Everyday Life and Alcoolism

One other aspect that was really present was the importance of alcohol in daily life consumption:  how it created bounding but also the implications that came with it, like violence towards women. Hinote&Webber discuss that alcohol consumption was an important part of daily life, especially for creating bonds between workers. It was a gendered behaviour, which allowed men to construct masculinity (Hinote&Webber, 2012). They also argue that drinking became a major health issue for men in USSR because of the particularity of life under the soviet union: there were no aspirations, life was still, and men drank away their passions and will for another life. Furthermore, alcohol consumption enhanced physical violence towards women: if alcohol directly impacted the life expectancy of men it had an indirect impact on women’s lives throughout violence (Wasserman et al., 1998). This was really present in the footage, for example in a scene where a drunken man is hitting his wife, or a woman talking to a party leader/ hierarchical superior at work, about the behaviour of her husband that she accuses of violence, and she repeatedly expresses that it was due to his drinking habits.

 

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