Oldal 299 [299]
American Femininity in Soviet Films during the Early Cold War (1946—1955)
Another important factor is the inclusion of gender discourse in power rela¬
tions: gender markers also produce a system of evaluations and preferences. In
the first place, this concerns social relations proper between men and women that
are characterised by the privileged status of men. However, the hierarchical rela¬
tions between the sexes are used as a matrix, which legitimates other forms of
social inequality. Culture’s androcentrism, that is, the presence of a value hierarchy
of masculinity and femininity, also influences the ranking of social subjects, the
marking of which as feminine or masculine involves attributing to them some par¬
ticular qualities and an appropriate position in the social structure. Thus, the use
of gender metaphors serves as an effective mechanism for the production of power
hierarchies. Interpreting the feminine as something second-rate and subordinate
determines the main form of exploitation of gender metaphors in political rhetoric:
‘us’ are represented as being masculine and ‘them’ as feminine (Verdery 1994: 228;
Eriksen 2002).
Due to the role that gender discourse plays in producing social borders and
hierarchies, it is widely used in international politics. Competition in international
relations is often represented as a competition in masculinity. In turn, the discourse
on international affairs serves as a means of shaping and reshaping gender orders
(Hooper 2001: 84-88). Ann Tickner points out that “the historical construction
of the state, upon which the unitary-actor model in international theory is based,
represents a gendered, masculine model. In the West, the image of a foreign-policy¬
maker has been strongly associated with elite, white males and representations of
hegemonic masculinity” (Tickner 2001: 54). This was especially visible in the Early
Cold War: on both sides of the Iron Curtain the cold warriors were expected to
possess stereotypical masculine qualities to a high degree (see, for instance, Goscilo
& Lanoux 2006: 11-15; Kaganovsky 2008: 1-6).?
American Women as Victims of Capitalism
As for the Cold War issues of femininities, the female question featured promi¬
nently in the ideological confrontation. The tenet of Soviet ideology that women
held high positions in Soviet society played a significant role in arguing for the
superiority of socialism over capitalism (May 1988: 18; Rikhter 1997). The ideal
image of Soviet femininity combined stereotypical feminine features (kindness,
mercy, compassion, submission, selflessness etc.) with traits of “New Soviet Man
(collectivism, comradeship, learning, professional achievements, self-respect, prole¬
tarian internationalism, love for the Soviet Motherland, and devotion to Commu¬
nist ideals). The female ideal was constructed against the background of a negative
image of women’s status in Western society, which was based on Marxist criticism
of the bourgeois family. For instance, one film critic wrote that, “in bourgeois
2 This masculinisation of representations of international affairs was reflected in particular in the popular¬
ity of sexual images and metaphors in Cold War discourse (May 1988: 98).
297