Films About Working Women

The following discussion of films about working women's experience took 
place on WMST-L in July 2005.  For additional WMST-L files available on
the Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

Dear Listmembers:

I am looking for films that would complement Barbara
Ehrenreich's _Nickel and Dimed_.  So far I have only found
Love & Diane and Maid in America from Women Make Movies.  I
am intersted both in documentaries and feature films.

thanks so much for your help.

susanne

Susanne B. Dietzel, Ph. D.
Director, Women's Resource Center
Loyola University New Orleans
(504) 864-7880

How about BREAD AND ROSES, about the Justice for Janitors union organizing
campaign in Los Angeles?  The main character is a feisty Mexican illegal
immigrant, but there is a wide range of subsidiary characters.

FAst food women.

Kathy Miriam
kmim  AT  earthlink.net

Susanne--You're getting other good recommendations from the list for
(mostly) documentaries. For "classic" Hollywood feature (fictional)
films about working women struggling for their rights in the factory
workplace, there's "Norma Rae" (about union organizing, with Sally
Field)--a rousing film if somewhat sentimentalized--and "Silkwood"
(with Cher in a fine performance), concerning a working woman exposed
to toxics and fighting for her rights. Marilyn Edelstein

Marilyn Edelstein
Associate Professor of English
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara CA 95053
408-554-4123
medelstein  AT  scu.edu

Please let us not leave out Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce, the dragon of
them all.  Even in Luce's "The Women, Crawford plays a working-girl to great
advantage.  The perfume counter scenes are great.  The audience's loathing
of the bad girl Crawford in the Luce film is a great classist portrayal.
See also a sullen ditsy Butterfly McQueen, working for Crawford.


In peace,
Alice


Alice Bach
 Archbishop Hallinan Chair of Catholic Studies
Associate Professor of Religion
105 Mather House
CWRU 10900 Euclid Ave.
Cleveland OH  44106
www.alicebach.com


"The poor tell us who we are,
The prophets tell us who we could be,
So we hide the poor,
And kill the prophets" - Phil Berrigan

Hammering It Out is a film I produced in 2000 about women in
non-traditional jobs. It's distributed by Women Make Movies.  Vivian
Price

Try Yes Ma'am
see the link below for info on the film
http://newmedia.colorado.edu/~socwomen/resources/yesmaam.html


Christina Baker Myers
Department of sociology and Anthropology
Emporia State University

myerschr  AT  emporia.edu

One excellent documentary for exploring the experiences of working minimum
wage jobs (as well as immigration issues) is My American Girls. I like it
because it does the working-class Dominican family is not defined only by
"struggle."

Jacqueline Ellis,
New Jersey City University
jelliswgst  AT  hotmail.com

Re: Susanne B. Dietzel's inquiry--

I am teaching _Nickel and Dimed_ this fall in conjunction with the documentary,
_Live Nude Girls Unite!_, about the unionization of the Lusty Lady peepshow in
San Francisco. I expect raucous class discussion over the question of whether
there are workers who deserve to be exploited (I teach in the Bible Belt, as
well as in a right-to-work state).

Lisa Johnson
--
Assistant Professor of English
Coastal Carolina University
P.O. Box 261954
Conway, SC 29528-6054
mjohnson  AT  coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/mjohnson

I was going to suggest "Fast Food Women" as well....about fast food
workers in Whitesburg, Kentucky. It's very effective and not long, less
than 30 minutes, as I recall, so good for classes. It's available
through Appalshop--not sure of the cost....

www.appalshop.org

My office maintains a searchable database of information about films and
videos about women that you are all welcome to use when looking for
information either on particular videos (including names of
distributors), or searching by subject. The database is called WAVE:
WOMEN'S AUDIOVISUALS IN ENGLISH and is mounted at
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WAVE. In this case, try doing a
guided search for

        wage-earning    as a phrase     in any field

To retrieve more results about domestic workers, add these terms to the
search:
OR      maid                                                    in any field
OR      household workers       as a phrase     in any field

We are NOT a distributor; we use announcements, reviews, catalogs, and
websites as our sources and have not ourselves viewed most of the items.
In some cases we have published reviews of the items in our publication
FEMINIST COLLECTIONS: A QUARTERLY OF WOMEN'S STUDIES RESOURCES (sub.
form at
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/Subscription.pdf).
We work on WAVE first in an in-house database where we verify
information, try to find distributors, etc., and generally upload new
records about once a year, so there are few 2004 releases and none from
2005 yet in WAVE.

If you want to browse websites of distributors of women-focused videos,
try our distributors' list at
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/distribs.htm.

Sincerely,
Phyllis Holman Weisbard

--
****************************************************
Phyllis Holman Weisbard, Women's Studies Librarian
University of Wisconsin System
430 Memorial Library, 728 State Street
Madison, WI 53706
608-263-5754; pweisbard  AT  library.wisc.edu
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/
****************************************************

If no one has yet suggested "Salt of the Earth," I highly recommend it.  It is
about a strike by Hispanic miners.  After an injunction, the men can no longer
picket the mine -- so their wives do it.  That leaves the men at home trying to
figure out how to run a household, which they have NO idea how to do.  It is
truly a marvelous movie.  It cuts across race, class, and gender.

