A prominent issue in today’s artistic world is the presence of gender inequality in the arts. Theatre is known to be quite a progressive industry but it still tends to lag behind when it comes to equal gender representation and acknowledgement of female achievement in the arts. Some believe that what artists can do in their communities to bring out gender parity relies on relationships. On actively supporting and celebrating female artists successes. And just in a constant effort to make a spot at the table. So, what is it that is being done and needs to be done to make sure all voices are heard? The world is ever changing, but theatre still remains as a medium. The messages travel far into the rest of our world. And only when all voices are represented in theatre will we have any intelligent conversation and an accurate depiction of this diverse world that we inhabit.
A majority of popular female characters presented in historical theatre were written by men, meaning these voices that are excused as female representation aren’t actually female at all. The first recorded female playwright was Hrothsvitha, a German playwright. She is often dismissed seeing as her shows were never recorded as having been performed. Many historians, however, believe that her performances were held in private, for small groups of women who were a part of her female religious group; but no one learns about that in class. Not only were the roles written by men; they actually were played by men as well up until 1660. The first widely acclaimed actress on stage was an Italian named Isabella Andreini who was a member of a company called the Gelosi. The first recorded female actor a little closer to home in England on stage was Margaret Hughes, who played Desdemona in Thomas Killigrew’s production of Othello following the downfall of Cromwell’s puritanical government. Until then, young boys or feminine men almost always played the female roles. The church acted as the main obstacle in the gradual ascent of a female presence in the theater, claiming women who showed themselves in public were to be immoral and dirty.
In the act of breaking the norm, Victorian-Era Burlesque Theatre gained popularity in the 19th century in both England and America, in which women played loud, funny, and sexy characters, often times playing men as well. Although the gender reversal and flashy parts often came with general pushback from the public eye, they certainly allowed the women to break free of some of the social norms placed on them at the time and embrace sexuality at their own call. Burlesque feeded into the class tensions between the working classes and the aristocracy of the time, seeing as the aristocracy’s view of female actors on stage paralleled prostitution because they were selling their talent for money. But performers in these burlesque shows grabbed these stereotypes by the balls and put themselves in control of how they were being portrayed. Burlesque today lacks appeal to the general American public seeing as most audiences are desensitized to nudity due to its massive presence in the media; burlesque had died, but not for forever. In the 1990s, “Neo-Burlesque”, which combined the traditional style of Burlesque theatre with contemporary ideas of the growing feminism movement and the queer theory, was born.
Before the mid 19th century, the socio-cultural conditions of the time period influenced how women were presented on stage in the theater. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Ziegfeld’s Follies were annually performed stage spectaculars, in which women cast were held to unbelievably high standards in the audition room. Each year, he would revamp his requirements until he had eventually decided that each woman must be 5’5, have a weight of 125 pounds, have a shoe size of 5 and a stringent list of other bodily measurements in order to even be seen for a part let alone actually considered. This leaked out from the theater into the sociocultural beliefs of the world, reflecting itself in playboy models, Disney princesses, and Barbie Dolls, sadly remaining relevant to this day. In the time of Ziegfeld, women were fighting for suffrage and the ability to join the work force, Ziegfeld profited from glorifying the “all American girl”, more interested in setting unrealistic beauty standards, tainting the sanctity of the theatre. Then emerged the liberated “flapper girl”, who was free from the Victorian-era restraints and flaunted her disdain for social and sexual norms. Obviously, the majority of society was fed up with change and were neither ready or willing to see women as equals on the stage. The gorgeous, sexually liberated, but brainless and small “Ziegfeld Girl” was easier for the public to swallow than the demanding, abrasive suffragette.
That’s a lot about the past, so what is it that is being done about all of this today? Cindy Cooper is a playwright, journalist, and author who in 2009 put together a timeline of the movement to make theater an all inclusive place. This timeline tracks from 1979-2009, a full history would fill volumes. A common theme of the time line is the building of platforms and organizations for discussion and a dialogue which is step one. One of these platforms of discussion called The American Theatre Association Conference was the birthplace of the idea for The League of Professional Theatre Women; a “non profit organization that seeks to promote visibility and increase opportunities for women in the professional theatre.” (TLOPTW home page) She suggested getting 50/50 by 2020 which lead to the founding of that organization. The League of Professional Theatre Women hold countless discussions and rallies such as the 5th annual Women Stage the World Rally in New York City in 2017. There have been legal avenues explored through proposals to connect public funding to equal opportunity efforts with no luck. There have definitely been protests; it was once proposed to hold a Women in Theatre “day of absence” in order to shine a light of the very real problem in disparity of hiring women. The organization Women Stage the World, holds an annual costume parade in Times Square featuring historical women. And another organization called Guerilla Girls have staged “girlcotts” where you girlcott theaters that don’t hire women.
Studies show that a script submitted under a male author’s name will get better recommendations from literary departments than the same script submitted under a female author’s name; this proves that at the end of the day, the quality of the script will inevitably be overshadowed by the subconscious gender bias. So, what do we do about this unconscious gender bias? Some believe that what artists can do in their communities to bring out gender parity relies on relationships. On actively supporting and celebrating female artists’ successes. About making a spot at the table that women don’t have up until now. Taryn Verley from The Growler says, “The more diverse your decision makers are, the more profitable you are. The more balance in terns of gender, the more balance in terms of race, you get smarter when you have the different perspectives in the room. Make a concerted effort to have women and people of color in the decision making. Always bring the numbers to light. Cultivate relationships with women artists, cultivate relationships with women playwrights.”
In conclusion, the messages travel far into the rest of the world. All marginalized groups have so much to bring to the table, if they only had a seat at the table. And only when all voices are represented in theatre will we have any intelligent conversation and an accurate depiction of this diverse world we live in. So what needs to be done to have every voice be heard? Little girls and women need to be encouraged in curiosity. There need to be more female writers of all economic and ethnic backgrounds in order to put the words in the mouths of the representation in order to make sure the words speak true to that specific experience. Female artists need to be just as widely encouraged and nurtured as their male counter parts, even behind the scenes in the production room. Theaters as establishments can help by adjusting theater seasons to tell all stories brought to the table in order to create equal opportunities for all voices to be heard.