Thursday, January 19, 2017
Initiatives for Women in Theatre in the UK and Ireland
HowlRound: Two years ago, a man at a writing workshop was waxing lyrical about a recent ballet performance, in which the showcasing of the male dancers had re-enthused him for the form. He usually complained, “the men are just there as props for the women.” The rebuke, from a woman was unsurprising: “Well, now you know what it’s like for us, don’t you?”
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Here we go, another semester of raging feminism comments from yours truly. What I liked about this article is that it is very frank about the emotional implications of organizations that don't practice gender equality. I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to do a job and to actually be in the group of people society assumes will do that job. Often when women are in leadership roles like board members or directors or any level of management there is a celebration that they have gotten there, as there should be, but there isn't any recognition of that they still aren't in the circle. Just because you're sitting at the table doesn't mean you anyone listens to you, or offers you desert. What this article focuses on, in addition to staggeringly frustrating statistics, is that women don't always try for these larger roles because society doesn't put them in the circle. Not only do the statistics not imply inclusivity but our language doesn't either. Today I sat in an Organizational Behavior class taught by a man, with about 50% men and 50% women in the class. Every single time he mentioned a person in a leadership role he said "man" "guy" or "him". Was it intentional? Probably not, and I am in no way suggesting that he is sexist but our everyday language does not prompt women to reach higher. Every time he says man, I get father away from the circle. Even if he doesn't realize it or anyone else does I am a little father away from being accepted in that role because no one in the class thought of the boss as a woman, we all saw man. even man in that room now sees himself as a someday boss, and the women don't. It is an all to familiar feeling. The initiatives in this article are great, and I am happy that they are succeeding but as we move into the next phase of feminism our language has to start changing to reflect our ideals. Part of creating real gender equality is teaching people of any gender from kindergarten through higher education that they are deserving of equal job opportunity, and that encouragement and expectation of inclusivity will help women gain equality in organizations just as much as the initiatives will.
The thing I enjoyed most about this article was that its point was, essentially, that there’s no excuse for the gender gap that exists in theatre. As the article pointed out, many of the main reasons women are so excluded from participating can be traced back to preconceived gender roles. Eliminate the stigma, and you open a door for women. One line in the article that really struck a chord with me was from Stella Duffy who wrote: “When we do not see ourselves on stage we are reminded, yet again, that the people running our world do not notice when we’re not there.”. This to me is an immediate sign of male privilege. When I walk into a class, rehearsal, or meeting, the first thing I do it see if there are any other women there. It’s immediate. I need to know that if something goes bad, someone has my back. But it seems like when men walk into a room, they don’t take notice if women are absent. I remember once commenting to the band director at my high school that no women were in the drum line. His response was “Really? I hadn’t noticed”. Which could be a way of relieving his male guilt (I don’t see gender so how could this possibly be sexist), but it isn’t a good one. Because I noticed, and the young middle schoolers who watched and wanted to partake noticed. Having women be present and active is not only important, it’s our obligation as artists.
I don't really understand why such a gender gap exists in theatre. Being the culturally inclusive community we are, it is really alarming to hear that this is a problem. I thought that a lot of producers of new works didn't look at the names on submissions because they did "blind reviews" of plays to ensure that sexism and reverse sexism bias (referring to the tendency to accept more work by women to counteract an existing bias towards women that results in a bias towards men) weren't a problem. If they aren't doing that, it certainly would eliminate the problem of plays being produced that are predominantly by male playwrights (under the theoretical assumption that the root of the problem is sexism towards females). Maybe part of the problem is that producers are still putting on more and more older works where the field is primarily dominated by male playwrights and that contributes to this holistic sense of a male-dominated field? I'm glad to see that some theatres are taking initiatives towards resolving this problem because in 2017 and with theatre being the culture that it is, this certainly shouldn't be an issue anymore.
I'm always confused at the fact that an industry so female heavy at lower levels is still dominated by men at the higher professional level. On one hand you have community theatre companies scraping to find guys interested in the craft, but at the same time women are still poorly represented in the professional world. It's definitely not because the men are any smarter or more talented. It just goes to show how deep our world is rooted in androcentrism. I wholeheartedly believe that the best playwrights of recent and future decades are and will be women, largely because women's perspectives have been overlooked for so long. Even though we are all humans in this world, we all experience the world differently and the theatre we create must reflect that. I feel as though the hardest obstacle to overcome as far as female representation in this industry is along the business end. In such a male dominated environment, it's extremely hard to awaken the unconscious collective bias that no doubt influences our entire society. Efforts by companies like these in the U.K. and Ireland should be happening globally in an effort to change the broken systems that impede our growth as an aware and equal community.
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