Recently, two great women left us at the same time.
One is the famous performance artist Yu Lan.
She is the "eternal Sister Jiang" in our minds.
Immortality in Fire
The other is Shen Jilan, a deputy to the National People's Congress.
She is a promoter of "equal pay for men and women for equal work".
In the rural areas of Shanxi in the early days of liberation, the social status of women was very low.
At that time, agricultural cooperatives adopted a "work division system" to do the same work, and two women's work was not as good as that of a man.
Shen Jilan felt very unreasonable: women can also do a good job, why can't they earn work?
So she mobilized women and waged a labor competition with men.
After many struggles, women can finally remember the same work points as men.
In 1952, Xigou Village took the lead in the country to achieve equal pay for men and women for equal work.
This event is of epoch-making significance.
Shen Jilan was thus elected as a deputy to the First National People's Congress and the only npc deputy to be re-elected for 13 consecutive terms.
She promoted the inclusion of equal pay for men and women for equal work in the Constitution, and always paid attention to women's rights and interests and rural people's livelihood.
In the 1960s, there was also such a group of working women in the United Kingdom, who worked tirelessly for equal pay for equal work.
The movie recommended by Xiangyu today is adapted from this real history.
Made in Dagenham
Made in Dagenham
The Douban score of this film is 8.1, and the reputation is eye-catching.
The heroine, Sally Hawkins, was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe award for "The Shape of Water".
The female worker she plays in this film is also a strong woman who is not willing to be oppressed.
The story begins at a Ford motor plant in Dugnham, just outside London.
The factory has 55,000 male workers, compared to only 187 female workers.
In the automotive industry, men are the absolute dominant players.
In addition to the huge disparity in numbers, the status of women is even lower.
At the beginning of the film, all 187 female workers are crammed into a factory workshop.
They worked only in their underwear because it was too hot in the workshop.
As soon as the bell rings, they need to start working hard and sweating.
If it rains, they have to hold up umbrellas to block the leakage of rain.
Their salaries, on the other hand, are much less than those of men.
The next direction is not difficult to guess, and the female workers must not be able to bear this injustice.
However, under the ideological influence of patriarchal society for a long time, women's awakening cannot be achieved overnight.
The protests began with a pay cut.
Ford wants to classify workers as unskilled in order to lower their wages.
Workshop leaders mobilized employees to protest in order to get paid what they deserved.
In order to overwhelm the other side with momentum in the negotiation, the leader wants to find one more worker.
But the women workers, fearing offending the company, shirked each other.
The final quota fell to the ordinary female worker Rita (Sally Hawkins).
Rita, who had come to count, had to sit quietly and listen to the men.
But they only want to adopt procrastination tactics and are reluctant to really solve the problem.
The 3-hour negotiations were once again over.
Rita finally couldn't resist speaking up and led her colleagues on the first strike.
In a conversation with her leaders, Rita realized that the root cause of unfair treatment of women workers is not their skill level, but their gender.
The workshop leader is the only man in the factory who stands on a female side and the guide of Rita's awakening of female consciousness.
His mother had been busy all her life, doing the same work as men, and her salary was less than half of theirs.
No one thought there was anything wrong with that, and his mother didn't resist.
Leaders know Rita's personality.
She has a strong sense of dignity and justice, and never backs down on issues of principle.
This point has long been foreshadowed at the beginning of the film.
Rita's son was often subjected to corporal punishment by teachers at school.
She did not swallow her anger because the other party was a teacher, but took the initiative to find the teacher to reason.
During the negotiation, Rita took the initiative to refute it, and also made the leader strengthen her confidence in her.
He hopes that Rita can lead everyone to rebel and stop the exploitation of women that society has been doing.
However, their first strike was colded by the factory.
An enraged Rita decided to lead a full-scale strike, calling for equal pay for men and women for equal work.
At the same time, they lobbied and lobbied for the support of male workers and other guilds, and extended the protests to more areas.
The strike action received a lot of media coverage.
Never before had a woman gone on strike on such a large scale.
Women workers continued to strike, causing factories to stop production and Ford to suffer huge losses.
All workers, including male workers, are required to return home and wait for work.
The loss of income has led to the dissatisfaction of a large number of male workers.
They oppose equal pay for men and women for equal work, believing that men are the main force in earning money to support their families, and women should not strike.
Rita's husband is also devastated and has an argument with Rita.
He likes to drink, but he is not drunk;
Didn't mess with women;
Never hit anyone, not even a child...
What should have been taken for granted is seen by the husband as a special preferential treatment for the wife.
All this makes Rita feel extremely absurd.
The vacillation of the guilds led to the failure of the second strike protest.
Just when Rita was discouraged, an unexpected guest came to the door.
Pei Chunhua plays the wife of a ford executive.
She could not resist the impulse in her heart and said that she fully supported the protest.
Graduated from a world-class university, she loves to work and read.
However, now she has become a housewife, taking care of the children, cooking food, receiving guests every day, and being treated as a fool by her husband.
Not content with this, Rita decides to go to the National Guild Meeting to enlist the support of more guild members.
Without the imaginary passion, Rita walked up to the podium nervous and trembling.
She was nothing more than an ordinary woman.
In order to fight for the rights and interests that you deserve, even if you are cramped and uneasy, you must go on with firm faith.
With the personal experience from the heart, it tells the true demands of women.
Rita's speech impressed the guild members, and eventually the guild approved a proposal in support of the women workers in Dagenham.
Employment Secretary Barbara Cassell was also shaken and invited Rita for an interview, despite pressure from Ford.
Before the interview, a reporter asked: If Ms. Cassell said "no way", how do you deal with it?
Rita, who gained support and understanding, confidently refuted the reporter: We are all women, don't ask such stupid questions.
Eventually, Rita's determined success persuaded Cassell.
The hourly wages of female workers rose to 92 per cent of male workers.
Moreover, the government will support the enactment of the Equal Pay Act for Equal Work to legalize the system.
There is no shortage of heart-warming small details in the film, and women of different identities and statuses unite to form a "community of destiny".
Ford's executives wanted to lure the girl with the model dream and make her stop protesting.
Unexpectedly, the girl directly wrote "EQUAL PAY" (equal pay for equal work) on her body.
In order to meet Cassell, Rita borrowed brand-name clothes, but found that Cassell wore it as an affordable brand.
The details reflect the beautiful values of respect, equality, unity and justice that the film wants to express.
The film ends with the laughter of the female workers.
But the reality is not so idealistic.
The UK Equal Pay Act was not formally implemented until 1975, five years after its passage.
Despite the legal basis, in reality equal pay for equal work may not be enforced.
2019 data shows that almost 80% of UK companies still have higher pay levels for men than women.
This reminded Xiangyu of another British film.
Women Suffrage tells the history of Women's Struggle for Suffrage in Britain.
But today, more than a hundred years later, Britain's political gender gap is still evident.
The process of striving for legislation has itself been extremely long and difficult.
Bigger conundrums lie ahead: all sorts of gray areas, discretion.
At the end of the day, the perception hasn't really changed.
It is also a general dilemma concerning human rights.
To this day, the anti-sexist, racist movement continues.
According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2020, it will take 99.5 years to completely eliminate the gender gap.
In education, the workplace, politics and other fields, we may not see the realization of gender equality in our lifetimes.
But looking back, equal pay for equal work, freedom of marriage, freedom of reproduction...
Many of the rights we take for granted were utopian decades ago.
Therefore, there is no need to be too pessimistic, although the road is long and long, but every struggle is accelerating the process of equality.