The history of the movie is also interesting, because the actress who
played the main role in the movie was deported (the movie was deemed
"socialistic")

Mary Schweitzer
mailto:marymsch  AT  comcast.net

I'm catching up on last week's WMST-L messages. I know this is a late 
response, but I think it's worth mentioning. I recommend the PBS film 
"People Like Us." I don't think it's been mentioned yet. Barbara 
Ehrenreich is actually featured in the film. I use the entire 
documentary when I teach Intro to Sociology, but much of it is also 
relevant to Women's Studies.  Tammy Crabtree's story always evokes 
strong reactions from students.
http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/

Peace!
Shereen Siddiqui
Florida Atlantic University
siddiqui  AT  fau.edu

Several short (15-minute) videos in the Her Own Words series on Women in  
Nontraditional Careers might be good complements to Nickel & Dimed.   Shifting 
Gears: Changing Careers and Work Talk: Women in Nontraditional Careers  in Their 
Own Words both present many differen perspectives on what women's work  
experiences have been and what a variety of women in a variety of circumstances  
are looking for in a job/career.
 
Jocelyn Riley
Her Own Words Videos: Women in Nontraditional  Careers
PO Box 5264, Madison WI 53705-0264
608-271-7083  phone
NontraditionalCareers.com website
_herownwords  AT  charterinternet.com_ (mailto:herownwords  AT  charterinternet.com)    
email address 
 
* CC = Closed Captioned *

Math at Work: Women in Nontraditional Careers *CC
Shifting Gears:  Changing Careers *CC
Women in the Automotive Industry *CC
Women in  Building Construction *CC
Women in Dentistry
Women in Engineering
Women  in Firefighting *CC
Women in Highway Construction
Women in Machining  *CC
Women in Nontraditional Careers: An Introduction
Women in  Policing
Women in Welding
Work Talk: Women in Nontraditional Careers in  Their Own Words *CC
Writing at Work: Women in Nontraditional Careers in Their  Own Words *CC

Susanne,

If I may also chime in, post vacation, from Women Make Movies--I just
wanted to confirm that we do carry several films on working class women
including those you first mentioned, as well as Vivian Price's HAMMERING
IT OUT. It should be noted that these titles are part of a larger WMM
collection called "Bringing It All Back Home: Women, Labor and the
Global Economy", to be released this Fall. (Meanwhile, we've posted
bare-bones list of titles here:
http://www.wmm.com/catalog/bringingitallbackhome.htm) The collection
includes a wide selection of films covering women's labor in an era of
globalization, with modules ranging from general labor issues, to sex
trafficking and border studies/global migrations.

Best, 
Sarah Reynolds, 
Educational Sales and Outreach
Women Make Movies
sr  AT  wmm.com

I Am Somebody - 1969 hospital workers struggle in Charleston, South Carolina.
"An excellent film for courses which touch on women's work, American 
society, and issues of class, race, and ethnicity." - American Anthropologist
http://frif.com/cat97/f-j/i_am_som.html

What Could You Do with a Nickel? - Looks at the formation of the first 
domestic workers' union in the United States.
"A concise, effectively done history of black working women's 
organizations. Many of the images of angry, assertive women are powerful." 
- Forum: A Women's Studies Quarterly
http://frif.com/cat97/t-z/what_cou.html

Working Women of the World - Focusing on Levi Strauss & Co., examines the 
relocation of factories from Western countries to nations like Indonesia, 
the Philippines, and Turkey, where low wages are the rule and employee 
rights are nonexistent.
** 2004 National Women's Studies Association Film Festival
** 2003 Association for Asian Studies Film Festival
http://frif.com/new2002/www.html

Chain of Love - A film about the Philippines' second largest export product 
- maternal love - and how the international trade in love and care affects 
the women involved, their families, and families in the West.
** 2003 Award of Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology
http://frif.com/new2002/chain.html

A Female Cabby in Sidi Bel-AbbFs - The story of the only woman cab driver 
in the Algerian city of Sidi Bel-AbbFs.
** 2001 Middle Eastern Studies Association FilmFest
** 2001 National Women's Studies Association Film Festival
http://frif.com/new2001/cab.html

Dylan M. McGinty
Director of Operations

First  Run  /  Icarus  Films, Inc.
32 Court Street, 21st Floor
Brooklyn NY 11201

Email           dylan  AT  frif.com
Web             www.frif.com

    Kate Weigand devotes four pages (131-134) to the origin, development,
and aftermath of "Salt of the Earth" in "Red Feminism: American Communism
and the Making of Women's Liberation", (Baltimore: John Hopkins Univ. Press,
2001).  Anyone considering using this film may find it easier to scan her
book than locating and reviewing this film.  This is her conclusion about
the film:

<<"Salt of the Earth" stands today as one of the most explicitly feminist
cultural creations to come out of the predominantly antifeminist 1950s...
Many second-wave feminists who saw the film for the first time in the early
1970s were mystified about the origins of its feminist message.  They
"expressed surprise that so 'old' a film should portray with such passionate
comprehension the sometimes conflicting claims of feminist, ethnic and class
consciousness."  But the film... revealed the impressive progress that
Communists had made by the mid-1950s in their struggles to create cultural
artifacts that empowered women, to educate their supporters about the
politics of individual relationships, and to promote an alternative
subculture that abandoned patriarchal customs and modeled egalitarian family
life for all those who were exposed to it" (134).

