Radio Station Tells Men: Win a Russian Wife!

Everyone is familiar with radio station contests. You know, the kind where if you are caller number 100, you are entered into a drawing to win concert tickets, backstage passes, and weekend getaways. An Edmonton station is taking this promotional standard to an unbelievable new low in its Win a Wife contest. Yes, you read that right: win a wife.

The Bear 100.3 FM is calling for male listeners to submit an application (which poses  soul-baring questions like "What do you have to offer a smokin hot foreign girl?" and asks men to name the "Stupidest thing you've done in the hopes of scorin"). From the pool of applicants, the station will select five finalists to compete for the grand prize of an all-expenses paid trip to Russia. The contest is sponsored by A Volga Girl, an American company that bills itself as an "integrity-based" agency that helps American and Canadian men find Russian women "who have expressed a sincere desire to find emotional stability."

Applications are posted on the station's website. A quick perusal of the current top-rated men in the contest reveals that many of them consider good food, a clean house, and frequent, casual sex to be in their top three reasons for wanting a Russian bride. In other words, they want a maid that they think has to sleep with them.

This demeaning contest has drawn the ire of Alberta's Employment and Immigration minister, Thomas Lukaszuk. “As a father of two daughters, the whole idea of winning a wife doesn’t bode with me well at all,” said Lukaszuk. He pulled the ministry's advertisements from the station while the contest is running.

The radio station has defended its exploitative contest by saying that it is merely promoting an already existing service with a "serious and renowned" company. Oh, well, I suppose that makes everything okay. Lukaszuk isn't buying it, either. "Often many of them (women) are driven into a position of desperation by prevailing economic conditions or by criminal elements that is often involved in these schemes," he stated.  "So the position of free choice differs between what you and I would consider free choice and what happens in other parts of the world." Sound like sex trafficking, anyone?

Change.org member Elicia Elliot agrees. "Once I learned about it, there was no way I could be silent on the issue," said Elliot. "It's important to me to speak out against injustices and I see this as a blatant and disgusting one." So, Elliot started a petition on Change.org asking the radio station to shut down the contest and apologize. Since thousands of people have signed her petition, the station has sorta-kinda-but-not-really changed the name to "Win a Russian Romance," but Elliot is not fooled. Sign her petition and let The Bear 100.3 FM know that women are not objects to be won.

Photo credit: nedrichards