Sponzoruša
¨I always thought European girls were different,¨ Aleksander was saying, ¨but on my trip to Serbia I met two Spanish girls who were like typical Montenegrin girls.¨ I was still enjoying the early afternoon of my first day back in Montenegro. I´d already managed to meet several former students at the university facility where I worked, and now I sat enjoying the company of Aleksander Bogdonović, his sister Ana, Dragan Lazarević, and Petar Kilibarda.
And here, probably no more than fifteen minutes into our talk, Aleksander waved this red flag in front of me: ¨Typical Montenegrin girl?¨ I couldn´t help myself.
¨What is the ´typical´ Montenegrin girl like?¨ I asked. That´s when I learned the new term.
It became quickly clear that Aleksander had not meant to generalize about all Montenegrin young women, but about what he and the others considered a distinctive type, the sponzoruša. She´s the kind of woman who wears short skirts and boots. She wears as little as possible, Dragan contributed. No doubt she provides the market for the high heeled cowboy boots that are so fashionable and so impractical. She makes herself sexually attractive and provocative.
But, she earns her name not by how she dresses but by using her sex appeal to attract a certain kind of man, a sponsor. In other words, the sponzoruša looks for material benefits from the men she attracts, and may even become the mistress of a wealthy man.
All my students had stories. Dragan said that once he was standing by a new car and that a woman who had earlier ignored him suddenly paid attention to him when she momentarily believed the car belonged to him. Petar talked about the women at the resort town where he worked who only paid attention to men with good clothes and expensive cell phones. The implication was that a whole segment of Montenegrin women sought to trade sexual attraction for security and comfort.
I had a hard time knowing how to think about this. The behaviours they described could be attributed to many women in the U.S. and probably in many places around the world. Early 20th century working class girls and women often expected to trade some favors for a good time. But I wondered how general such behaviour was among Montenegrin women.
I talked with some of the faculty members about this phenomenon. Goran, my friend in the Serbian Department, said that the term came out of Belgrade during the war. Maria Knezević, who chaired the conference at the university that allowed me to return to Montenegro, talked with me about this during one of the dinners given by the conference organizers.
Women who dress provocatively make up a part of all western cultures, something most of us can give thanks for. And, unfortunately, some women have ulterior motives when they enter the sexual marketplace. But, then, so do some men. The concept of the sponzoruša reflects the mercenary attitudes of some women. But it also projects issues within Montenegrin society onto the bodies of Montenegrin women: The transition to a capitalist and materialistic society, the uncertainty engendered by the war, even the inevitable changes in the roles of men and women.
Comments
I disagree. But, I know very well why the author wrote that way about the Montenegrin women. It is because he heard some stupid stories from his students who are gigolos and misers.These men usually have not a sense of being a gentleman, and they envy everyone having much more money than they do. Plus, those same men prefer having girls wearing mini-skirts, because all of them are horny. Nobody likes to have a girl modestly dressed. I know that these gigolos can't stop dreaming about mini-skirts and long legs, but they don't like to show off with their vallets, because it is a great success to them if they u, instead of personal, use other people's vallet, in this case, women's. They should be all be ashamed, or perhaps start taking classes of good behaviour.
Posted by: Tanja Bakic | January 19, 2007 5:32 AM