How Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ gave voice to working women

In the mid-1970s, at the height of the feminist movement, a group of women in Boston came together to create a forum for working class women to trade stories about their experiences in the office. As they compared notes, they found that they had a lot in common. “They all had stories to tell of not being paid as much as men in their offices, of having their male supervisors take their ideas and take credit for them,” says Ileen DeVault, a professor of labor history at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But they also wanted to use their burgeoning solidarity to improve their standing in the workplace. They started trying to organize office workers and secretaries, a movement that eventually coalesced into a formal union called SEIU Local 925. When this organizing campaign caught the eye of Jane Fonda, it inspired the 1980 film 9 to 5, a runaway success that starred the late Dolly Parton—in her first major acting role—alongside Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Parton famously wrote and performed the eponymous theme song for the movie, which went on to win multiple Grammy awards and became something of an anthem for working women. (In a meta moment, Parton says she …