Feminist Struggles in Caryl Churchill’s "Top Girls"

Churchill’s play is often described as a feminist play because the play discusses feminist issues in several ways. Top Girls shows us the challenges women face with in this patriarchal society and even the significant opening scene is enough to show us how much women were suffering throughout the centuries because of the patriarchal society.

Later, we see that Marlene—who is our protagonist—has a successful career, she is a powerful business woman, but it wasn’t easy for her to have a successful career like that because she is a woman and she had to work really hard, had to make great sacrifices and also had to deal with sexism. For example, we see that Mrs Kidd says: “It had crossed my mind if you were unavailable after all for some reason, he would be the natural second choice I think, don’t you? I’m not asking.” She wants Marlene to give up the job so Howard will be chosen for the same position and it makes us see she had to fight against sexism not only coming from men, but also coming from another woman as well.

The play also makes us see some issues women have about their roles in society. For example, we see that Marlene’s relationship with her sister is not any good since she has chosen her career over her kid—who believes Marlene is her aunt— and her family. And another example can be given from one of the interviews in the play: “No kids for a bit?” we hear Marlene asking Jeanine. She wants to know whether Jeanine wants to have a child soon or not, because employers don’t like kids or married women since it means that person won’t be staying there for a long time: she will have to quit the job to take care of her child, etc. It makes one question: Is it impossible for women to have it both ways? Is it impossible to have a fulfilling career and a family life?

In the play, we see how women start to stay on their own feet; we see how Marlene left home and started her own life. Nell can be shown as another example since we hear her talking about how Derek asked her to marry him, and she says: “I could go on working and not marry him.” She wants to be on her feet, we see a representation of a free woman image in terms of Nell. She doesn’t want to get married and lose her freedom because of that.

We can say that the social life in England has changed, women have gained their independence by working and they didn’t need men to protect them anymore. We see this change through Marlene. We also see it wasn’t easy, and it was harder for women to find a job. It is important because it paints a sharp, realistic picture of general business life and British social life and shows us the difficulties women face. It also shows us the difficulties that working-class women face and much more.