INJUSTICES

Kathleen Norris on INJUSTICES

My mother was 57 years old in 1974, when something American women now take for granted happened: it became illegal for banks to prohibit women from opening an account without having a man co-sign the application. As recently as 55 years ago, police in New York could arrest anyone not wearing at least three articles of “gender appropriate clothing.” Homosexual acts were illegal in England until 1967; London’s first Gay Pride parade was held in 1972. Same sex marriage was legalized in England, Scotland, and Wales in 2014; in Northern Ireland in 2020 . It became legal in the United States in 2015.

Several recent films have dealt with the inhumane bigotry concerning women and gays that was accepted for too long in “civilized” societies. In Call Jane (above), set in 1968, a college-educated woman with a life-threatening pregnancy must forge her husband’s signature at a bank to obtain a small loan, and can’t tell anyone that it’s for an illegal abortion. The Imitation Game and Benediction, set in 20th century England, offer a sad commentary on how gay men coped with the hypocrisy and cruelty of laws that criminalized their sexuality. But I’m intrigued by a daring film, Victim, that was made in 1961, when the “anti-gay” laws were still in effect. Much of its poignancy comes from the fact that its star, Dirk Bogarde, was an in-the-closet gay man. He gives a powerful performance as Melville Farr, a respected, married barrister who is being blackmailed because of his attraction to a young workman.