Bed And Sof The Evolution Of Feminism

Across the globe, feminism in today’s world has evolved and progressed in different ways in different countries. Feminist movements such as the suffrage movement and the Me Too movement have caused changes in the United States, but countries such as Pakistan and Syria lack the change that the United States has seen. The Russian Federation would fall somewhere between the two on a scale of how far women’s rights movements have come since the beginning of the Soviet era and how effective they have been. The movies Bed and Sofa (Room), made in 1927, and Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (Menshov), made in 1980, allow non-Russians and those not alive during the Soviet era to catch a glimpse of how feminism and women’s rights have changed over the

Bed and Sofa (Room) presents Liuda at the beginning of the film as a wife first and foremost and an individual second. Liuda never expressed interest in working, which gives the impression that women around 1927 did not try to work, even though in reality the number of women in the Soviet workforce more than doubled between 1923 and 1930 thanks to government encouragement. Taken out of context, the majority of the film Bed and Sofa would give the viewer the idea that women in the USSR in 1927 were housewives that did not care about much other than cleaning, cooking, and taking care of domestic details. In stark contrast, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (Menshov) presents Katia as a strong willed woman that could provide for both herself and her daughter without a male figure in the middle of the film. Even in the beginning, Katia knew that she wanted to go to college and become successful on her own. In terms of women working and, at the very least, providing for themselves, the progression of the representation of a woman’s role in society in film has shown that women in the Soviet Union in 1927 did not, on average, work as independently or as inspired as the women in

In Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (Menshov), the second love interest for Katia, Gosha, expressed his excessively strong opinion that the man in a family should rule with an iron fist. Gosha consistently commented that there was no possible situation in which Katia would make more money at her job than he did in his. Gosha’s opinion is rooted deeply in Soviet society. Even though women were supported as a labor resource, they were continually treated with less respect and motherhood was seen as the most appropriate job for women to have. In Bed and Sofa (Room) Liuda is faced with the same opinions, though they are more understated by the men in the film. Kolya, her first husband, works and brings home all of the income and food for the two. While it is never express outright that Kolya’s belief is that Liuda is not qualified or that men should be the providers in a family, his actions can be interpreted as him having the belief that men are the workers. Despite the strongly held beliefs of Gosha and the actions of Kolya, the women in both movies take steps to take their lives into their own hands and make the best life that they can. One example of Katia and Liuda making their own choice is each one’s decision to not get an