Everything in Its Place

They talked while the line was cold, three women on upturned crates around a flask of tea, in the voice of people who had rehearsed the conversation for years in their heads and never once been asked to have it aloud.

Ruth went first, practical as a hammer. “There’s a law. The Equal Pay Act. The Sex Discrimination Act. We take Hollis to a tribunal and make the paper work. They’ve been written down for fifty years. I want to see somebody read them.”

Peggy, who had been at the cannery since she was fifteen and had the forearms to prove it, shook her head. “It’s not the men, Ruth. It’s the money. Hollis pays the line what he can get away with, and our wages buy his sherry. Change the system that does it and the pay follows. Win a tribunal and he’ll find another grade to put us in.”

Iris, youngest and loudest, laughed out loud. “It’s men. Foremen, owners, the committee, the front pews at chapel. And at home, who cooks after we’ve packed the tins? The whole town’s built for them. It won’t change until they step off.”

Nobody told her to lower her voice. Nobody tried.

“Three feminisms,” said Jonah, softly, out of the side of his mouth.

“Three explanations for the same payslip,” you said, “and each one right about something.”