"Steel Woman": "Me and a horse, me and a bull”, “Me and a woman and a man”, “A horse in a skirt”, “A woman with eggs” Passing by the school, I witnessed a scene when a small group of children, about nine or ten years old, ran out of the school and made an agreement as they walked about a meeting. And they were going to meet almost immediately: some were immediately ready to go to “Europe” (shopping and entertainment complex), some were going to go home and leave their briefcase, others needed to do something at home. And the one who had to do something was a boy who tried to explain to the girls that he had something to do and could come a little later than the appointed time. This did not suit the girls; they shouted vying with each other, standing in the park, proving something to their classmate, who was apparently moving away towards the house. And everything would have been fine, but the words of the “loud-voiced” woman herself reached my ears: “Well, you look like a woman...”. And then all the girls joined in and started shouting at him vying with each other: “Don’t be a woman... drop everything and come…”. But the boy’s behavior pleased me. He, outwardly not reacting to the taunts of the “young ladies,” calmly stuck to his guns. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were boys, but nine-year-old girls, future women?!?... Or not women at all?!? It seemed to me that the era of “Me and a horse, me and a bull”, “Me and a woman and a man”, “Horse in a skirt”, “Woman with eggs”, call it what you want, the essence is the same, is gradually disappearing... But no . It turns out that she is more alive than all the living, despite the external propaganda of femininity. And is it really the model: a courageous man and a feminine woman that we will see less and less often? And will there be a “healing” of generations traumatized by the war, post-war famine and repression, and perestroika? Is this even possible? And now the world is being shaken by local wars, coups and revolutions... You don’t have to look far, how many people have been broken by the shifting flywheel of history, for example, the recent events on the Maidan, terrorist attacks and modern wars... how many modern men have turned out to be unreliable husbands and fathers? The topic of psychological trauma from the war is brilliantly revealed by Lyudmila Petranovskaya: “And here again, the young mother was left alone. And, Thank God, she has someone to rely on: parents, relatives, friends, but what if not? And then her lot is constant anxiety , you need to work hard to raise a child. And she has no special joys. The pain is torn from within, but it is impossible to express it, it is impossible to cry, it is impossible to “lose” and she freezes in stoic tension, turns off her feelings, lives with her teeth clenched. and gathering her will into a fist, she does everything automatically. Or maybe she indulges in “everything bad”... Or she plunges into hidden depression, walks around, does what she’s supposed to do, although she only wants one thing – to lie down and die. And the child cannot understand anything. , what is happening with his mother, they don’t tell him anything (especially if he is small)... and he needs affection, attention and love - physical and emotional love. And the mother? And the mother answers through force, otherwise she suddenly growls: “. Yes, leave me alone,” he pushes him away until he flies off. The only explanation that, in principle, can come to his mind: my mother doesn’t love me, I’m disturbing her, it would be better if I didn’t exist. And such a baby grows up with deep trauma - sure that he is not loved, sure that no one needs him...” And this is very, very similar to the dynamics of relationships between children during the Great Patriotic War. And then it affected almost everyone, the entire generation was involved in the trauma of war. And now it is not of such a global nature, although who calculated it? And this war gave birth to the “Steel Woman”, well, because she had to somehow survive on her own, and raise her children, and even help the front. But for sixty-nine years now there has been no war, and in the same way there are traumatized children... there is no war, but the “Steel Women”, they are also “I and the horse, I and the bull”, “I am both the woman and the man”, “The horse in skirt”, “Baba with Balls” there is, there is no war, but there are more street children, there is no war, but the number of orphanages is not decreasing... Allrepeats itself... But this is already a round of trauma of modern times, and time will tell what generation will grow out of this. We can only look back in retrospect...Women of war carried and carried their unbearable burden, and they got used to it. We adapted. And they simply couldn’t do it any other way. My grandmothers, like many other women of that time, simply physically could not sit idle. Already quite old, everyone was busy, everyone was carrying bags, everyone was trying to chop wood. It became a way of coping with life. By the way, many of them became so iron that they lived for a very long time, neither illness nor old age affected them. What can we say - “Steel”. One of my grandmothers lived 99 years, the other -93, and it’s not even a year since she passed away. And many are still alive, God bless them. But this “steel” was not in vain... “In its most extreme expression, in the most terrible combination of events, such a woman turned into a monster, capable of killing with her care. And she continued to be iron, even if there was no longer such a need, even if she later lived with her husband again, and nothing threatened the children. It’s as if she fulfilled her vow. The most striking image is described in Pavel Sanaev’s book “Bury me behind the baseboard.” , and not power. The worst thing is love. When, reading Sanaev, you understand that this is a story about love, about such a disfigured love, that’s when the frost breaks through.” But let’s leave aside the extreme cases. Here we have before us a not-so-“iron” woman, here is a child who has grown up only with the suspicion that he is not needed and unloved, but who feels in his soul that this is not true: after all, it was only for his sake that the mother survived and endured everything. And the baby grows up, trying to earn love. Helps as best he can. Doesn't require anything. I'm busy with myself. He tries very hard to be useful, because only useful people are loved, only those who are convenient and correct. And he sleeps on a piece of wood, and then, having grown up under his relatives’ bed, they didn’t have any other place for him... but he had to undergo practice. Yes, he will finish school with excellent marks or almost excellent marks, and he will go to university and make a career, but that will come later... “Have you probably heard stories like this more than once about post-war childhood? “It never occurred to us to do something like this with our mother talk!" - this is about modern youth. Of course! Firstly, an iron woman has a heavy hand. And secondly, who would risk crumbs of warmth and intimacy? It’s a luxury, you know, to be rude to parents. But what? - we are all about women, but where are the men? Where were the fathers? It was difficult for a girl and a boy, who grew up without fathers, to create a family. They hope to get them from their partner. But through the prism of their relationship, a model known as a self-sufficient “woman with balls” comes through... who, by and large, doesn’t even need a man. That is, it’s cool if she has one, but she really has him. Absolutely, no use: “Sit on the side, watch the football, otherwise you’re interfering with washing the floors. Don’t play with the child, you’ll walk him around, then don’t touch him, you’ll ruin everything. Move away, I don’t want to.” work - don’t work. I myself, I myself, I myself...” And everything like that. And the boys were also raised by their mothers. Some men found a way out, becoming a “second mother.” Or even the only one, because mother herself, as we remember, is “with eggs” and rattles iron. In the best version, it turned out something like Uncle Fyodor’s dad: soft, caring, sensitive, allowing everything. In the intermediate one - a workaholic who simply ran away to work from it all. In the bad - an alcoholic... Because a man who is not needed by his woman for nothing, who all the time hears only “go away, don’t disturb”, “what kind of father are you, you don’t take care of children at all” (read “you don’t deal with the way I think it’s necessary”), the only thing left is to change the woman - and with whom, if everyone around is about the same? - or go into oblivion. And this, my friends, is the simplest and most accessible way. On the other hand, the man himself does not have