Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” the true story behind the anthem (bonus)

In 1980, Dolly Parton released “9 to 5,” a song that became an anthem for office workers everywhere. The song was written for a movie of the same name, starring Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin. But the movie itself was not just a comedy about three women getting revenge on their sexist boss—it was based on a real labor movement started by a group of secretaries in Boston. The movement, also called 9to5, was fighting for basic workplace dignity, equal pay, and an end to sexual harassment. The song, the movie, and the real-life organizing fed into each other, creating a cultural moment that changed how millions of women saw themselves and their jobs.

The real movement behind the movie

The story begins with Karen Nussbaum, a young activist in Boston in the 1970s. She was deeply involved in the anti-war and women’s movements, but to pay the bills she took a clerical job. “I got a job to support my activism in the kind of work that most women did in those days, and that was as a clerical worker,” she says. At the time, millions of women were entering the workforce. By the end of the decade, there were 18 million clerical workers. “If you ask somebody who is a typical worker in America, they most likely say a man in a hard hat, but in fact, literally the most typical worker in America was a woman at a keyboard,” Nussbaum notes.