By Ann Fessler
From 1945-73, 1.5 million unmarried young American women, facing enormous social pressures, surrendered babies to adoption. Lacking sex education and easy access to birth control, they were forced into hiding while pregnant and then into "abandoning" their infants. In her latest film, Ann Fessler, Professor of Photography at Rhode Island School of Design, reprises the subject of her award-winning The Girls Who Went Away (National Book Critics Circle; Ballard Book Prize), which Ms. readers named an all-time best feminist book.
Drawing on interviews with 100 women, Fessler lets them have their say and brings hidden history to light. We hear only their voices, which detail wrenching experiences against images from vintage newsreel and educational films reinforcing stereotypes of women's roles following WWII. This gripping documentary will help today's students grasp what life was like before the sexual and feminist revolutions had fully dawned.
Reviews
~ "A compelling glimpse into an era in which voiceless young women had no rights, rarely saw or held their newborns and were threatened with psychiatric commitment if they questioned the mandate to relinquish a child." - Silverdocs Film Festival
~ "Heart-wrenching,..precise, daunting, and also allusive, this story recalls those bad old days when ignorance, silence, and repression were the preferred social strategies." - Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters
~ "A Girl Like Her packs an emotional wallop greater than most other films released this year, documentary or fiction." - Dan Schindel, Otste
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