Having seen 'Mona Lisa's Smile' which is on TV tonight several times before I keep thinking about enormous difference between Western and Soviet women in the 1950s.
The story told in the film is about a college art teacher who challenges 'traditional values' of 1950-s women - marriage and family above all and everything. No career pursuit whatsoever, no job, just home life and housework - that was these middle-class young women's destiny, even though they were getting education good enough to become lawyers or corporate executives.
One of the most remarkable scenes in this film (in my opinion) is Nancy Abbey's class in - I really don't know what to call this subject they were studying...
Domestic Life? Being a Good Wife? Mastering the Art of Running a House? - when girls are supposed to roleplay solving the issue of a dinner party for their potential husband's boss and his colleague rivals.
Lots and lots have been written on the subject of women's role in society after World War II - it was undoubtedly strongly associated with dinner parties, serving supper at 5 pm sharp, greeting a husband with a smile and a Martini - being home goddesses, whatever this slightly offensive phrase might mean.
After the war - and this idea is neither fresh nor challenging - the world was striving to see women being as much feminine as possible.
That's where this luxurious and submissive Dior's New Look came from - this 'highly feminine' fashion of high heels, corset-type dresses, red lipstick and girly curls.
Women as home elves, fragile but hard working creatures, stunning at dinner parties and restless at housework.
Women as expensive but totally dependent toys. Men's toys, of course. Men's possessions.
One of the characters of the greatest 19th century Russian playwright Ostrovsky, Larisa Ogudalova, an outstandingly beautiful and charming young girl from a noble but impoverished family, claims that if she is supposed to be some man's possession the only way is to be an expensive one. Very cynical and tragic line reflecting on what women's destiny was (and is and will be) in a men powered world.
And those college girls in the film were putting a lot of effort in making themselves very expensive assets for their future husbands - assets as valuable as possible, possessions to be proud of.
Was it or was it not the only women's choice in 1950s Western world - being a perfect wife and mother - is another matter.
The fact is women in the Soviet Union in the same decade were as far from this destiny of 'domestic goddesses' as never before.
Total deficit was the main feature of the era - Soviet women couldn't even dream of luxurious clothes in Dior's New Look style. A pair of new stockings - that was a dream come true. Genuine perfume - a heavenly gift. 'Girly' little luxuries were so rare in those days and any attempts to look pretty were seen as inappropriate fussiness.
Soviet women of the 50s had neither resources nor time to long for divine femininity of 'home goddesses' because they had to face the most fatal and devastating deficit - the lack of men, millions of which were killed at war.
Most Soviet households in the 1950s were widowed women's desperate homes filled with despair, tears and struggle to get bread on the table.
It was Soviet women who were rebuilding the country and the society in the 1950s. It was women who were raising kids, fixing railways and growing crops. Millions of desperate women whose feet were too 'worn out' for New Look high heels. Millions of widows who had their late husbands' photos hidden behind icons - in the last hope they might come back one day.
They were absolutely free from being just someone's other half at home.
They didn't have any chance to enjoy this luxury of just being a wife.
Given this chance, would they choose New Look dresses and dinners at 5?
