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- Cary Churchill wrote Top Girls as a response to Margaret Thatcher, who served as Britain’s right-wing Prime Minister from 1979-1990.
- Set 1980s, Magaret Thatcher 1879 elected, got voice coaching, policies were deeply conservative and anti-feminist
- Churchill had visited America and met many women excited by the new opportunities available to them as a result of feminism- skeptical of whether or not these opportunities would actually be a victory for feminism.
- In Top Girls, she criticizes the extreme individualism and hyper professionalism that capitalist society valued. The play is particularly concerned with the tendency of 1980’s feminism to equate liberation with financial and professional success, excluded working class, women forced to choose between careers and motherhood
- Contemporary capitalism -individuals are born as autonomous public persons with equal access to the market, get wealth through hard work. Meanwhile, individuals also have the freedom to pursue their own religious, moral, and romantic desires in their private lives- Churchill challenges
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- Language and Identity-Each woman speaks in the idiom of her particular historical era, but their speeches overlap, emphasizing their common experiences resisting patriarchy across generations. Also indicator of class status and social differentiation her depiction of 1970s Britain. The female characters who work at Top Girls – Nell, Win, and Marlene – speak in a casual, slang-heavy manner that places them inside an elite and competitive circle of professional women. Joyce and Angie use caustic, curse-laden language that marks them as working class individuals. Angie’s simple vocabulary, direct and emotional- Language link to Magaret Thatcher, women divided by class, competition
- Stage directions and stage entrances- when waitress enters, not notice or care- Thatcherite Feminism, no concerned with helping others, society, women in work in subservient roles, women who have gained success don't care about collective success- women should take into
account women of all classes and backgrounds, not just individual women,
otherwise, oppression from men will not be beaten, as still the majority of
high paid work is done by men and many women, like the waitress, are consigned
to jobs without authority.
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- Public vs Private Life- Marlene has achieved professional success at the cost of a meaningful personal life whereas Joyce got married and became a stay-at-home mom- In Act 3, neither Marlene nor Joyce is completely fulfilled - leading the audience to ponder the ways in which women can strike a balance between work and life. Men like Howard Kidd, depend upon women to secure their private lives - having their children and running their homes- Link to Thatcherite feminism
- Women who attend Marlene's dinner party have transcended gender roles during their lives and have occupied positions generally associated with men: Joan was Pope, Gret led an army (of women), Nijo violently retaliated against her lord, the Emperor, and Isabella spent her life exploring and writing books about her travels- all given up something in order to achieve, struggle of women throughout history
- Conflict between other women
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- Nijo saw ‘her
daughter once’ and ‘she would be sent to the palace like’ she was, Isabelle
Bird talks over Lady Nijo, talking how the ‘legs of iron’ on her horse- no sympathy towards Nijo, insists on talking about herself, disarray between women, constant fight
woman have to be heard in an oppressive society, society at the
time; that women in high ranks, like Margaret Thatcher, are often very
unsympathetic to women in the working class or in more subservient roles, like
the waitress.
- ‘if you’d wanted to [leave] you’d have done
it’’
- ‘I fancy a rare steak’
- ‘you can stay there and die’
- ‘the waitress starts to clear the first course’,
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