Pass/Fail: A Soviet-Jewish Bechdel Test

A Literal Literary Loser Uplifts Women's Voices

Bechdel Test: A way of evaluating whether or not a film or other work of fiction portrays women in a way that is sexist or characterized by gender stereotyping. To pass the Bechdel test a work must feature at least two women, these women must talk to each other, and their conversation must concern something other than a man.

I admit it: I am somewhat confused by The Bechdel Test. My main issue is whether two women talking about a man is always two women talking about a man.

Let me explain (let me also note that, so far, I have started three consecutive paragraphs with a few words and a colon; weird): I get that if two women are talking about a man and the topic is how much they love the man, who loves the man more, how much they hate the man and/or whom the man should pick between the two of them, then that is a scene which most certainly does not pass The Bechdel Test.

On the other hand, what if the two women are talking about a man, and that man is, say, Josef Stalin? (In my books, a disproportionate number of women talk about a man who happens to be Josef Stalin.) In this case, they are talking about politics, revolution, dissent, oppression, and current events. Would such a scene not pass The Bechdel Test when it’s about Stalin, but would pass The Bechdel Test if it were about Golda Meir?

That somehow seems wrong.

The same goes for if two women were talking about one of the women’s children, who happens to be a daughter, but not if they’re talking about a son? Wouldn’t the point of the scene be the same, regardless of the gender of the child?

In my May 2025 novel, “Go On Pretending,” Emma is arguing with her mother, Rose, about Emma’s daughter, Libby, running off to join The Women’s Revolution in Rojava, Syria. Emma believes Libby is being a fool, trying to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother, who at a similar age, also charged off half-cocked to fight in the Spanish Civil war:

Libby invited her mother and grandmother to stay and watch target practice. She even proposed they give handling the armaments a go. Rose had the good sense to turn that down.

But she did, the minute their conversation could be covered up by the rounds of gunfire, snap at Emma, “Are you not even going to try?”

“Try what?” Emma took her hands off her ears as they got away from Libby’s platoon.

“Try to understand what it is about this place which calls out to Luba? Why she wants to be here?”

“She’s nineteen years old. Her father died a few months ago. What calls out to Libby is the romance of fighting the good fight. The belief that she’s on the right side of history. And the reason she wants to be here is because she wants to be like you.”

“And what drew Dennis and me to our causes? Did you ever try to understand that?”

Emma had several answers to that question. All of them sarcastic, several quite rude. So she held her tongue.

Which only prompted Rose to continue, “You’ve always been like this. Always, even as a little girl. Standing on the outskirts, looking down on anyone who, in your exalted opinion, was foolish enough to believe in something. To believe in anything.”

“How am I supposed to believe in anything when you, Dennis, Libby – you wax poetic about how smoothly everything works here, and I can see with my own eyes that it’s a crock!”

“You’re so perfect that you get to call out anything and anyone that isn’t?”

“I’m not perfect. I am so Goddamn far from perfect. But I’m also not blind. What did your belief in a cause get you? It got you Dad, dead and buried across the world.”

“I watched you now. The only reason you were listening was so you could point out all the contradictions to Luba later.”

“She should be able to see them for herself. They’re obvious.”

“What makes you think she doesn’t? What makes you think she doesn’t notice every single bit of hypocrisy and inconsistency, but still chooses to stay, to overlook what’s wrong, to fight to make it better?”

“Like you did, Mom? How did that work out for you?”

“I was happy, Emma. Our years in the USSR, with Jonas, I was truly happy. Can you say the same? About any period of your life?”

“So you didn’t mind if anyone else was suffering? Just as long as you were happy?”

“Your argument is intellectually dishonest.”

“And yours is emotionally manipulative.”

“Isn’t it nice,” Rose observed, “that no matter where we go, we’re still who we are?”

So does this scene pass The Bechdel Test?

It does “feature at least two women” who “talk to each other” and their conversation “concerns something other than a man.”

Save for the brief mention of Emma’s father, Jonas, and Libby’s father, Dennis, it would seem to hit all the mandatory points.

But would that be nullified if the reckless child in question were Emma’s son, instead of Emma’s daughter?

So often, in fiction - and in real life - the point of the conversation is not necessarily the actual point of the conversation.

Emma and Rose may be nominally talking about Libby, but they are really talking about the life choices Rose made, the life choices Emma made, and how each woman feels about the other. The conversation isn’t really about Libby. It’s about a mother and a daughter who have never really accepted the other for who they are.

But does it pass The Bechdel Test? Let me know your thoughts in the Comments!