The Woman’s Film (1961-70) The Woman’s Film (1961-70) is a documentary created by the San Francisco Newsreel. This filmmaking collective was one of the many groups behind self-representational works addressing women’s oppression (Lesage 223). Known to many as the first feminist documentary, The Woman’s Film marks the era of the Second Wave Feminism in its quest to explore the female oppression that extends beyond the issue of gender into the domains of race, sexuality, and class. Women’s Liberation Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s aimed to unite women in moral solidarity based on shared experiences of patriarchal oppression. The predecessor of this radical movement was the practice of consciousness-raising groups, or meetings
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Their faces are not seen; their questions are not heard – all attention is directed at the film subjects. The novelty of feminist documentaries is featuring women as camera subjects, not objects (Lesage 235). Filmmaking is a selective process, and the very act of focusing a camera on someone or something attributes importance to it. Thus, when the communal setting is revealed, the power of the moment lies not only in the fact that these women gather together to discuss their lives but also in the fact that this is what the camera chooses to capture. As a product of a visual medium, The Woman’s Film delivers its message through both content and form. It interlaces interviews of women with stock footage and inserts. One of the striking examples is the montage that juxtaposes advertisements of household products with film subjects performing household chores, the main focus being women’s hands. The play on the glamorized and the real suggests society’s part in not only forming but also in embracing an unrealistic idea of a housewife’s life. This misleading perception facilitates the dismissal of a mere possibility that a woman at home may not be content with her life: how can she be unhappy – she has everything she needs at home! This aspect of the personal is expressed by multiple women, which elevates the issue to a higher, more public level. What makes it political is the mutual realization of oppression and the subsequent action-taking on the part of the
Their faces are not seen; their questions are not heard – all attention is directed at the film subjects. The novelty of feminist documentaries is featuring women as camera subjects, not objects (Lesage 235). Filmmaking is a selective process, and the very act of focusing a camera on someone or something attributes importance to it. Thus, when the communal setting is revealed, the power of the moment lies not only in the fact that these women gather together to discuss their lives but also in the fact that this is what the camera chooses to capture. As a product of a visual medium, The Woman’s Film delivers its message through both content and form. It interlaces interviews of women with stock footage and inserts. One of the striking examples is the montage that juxtaposes advertisements of household products with film subjects performing household chores, the main focus being women’s hands. The play on the glamorized and the real suggests society’s part in not only forming but also in embracing an unrealistic idea of a housewife’s life. This misleading perception facilitates the dismissal of a mere possibility that a woman at home may not be content with her life: how can she be unhappy – she has everything she needs at home! This aspect of the personal is expressed by multiple women, which elevates the issue to a higher, more public level. What makes it political is the mutual realization of oppression and the subsequent action-taking on the part of the