Bread and Dripping
In this film four women recount their lives in Australia during the bleak years of the economic depression of the 1930's. Unemployment was widespread and welfare services all but non-existent. The effects of this situation on women as workers, wives and mothers has received little attention to date, largely because women's unemployment is not regarded as an authentic social problem and their employment in the home is not regarded as “real” work.
This attitude has helped to obscure the real tragedies of the depression; women forced into prostitution in order to support themselves and their families; women “lucky” enough to be in work trying to support families on a woman's wage – at that time 52% of the male wage; having to face the consequences of unemployed husbands and fathers refusing to accept state welfare because it was “shameful”. The tragedy and humour of the songs sung by the women in kitchens with empty cupboards and streets filled with both despair and resistance, embody the courage that made these women “the battlers”.
‘Bread and Dripping’ makes extensive use of archival footage and photographs from the 1930's to present a fascinating insight into the lives of women and how they were affected individually and as a group during this time. The issues raised in the film have an ironic pertinence as western economics move further into recession and the cry is once again raised that women in employment are taking men's jobs.
Description source: Circles Catalogue (circa 1983). Compiled by Helen MacKintosh and Margaret Gillan. Edited by Felicity Sparrow.
