Vasile Salaru, age 58, has resigned from his post as a
state secretary in Romania's Education Ministry after
public outrage over his remarks yesterday about the
proper education for girls.
Local schools should have a separate curriculum for the
girls, he said at a press conference, teaching them how to
walk nicely, how to serve tea and to be good hostesses.
"I would like to see an 11th or 12th-grade student walking
nicely on heels, dancing the waltz or tango, and being a
good hostess. I think this is a side of Romanian education
that has been totally neglected and that could remind us,
I hope you don't smile, of the former boarding school
education," ROMANIA-INSIDER reports today.
Girls don't need to know traffic rules, he continued, but
how to walk provocatively.
"I apologize if I didn't make
myself understood, but I think that a boy, when he has a
girl by his arm -- at least this is how things are where I
come from, in the Moldova region -- is not interested if
the girl knows the traffic rules, but if she knows how to
walk nicely, like a lady. In one sentence: Chest forward,
bottom back, and let the boys faint!"
Student organizations have manifested their disapproval
towards the education official's statements, which they
called sexist, and asked for his resignation.
According to press reports, Vasile Salaru did indeed resign today,
but not before news of his words had spread across the world. In
fact, my waiter at a restaurant dinner in San Francisco tonight brought
up this topic for amusement.
ALLAN CRUSE
22 OCT 2015