Karen Nussbaum is not one of those intellectuals of the Women’s Lib, the women’s liberation movement, who burn their bras on feminist platforms. In 1968, in Chicago, she demonstrated against the Vietnam War. The following year, she went to cut sugar cane in Cuba, with the Venceremos Brigade, to help the Castro revolution – it took five days to travel, she recalls, on a cattle transport boat from Canada. Since her return in 1971, she has worked as a secretary at Harvard University in Boston. She is alone in the office one afternoon when a student walks through the door. “He stared at me, she says, and he said, “Anyone there?” »
The student’s name faded into the dustbin of machismo, but her myopia led to one of the most significant episodes of 1980s feminism in the United States, the Nine to Five movement. (“from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.”, in reference to the typical working hours of American employees). Followed by the film of the same name – and hilarious – with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. In France, the comedy, titled, it is true, how to get rid of your boss, went unnoticed. In the United States, it was a great success of the year 1980. “And the beginning of a social movement”, adds Karen Nussbaum, who served as director of the Department of Labor under Bill Clinton before founding the Working America organization, affiliated with the AFL-CIO union.
The activist knew Jane Fonda from the anti-war protests. On the sidelines of a political meeting, she tells him about the fed up of the Boston secretaries. Employees are tired of being invisible, underpaid, called “girls” until their retirement, bypassed in promotions and fired when they are pregnant. Karen explains that she succeeded in mobilizing her colleagues by taking care not to frighten them. It is not a question of trade unionism, even less of feminism. The “libber”activists who advocate “liberation”, are considered sectarian, anti-men. “Most secretaries did not want to identify as feminists, says Karen Nussbaum. They just said, “I don’t like the way I’m being treated.” »
Jane jumps at the chance to produce a film on the political-commercial model she has created since Hollywood shunned her. In search of testimonials, she travels to Cleveland with Karen Nussbaum and director Colin Higgins to meet some forty secretaries. Visitors are stunned by their recriminations. And even more by their fantasies. One admits that she dreamed of running her chef through the coffee grinder…
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