Equality between men and women is a struggle that has been going on since time immemorial, but the movie Mary Poppins saw the beginning of strong feminist characters.
This is how such necessary movements as feminism and the arrival of feminist symbols that, until recently, were attributed a connotation closer to the perverse and demonic than to the struggle for equality, came about.
The fact of not being able to vote simply because you are of the opposite sex, or society’s astonishment at seeing a woman working outside the home, caused anger in the vast majority of countries in the 20th century.
What’s more, any woman who stepped outside the wheel was fiercely pigeonholed and almost always associated with a lack of femininity. That is why characters like Mary Poppins were an inspiration for many people who decided to join or continue the fight for real equality.
The importance of ‘Mary Poppins’ in the feminist struggle
At a time when ‘Disney princesses’ were shown to the world as people who were almost always dependent on the presence of a ‘prince’ to rescue them, ‘Mary Poppins’ appeared, slowly descending from the heights in her umbrella to make it clear that a woman does not have to depend on anyone to shape her life.The great peak of popularity of this story took place in 1964 with the well-known musical comedy directed by Robert Stevenson and set in the city of London at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, women did not have the right to vote in England and this is where the first message of equality appears: the suffragette struggle.
The climax of the reflection of 1960s society is shown when the avowed suffragette states: “For equality in living and in dress too, we must all fight a war without quarter. No more humiliation and no more suffering”, says Winifred Banks amidst the mad cries of the maids as she lifts her skirt. A clear parallel with the society of those times in which the symbol of a woman leaving her children and home to fight for fundamental rights was considered to be something frowned upon or not very dignified.