Gender bias in theatre.

It sounds like a great idea, but I like writing women who are in fact women. One of the sad consequences of modern feminism was for women to feel they had to behave like men in order to achieve their goals or gain respect. How many female politicians are very feminine? At the end of the day men and women are very, very, very different. We think incredibly differently, process the world differently, respond to crisis and problems differently, therefore deal with conflict in a dramatic context differently. If female writers are being discriminated against, the utter loss, the great tragedy is that the difference is lost. Who wants to go to the theater just to here the same old perspective? Art is about experiencing something from an alien perspective to your own, yet still connecting, relating to it. If we only ever embrace art that expresses our own opinions, feelings, viewpoints and processes we might as well be reading our diary's or talking to the mirror. Of course I do write character driven work most of the time. When I write professionally for children's theater, the character genders can and often do have to be swapped around...simply due to the resources of the theater companies I work for, so I am not criticizing at all the concept of gender neutral characters. Just pointing out that the answer to discrimination isn't necessarily pretending everyone is the same, but having the courage to embrace differences.