The Ongoing Fight for Women’s Rights

The Ghosts of Buxley Hall is a lighthearted film about a trio of ghosts helping a young boy, and in the process saving the school they live in. As in many Disney films the themes are layered. Not all family is safe. Help can come from unexpected places. Women can be equals in the workplace and the battlefield. And, you can put aside your difference for a common cause.

General Eulace C. Buxley (Dick O’Neill) built a military academy for boys. Now years later his descendant Colonel Joe Buxley (Monte Markham) is being forced to make the school co-educational to keep the school open. Joe has asked Emily Wakefield (Renne Jarrett) of the Wakefield School for Girls to come to Buxley Military Academy for boys after they lost their patron, and subsequently their school building. This arrangement allows both schools to remain open as The Buxley Academy for boys and girls.

It is worth noting that just a few years before this movie was made, Emily Wakefield would not have been allowed to run her school without a male patron. The 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) made it unlawful for banks to discriminate based on gender or marital status. In 1976 when the banks had continued their business as they liked, feeling the fine was the price of doing business, the law was strengthened with amendments by adding race, color, religion, age, use of public assistance, or national origin could also not be used in the making of financial decisions related to bank accounts and credit.

The problem? Colonel Joe Buxley doesn’t want the ladies underfoot anymore than the General does. The General’s portrait is in Joe and Emily’s office. Through this portrait he hears that the school is in trouble and Joe has had to turn to the aid of women. He awakens, and with the help of his wife, Bettina Buxley (Louise Latham), and his best friend Sergeant-Major Chester B. Sweet (Victor French) attempts to rid the school of the girls as soon as possible.

The good news? Joe has just gotten a new enrollee who comes from money. His uncle George Ross (John Ericson), has promised that if Jeremy (Rad Daly) is happy he will help in any way he can. Jeremy befriends Posie (Tricia Cast), and becomes invested in the girls staying at the school.

The wrench? Jeremy’s non-custodial aunt Ernestine (Ruta Lee), is looking to get rich quick off her nephew’s fortune. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

The twist? Even as The General asks his own wife for assistance, he and Joe are learning that their first line of defense has always been the women close to their side. Emily fights hard to ensure that her girls are treated fairly and not unjustly blamed for every wrong doing at Buxley. Bettina is quick to observe the freedoms that women have earned since she has died. Emily even mentions that “Women have been treated as equals at West Point and Annapolis [referencing the Naval Academy] for two decades now [likely referring to when women were allowed to join combat through the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948]!” Bettina shows that even in her day people weren’t helpless during the pillow fight scene, where she can be seen encouraging one of the young ladies, “Hit him back honey. He started it!” Men have gone to war for centuries and the women left behind pick up the slack. They become family protector, bread earner, father and mother in one package doing whatever it takes to survive. Women earned the right to fight alongside men in the military and in local law enforcement. Women earned the right to vote. To help make the laws the dictate our lives. Many of women’s rights have only been granted in the last 100 or so years. To this day there is a difference in what a woman makes and what a man makes (typically men make more doing the same job with same responsibilities or fewer). While the gender war may rage on, I dare to ask, are you fighting the right enemy?