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Clip description
A man and a woman in a car are having a conversation. Jeni (Jeni Thornley), the young office worker, is troubled by what one of her co-workers has discussed with her that day. In the conversation with her boyfriend (John Brotherton) in the car, she exhibits an awakening to the dilemmas of being a woman in Australia in the early 1970s.
Curator’s notes
At that time most women assumed that they would get married and that home and family would be the centre of their lives, even if they did have a job. In 1970, in New South Wales, only about a third of girls completed Year 12 in high school. At work, women were largely limited to support jobs in a rather narrow range of industries. Professions such as nursing and teaching were open to women, and of course there were women who achieved success in other professions, but they were the exception rather than the norm.
By law, women did not receive equal pay with men and in some areas were still required to leave work if they got married so as not to take a job which would otherwise go to a man – the breadwinner. Women who did not have their own income were entirely dependent upon their husband, especially once they had children.
