By the time the movie "Mary Poppins" (1964) came out, political satire was not controversial. So portraying Mrs. Banks as a suffragette radical, was not unusual. (That itself was kind of sexist, ironically. The suffragettes were the radicals. The suffragists were more moderate.) The song piece itself in the movie was daring for the time. It makes references to feminism that people in the UK and those elsewhere who knew the history of the movement would recognize. And at least one reference to free love. In that song Winifred Banks is coming home from a suffragette rally. (For dignified upper class women. Think of Beatrice Arthur as Maude). She tells how Mrs. Whitbourne-Allen chained herself to the wheel of the prime minister's carriage. And Mrs. Ainslie was carried off to prison "singing and scattering pamphlets all the way". Unaware of what Katie Nanna and her two maids are trying to tell her, of her missing children, she tell Katie Nanna "I always knew you were one of us". And then goes on to sing the song, singing "From Kensington to Billingsgate One hears the restless cries From every corner of the land: womankind arise Political equality and equal rights with men Take heart for Mrs. Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again". Kensington was the richest section of London and Billingsgate was the poorest. Meaning they were all united together, regardless what their class was. Emmeline Pankhurst, who died in 1928, was a political activist for women's rights in England. She was arrested eventually seven times. But she did things like slap a police officer in the face, just to get arrested, explaining in 1908 "We are here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers". Mrs. Banks also lifts her skirt revealing her bloomers, which makes Mrs. Brill the cook scream. Feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft advocated free love in the 18th century, which included things like family planning and sex education. Also, bloomers are interesting. Bloomers were developed by women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer in the late 19th century. She agreed that women shouldn't show any leg, or even ankle. But she thought they were more comfortable for ladies to wear. People's main objection to bloomers were that they looked too much like men's pants. (Disney put out a film with a four-letter word in 1980, the first time for them ever. But now no one even follows things like that anymore.)
