70s
The Seventies
A Groovy Decade

Equal Pay

Equality for Women

Trico Factory

By the mid-70s half of all women weren't only looking after the household, they were also going out to work. A higher number than ever before.

But women and men weren't paid the same. For every pound a man took home, a woman earned just 75 pence. And for some women, enough was enough.

Brentford, West London. Equal pay for equal work seems a simple enough notion. But, what is equal work? Alongside the Discrimination Act, the Labour government had introduced an Equal Pay Act, meaning that from 1976, women should be paid the same rate as men.

But Brentford's Trico factory, which made car windscreen wipers, continued to pay some of its men MORE than women for the same work.

In May 76, the Trico women walked out on strike. They set up their campaign HQ at the nearby Griffin pub.

Griffin Pub

What I've got here are some of the photos that the women took of their own campaign. This is an awfully long way from the stereotypical image of 1970s strikes, the burly men in donkey jackets warming their hands around brazier's. These are the women taking a stand for themselves.

As the summer heat waves set in, and the British people flocked to the seaside, the women of Brentford picketed on what the press called the Costa Del Trico.

Women at Work

News reporter "Two arrests were made and an already bitter dispute was embittered still further."

The woman received support from the most unlikely sources. Coalminers, steelworkers, dockers. Working-class men.

The woman received support from the most unlikely sources. Coalminers, steelworkers, dockers. Working-class men.

After 21 weeks, with the production lines at a standstill, Trico gave in, bringing an end to what was then Britain's longest-running equal pay dispute. That winter, the victorious women marched back into the factory, the question of sexual inequality now firmly in the public eye.

Bottom Pinched

From baked bean factories to photography labs, women were leaving the production lines to fight their corner. Equal pay, equal rights, hundreds of cases were hitting the headlines. This was a fundamental challenge to the way things worked. After years of second-class status, women of all backgrounds were demanding sweeping change.

What I've got here is a picture of a billboard from the late 1970s, which says so much about how attitudes were changing. It's an ad for a car, for a Fiat. The tagline is, "If it were a lady it would get its bottom pinched." And underneath someone as spray-painted the words, "If this lady was a car she'd run you down."

Of course, sexual discrimination hasn't gone away but it was in the mid-70s the fight for equality really gained momentum.