Workers and Wages
Workers and Wages
This chapter argues that Mrs Warren's Profession provided a model for subsequent feminist and realist dramas which, like Shaw's play, argued that the root cause of prostitution was not women's sexual and moral weakness, but the low wages, limited employment opportunities, and poor working conditions for which society as a whole was responsible. Feminist and suffragist playwrights rewrote familiar plots and situations in order to present woman's sexual exploitation and subjection as a reflection of her economic and social position. A number of musical comedies, ‘bad-girl’ melodramas, and naturalist plays based in industrial towns, by contrast, depicted the sexual autonomy and freedom which could accompany the financial independence of the working woman.
Keywords: shaw, prostitution, wages, realism, suffrage theatre, autonomy, desire, musical comedy, shop girl, bad girl melodrama
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