Women of Munster hear my Cry #WakingTheFeminists

Women Of Munster Hear My Cry

#WakingTheFeminists

A great feminist movement has started in this country. It has come as a reaction to The Abbey Theatre 2016 commemorative programme  Waking The Nation. The male heavy programme highlights the gender inequality in the arts, and in particular concerning female playwrights, directors, and actors. It was Lian Bell who coined #WakingTheFeminists. For those of you not familiar with theatre, Lian is the body and soul behind Dublin Fringe Festival as well as many other projects. It’s fitting that Ms. Bell should first tweet #WakingTheFeminists on October 31^st - the pagan eve of Samhaim. It is said that Samhaim marks the liminal between the natural world and the world of spirits, and therefore traditionally great feast and bonfires have been lit to ward off any evil spirits. In a way #WakingTheFeminists is exactly that: A fire we can all feed to ward of the evil spirit of male heavy arts programming, and ultimately prevent the female voice from “being airbrushed from history”.

What Great Spirit has awoken? This is a question I’ve asked myself many times in the past year. I’ve been digging down into Ireland’s past, studying the voices of women and Irish Nationalism (See In Their Own Voice Ed. Margaret Ward) and although I’ve felt their plea and respect everything they address and say, I’ve had to resist, on several occasions, to write plays that romanticize these figures.  This is not to say they do not influence me; but the incremental step in the evolution of our social history is to awaken the contemporary voice of female theatre makers. This I feel passionately about, and I’m stunned to see how my feelings on the matter, are shared by the wider community of female theatre makers. We want to hear the voice of today, to see the visions of today’s directors, and the interpretations of our amazing ensemble of female contemporary performers, and we are awake to this goal. The object now, is to get the debate fired up, and drive on until boards tremor and roar with the might and power of female theatre makers.

If I was to be completely honest, one fear I had before they launched The Abbey Programme is it would include women writers, and foreground the female voice, but it would do so using richly romantic material that fails to resonate with the women of Ireland today. However, there is no risk of this happening now (Phew!). Therefore it seems in terms of having control over what the public experience as an Irish female voice from now on, the ball is completely in our court. Indeed it seems The Waking The Nation Programme has presented more of an opportunity than a set back- but that doesn’t mean it’s off the hook L

However, if we are going to look at this as an opportunity for to debate Equality in the Arts, why not take the opportunity further and seize this moment to build an even greater fire, and set up a platform for a national debate on Gender Equality in Ireland today. Straddling both the creative and academic fields personally, I see the same problems in Academia as I do the Arts, and we all know it stretches into every corner of society, so why not just take it on as a subject, expose it for what it really is, be done with it, and move on…? Is this possible? Or, is this waxing wholly optimism?

What I have noticed is the need for more women of Munster to get involved. We must boot up and thread on the twitter feed, and support our sisters in the National debate on Gender Equality. One idea I have is that everyone (who wants to participate) addresses the issues of gender inequality as they experience it themselves personally. I encourage the women of Munster to share their stories in the form of a blog (or you can just tweet a few words but make sure to hash tag #WakingTheFeminists when you do so).  All stories are important. The more specific the story to you, the better! This is about reclaiming voice, and sustaining it in a way that is persistent with the goal of a country where gender equality is once and for all achieved.

All of us are involved, it’s everyone’s responsibility, and the discussion has started

- So let’s get stuck in, and although I say women this is not to ever say I would exclude men…but it’s about illuminating the issues in order to tip the scales -

Jennifer Rogers

Jennifer is a writer/researcher based in Cork. 5 of her plays have been staged nationally and internationally to date. Jennifer's current play BURN will be staged in July 2016.

For further information contact: rogjenny@gmail.com