9 to 5 and the Role of Women as America's Social Safety Net
Years ago we tried to get 9 to 5 on the Sunday night rotation only for Netflix to pull its availability. We punted to Steel Magnolias, a film definitely worth talking about, but that experience always left me wanting. 9 to 5 is such an important film to talk about women, the 70s & 80s, and where we are now. Unfortunately, in the six years we’ve been running HATM, it has not been available on any of the providers we use.
Fortunately I know Jessica Calarco, who just wrote an amazing new book that fits perfectly in conversation with the movie. So we get into the changing and sometimes unchanging roles of women in the workplace, her work examining the role of women as America's social safety net, and the one and only Dolly Parton. Let's go.
About our guest
A Sociologist and Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jessica is an award-winning teacher, a leading expert on inequalities in family life and education, and the author of Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Social Safety Net (Portfolio/Penguin, 2024). Her previous books include Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research (with Mario Small; University of California Press, 2022), Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School (Oxford University Press, 2018), and A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (Princeton University Press, 2020).