Gender bias in theatre.

"That's right, I said minority - because isn't that the type of reaction we have to shows about race, or perhaps, religion?" ...Personally? No... "I was a little surprised to find that the monologues were all written by a man... so, no, they weren't about periods, but I actually don't think they provided any insight into 'the female experience' or even 'the human experience' at all." There must have been at least some element or spark in the play for women. After all, it starred two women, Jenny and Rebecca Davis and was directed by a woman, Jenny McNae. I doubt any man was putting the hard word on these ladies to force them to perform the genderist propaganda, so one must conclude that all three women found a valid reason for wanting to perform the text. Might I suggest that you simply saw what you wanted to see when you found out it was written by a man? Also, did anything you saw in the lead up to the show explicitly state that the show offered an 'insight' into the female experience? If it didn't... well then you can't criticise a show for what it never claimed it was trying to do... And by your own logic, who are you to judge whether or not the show offered no insight into the human experience? Did you speak to every patron there? Perhaps it just offered no insight into your experience of being human and therefore you couldn't get into the play and as a result didn't like it, this is fair enough, but it dosen't mean that was everyone else's experience. My point in writing this is to highlight that reactionary pointing of fingers at men only serves to deepen the gender divide (if there is one) rather than to mend it into the understanding of human experience. It goes to show that in stereotyping a male writer writing about females or a male audience member viewing a play written about the female experience it adds hefty evidence to the idea that in many ways women are the architects of their own destruction and are at least as guilty, if it all, as men. Men do the same thing except in true stereotypical fashion, we don't talk about it much and when we do it tends to cop a label like the one a friend of mine once gave a play about men's issues "this has a strong odour of eau de poofter". As for female directors having less success in this town than men... well, I disagree there, I don't think its particularly weighted either way and there is no evidence to suggest that it is. Deckchair up until recently (possibly even still now) had a female AD, and there's as you mentioned Black Swan and PTC and I am sure there are many others inclusive of professional and community companies. Also, we have a tendancy in the Perth arts scene to lean towards positive discrimination in the name of political correctness. It has certainly happened to me. And as a matter of fact, I was suprised to read that women are more inclined to discriminate against women and no I don't think female rivalry is well documented at all... It would set the womens lib movement back thirty years... unless a man was doing the documenting, in which case it would obviously be biased ;)