Friday March 2, 2007 SGN.org |
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Volume 35 Issue 09 |
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Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
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Film benefit for the Global Fund for Women to celebrate International Women's Day |
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| Film benefit for the Global Fund for Women to celebrate International Women's Day | |
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by Tina Gianoulis -
Special to the SGN Seattle's Dyke Community Activists has long worked to connect local and global issues, and this weekend they are offering a glimpse into Lesbian life internationally at a film benefit for the Global Fund for Women. This Saturday, March 3, DCA celebrates International Women's Day with a screening of To My Women Friends and Hi Maya at the University Friends Center, 4001 9th Ave. N.E., at 7 p.m. Donations of $5 to $15 are requested, but no one will be turned away. To My Women Friends, made by Natasha Sharandak in 1993, is a documentary focusing on the lives of six Lesbian friends in the former Soviet Union, showing their work, concerns, and community. The interviews are engaging and the culture they reveal is surprisingly familiar. Russia, like the U.S. is an enormous nation where a multitude of cultures clash and blend. Treatment of Lesbians there has varied considerably from decade to decade. During the 1920s, the Bolshevik revolution ushered in an era of relative tolerance. Though many of the new communists considered homosexuality to be an illness, they condemned the persecution of Gays and Lesbians. In fact, Lesbians, who generally have had to be strong and capable women, fit well into the ideal image of the "new Soviet woman," vigorous and independent. Many soviet psychiatrists during the twenties considered the best "treatment" for Lesbians to be helping them to accept themselves and their desires." Just as in the U.S., Soviet attitudes had become much less progressive by the 1950s. Women who were known to be Lesbians were denied the right to get a driver's license and were not hired for many jobs. Lesbians were often forced into psychiatric treatment where they were drugged and pressured to change. Soviet Queers began to organize during the late 1980s, as support groups began publicizing Gay and Lesbian issues. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to more progressive legislation about Gays and Lesbians, and sodomy was decriminalized in 1993. By 1996, there were close to twenty different Gay and Lesbian organizations throughout Russia and a national lobbying group called Triangle working on Queer issues. To My Women Friends captures this exciting period in the Russian Queer community through the lives of six average Russian dykes. To My Women Friends will be accompanied by Hi Maya, a Swiss short film by Claudia Lorenz which tells a touching story of love lost and found between two old friends. All proceeds from the films will be donated to the Global Fund for Women, an international network of women supporting women's rights around the world by funding grassroots women's groups. |
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