Based on a real strike by women workers, Made in Dagenham depicts its protagonists as overcoming class and gender divisions, but its narrative of progress elides the subsequent effects of Thatcherism.
A postscript notifies the audience about the passing of the 1970 Equal Pay Act - and I think that is one of the reasons why I both appreciate this film and simultaneously bristle against it. Because the passing of that Act was important and symbolic (like this strike) but the intent is STILL unfulfilled. 44 years on. (I also can’t help but note the film was released in 2010 so provides a narrative born and told within the Labour government years, with all the optimistic nostalgia that era loved…)
This is exactly it. Also the whole purpose of the strike was not that they were doing the same work as men and getting less for it (which is what the legislation outlawed), it’s that jobs comprising “women’s work” were systematically undervalued and underpaid.
But, I do think it deals with the specific intersection of being working class and being a woman well (even if it somewhat oversimplifies the possibilities for shared identity across class and gender lines).
A postscript notifies the audience about the passing of the 1970 Equal Pay Act - and I think that is one of the reasons why I both appreciate this film and simultaneously bristle against it. Because the passing of that Act was important and symbolic (like this strike) but the intent is STILL unfulfilled. 44 years on. (I also can’t help but note the film was released in 2010 so provides a narrative born and told within the Labour government years, with all the optimistic nostalgia that era loved…)
This is exactly it. Also the whole purpose of the strike was not that they were doing the same work as men and getting less for it (which is what the legislation outlawed), it’s that jobs comprising “women’s work” were systematically undervalued and underpaid.
But, I do think it deals with the specific intersection of being working class and being a woman well (even if it somewhat oversimplifies the possibilities for shared identity across class and gender lines).