Suffragette

A family.

A job.

A resolute drive to maintain the status quo and make ends meet within de/mobilizing socioeconomic circumstances.

Early twentieth century Britain.

Miserable times for female labourers. They work longer days than men for less money, have to put up with the sexual advances of their bosses to keep their positions, the law favours their husbands who have total control over their households and children, they don't have the right to vote, and can rarely enter male dominated professions; thus, they can't either elect representatives who sympathize with their plights, or provide upstanding examples of competent professional clarity.

The suffragette movement developed in response and the curious young previously unaware Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) soon finds herself caught up in its momentum.

Suffragette uses her husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) to accentuate the obstinate ironclad stereotypical dogma categorically dismissing women's rights, as he never even considers trying to understand suffragette outrage, and locks Maud out of their house, preventing her from seeing her son, after her civil disobedience is noted in the unforgiving press.

The authoritative policeperson (Brendan Gleeson as Inspector Arthur Steed) violently suppressing their movement which becomes more volatile after their right to vote is denied, does begin to consider the logic of their cause, during a powerful scene where Maud, having been thoroughly beaten down for her actions, still argumentatively upholds the rationality of universal suffrage, eyes almost glazing over with despondency, as she boldly reminds him that women make up 50% of the population.

He doesn't suddenly start supporting them, but the change in his demeanour suggests he may have been part of the establishment that eventually granted women freedoms similar to those enjoyed by British men.

Suffragette's about power, and the ways in which an unquestioning adherence to cultural codes of conduct can negatively minimize freedoms for large groups, those benefiting from the composition of the codes not willing to see them modified, those oppressed by them too frightened to speak out, some of them revelling in their advantages, to the point where they'll utilize brutal methods to ensure their authority endures.

It uses the example of a naive heartbreaking beautiful trapped reluctant ingénue and the group she befriends to emphasize their abuses.

It isn't the strongest film I've seen championing the rights of oppressed groups, because it focuses too intently on a small cross-section, and doesn't multidimensionally stratify its intense historical homage.

Nevertheless, by focusing intently on a small cross-section, it does tenderly yet intransigently present the need for gender balance, as well as rights within the workplace, in any time period, by not shying away from and humanizing specific harsh realities, which condescendingly define/d many prolonged historical epochs.

Worth checking out.