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Top GirlsTop Girls is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It depicts the life of Marlene, a hard-bitten career woman who runs the 'Top Girls' employment agency, and her interactions with her depressed, unemployed sister, Joyce. Marlene has exploited Joyce by convincing her to look after her mentally handicapped daughter so that Marlene could pursue a career. Although the play is set in Britain, it implicitly condemns the increased influence of American feminism. Churchill has stated that the play was inspired by her conversations with American feminists: it comments on the contrast between American feminism, which celebrates individualistic women who acquire power and wealth, and British socialist feminism, which involves collective group gain. In addition, there is also a commentary on Margaret Thatcher, the then Prime Minister, who also celebrated individualism and believed in Reaganomics. Marlene the tough career woman is portrayed as soulless, exploiting other women and suppressing her own caring instincts in the cause of success. The play argues against the style of feminism that simply turns women into new patriarchs and argues for a more socialist feminism that is about caring for the weak and downtrodden. The play is famous for its dreamlike opening sequence in which Marlene meets famous women from history, including Pope Joan, Patient Griselda, the explorer Isabella Bird, Dulle Griet the harrower of Hell, and the Japanese writer Lady Nijo. They behave like a gang of city career women out on the town and gradually get increasingly drunk and maudlin, as it is revealed that each has suffered in similar ways. There is a sense of doubling with each of these women. Bird, like Marlene got to where she was by leaving her sister to deal with family matters. Dulle Griet compares to Angie, Marlene's handicapped daughter, as being disadvantaged and inarticulate.
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