Copyright: Mongolian Foundation for Open Society, The Network Women's Program of the Open Society Institute, The Institute for Social and Gender Policy (Russia)
The film's leitmotif is the deli - the traditional women's costume that not only gives a distinctive color to everyday life in Mongolia but also tells something about the women wearing it by its color and the way it is fashioned. One of the most common types of deli today is that sewn for women college graduates. Eighty percent of students are women. It would seem that such a statistic would represent positive change for women. However, Urchanimeg Nansalmaa presents the accounts of people from all levels of Mongolian society to show its reverse side. After graduating from college, women have only two paths open to them: returning to the steppe, becoming housewives and marrying livestock farmers or truck drivers or, their diplomas notwithstanding, to earn their living as unskilled workers in Eastern Asian countries. This film is part of the Gender Montage: Paradigms in Post Soviet Space film series.