    I think that the work of Weigand and Amy Swerdlow is vital for Women's
Studies, because it shows the origin of phrases like "Women's Movement" and
"double oppression", and also illustrates the difficulties of merging
concern about gender, race, and capitalism into a movement for social
justice.

Hannah Miyamoto
hsmiyamoto  AT  msn.com

Hannah Miyamoto <hsmiyamoto  AT  MSN.COM> on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 at 3:17 PM
-0500 wrote:
>    I think that the work of Weigand and Amy Swerdlow is vital for Women's
>Studies, because it shows the origin of phrases like "Women's Movement" and
>"double oppression", and also illustrates the difficulties of merging
>concern about gender, race, and capitalism into a movement for social
>justice.

This is only slightly related to the above but . . . In 2001 Red Letter Press
published an updated manifesto for/from radical socialist feminists that
"updates" or readdresses the issues of gender, class, race, and capitalism.  It
is a very quick, ideology laden, piece that touches briefly on some key issues.
 I picked it up for a lesson I am thinking of doing about feminist manifesto/as
for my theory class.  

Also while roaming the isles I discovered that Maid in America has recently
been re-released as an anniversary edition.  It has been a while since I have
given it a thorough read but it starts with an interesting story about the
unspoken conflict between the author (a child of a domestic worker, occasional
domestic worker herself, and a PhD), the head of the house she is staying in,
and the domestic worker from Juarez that "humanizes" much of the theory about
undocumented labor and subsistence level women workers on both sides of the
border.  I was thinking about using it alongside Dorothy Allison's "Steal
Away."  

Though these are not movies, they are certainly good reads for issues of class
and intersectionality.  I was thinking they would make good companions to any
of the films mentioned to date.

Ime Kerlee, PhD
Dept. of Women's Studies

oops, proper book title:

Maid In USA (not Maid in America)

In addition to the "working class women's stuggle" documentaries I posted 
about earlier,  First Run/Icarus Films also distributes A CRIME TO FIT THE 
PUNISHMENT, which is a film about SALT OF THE EARTH.

In 1954, at the height of McCarthyism and the Cold War, blacklisted 
filmmakers joined together to create the controversial labor film "Salt of 
the Earth," despite strong oppposition from a fearful Hollywood and the 
U.S. government. A CRIME TO FIT THE PUNISHMENT investigates the background 
and political atmosphere surrounding the production of the film, and 
movingly chronicles the filmmakers' defiance of the blacklist.

Interviews with the actors and clips from "Salt of the Earth" - which 
presciently championed the rights of workers, minorities, and women - are 
interwoven with newsreel and broadcast footage from the 50s, creating a 
fascinating examination of the relationship between film and politics.
READ MORE: http://frif.com/cat97/a-e/a_crime_.html

Dylan M. McGinty
Director of Operations

First  Run  /  Icarus  Films, Inc.
32 Court Street, 21st Floor
Brooklyn NY 11201
Email           dylan  AT  frif.com
Web             www.frif.com

List members interested in Salt of the Earth also
might  be interested in an article forthcoming in the
journal Brujula. The article discusses the use of the
film in a recent Argentinian project targeted at
creating a community of labor activists.

Mariela Mendez, ^+The Republic of Women:^+  Notes
Towards a Critical Assessment. In the special issue of
Brujula on "Working Gender: Cultural Representations
of Women and Labor" .  Issue 4; forthcoming.

List members interested in Salt of the Earth also
might  be interested in an article forthcoming in the
journal Brujula. The article discusses the use of the
film in a recent Argentinian project targeted at
creating a community of labor activists.

Mariela Mendez, ^+The Republic of Women:^+  Notes
Towards a Critical Assessment. In the special issue of
Brujula on "Working Gender: Cultural Representations
of Women and Labor" .  Issue 4; forthcoming.

There was a huge and wonderful 50th anniversary conference about Salt
of the Earth at the College of Santa Fe in 2003 with speakers such as
Dolores Huerta, Amy Goodman, Robert Rosen, and many more.  The website
is still online http://salt.csf.edu/ and you might find interesting
links and stuff on it.  Linda


--
Linda Lopez McAlister 
600 Alcalde Place SW #4A 
Albuquerque, NM 87104 
mcalisterll  AT  comcast.net