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Films for International Women's Day

March 8, 2016 | Patton

International Women's Day is a worldwide celebration created in the nineteen-teens to recognize the equal rights of women specifically in labor and suffrage. Today, this celebration takes many forms in different countries. In honor of this day which also takes place during Women's History Month, we offer the following list of historical dramas on these themes of labor, suffrage, and equal rights.

Salt of the earth [videodisc]

A semi-documentary of the year-long struggle by Chicano zinc miners in New Mexico striking against unsafe working conditions. When an injunction is issued against the workers from picketing, the wives take up battle with a fury, leaving the husbands to care for home and children. They finally overcome the forces of the mine owner and the law that backs them up.

Suffragette [videodisc]

Inspired by true events, a moving drama exploring the passion and heartbreak of the women who risked everything in their fight for equality in early 20th century Britain. The story centers on Maud, a working wife and mother whose life is forever changed when she is secretly recruited to join the U.K.'s growing suffragette movement. Galvanized by the outlaw fugitive Emmeline Pankhurst, Maud becomes an activist for the cause alongside women from all walks of life..

North country [videodisc]

Josey Aimes needs a job and goes to work at a Minnesota steel mine after splitting with her violent husband. But the job proves to be almost as harrowing as her marriage. The male miners are resentful of women taking their jobs, so the men verbally abuse and play humiliating pranks on the female miners. After being physically assaulted by a coworker, Josey tries to fight against the harassment, but none of the other women will join her case for fear that things will only get worse. A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the U.S. - Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines.

Silkwood [videodisc]

Karen Silkwood becomes contaminated with plutonium at her job, voices her protest at the indifference and denial of her company, and becomes a threat to the entire nuclear industry and the government agencies that monitor it. Based on a true story.

The miracle worker [videodisc]

A dramatization of the story about the struggle of a Boston teacher, Annie Sullivan, to communicate with and teach the deaf, blind, and mute child, Helen Keller.

Iron jawed angels [videodisc]

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were two defiant suffragist women who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. The two activists broke from the mainstream women's rights movement and created a more radical wing, daring to push the boundaries to secure women's voting rights in 1920. In a country dominated by chauvinism, this is no easy fight. Along the way, sacrifices are made: Alice gives up a chance for love, and collegue Inez Mulholland gives up her life.

Erin Brockovich [videodisc]

An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city's water supply.

Norma Rae [videodisc]

Norma Rae, a textile worker in a small Southern town, discovers that she has a social conscience when a labor organizer arrives at her mill to establish a union.