Mother Russia! The church and the communists both had tried to eradicate the matriarchy that had preceded them, and all they had achieved was a flood of bitter emasculating scorn, a whole nation full of contemptuous russalkas and baba yagas and twenty-hour-a-day superwomen, living in a nearly parthenogenic culture of mothers, daughters, babushkas, granddaughters. Yet still necessarily absorbed in their relationships with men, desperately trying to find the lost father, the perfect mate. Or just a man who would pull his share of the load. Finding that great love, and then more often than not
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This is a real thing. I've seen a dozen Russian women of all ages descend on some drunk man in the street and tear him apart like a flock of vultures, or better, harpies. The men are, generally, macho pricks or totally wussed out.
I had a Russian teacher. She was convinced that Russia suffered from nation-wide mental illness. She was right.
