the basest of human emotions, the types the tragedians wrote about, are also at play.  Envy and jealousy, outrageous ambition, and the cut-throat minority mentality, and ego, of course, hubris, all have their part.   I have often wondered how and why some ethnic groups have figured out that they can get farther if they cooperate and support with other members of their group instead of working against them in competition.  Perhaps this is the lesson our ethnos is beginning to learn.  There are inklings of change with people like Gregory Pappas, founder of The Greek America Foundation, whose aim is to advance the larger frieze of Hellenism by showcasing and rewarding live examples of real Greeks by the NIC Conference and The Forty Under Forty awards.  With so many Greeks who have become successful and have made a headway in almost every major industry in this great country, we can all relax and start focusing on furthering our ethnic identity as a whole.  We don’t have to worry so much about stepping on each other’s heads to make it up the corporate ladder; now we can extend our hands to the little guys still struggling on the bottom rungs.

I really would like anybody who thinks otherwise about this idea to challenge me in a written comment.  Are Greeks more cooperative or competitive with each other and why?  Share your stories and your thoughts.

 

 

Goodness gracious great balls on fire OR Greek girl…

A hero–a woman who takes balls into her own hands and sets them on fire. And with ouzo as lighter fluid no less. “Tha sou kapso ta achidia!” mantra for self defense. Lets start a movement.