Where are all the women, indeed? It's always teed me off no end to look up the new videos on TED and see so few women (2 out of 15 on today's first page). Ditto re the Writer's Almanac, although today's featured writer is poet Sharon Olds, with a marvelous poem about her daughter. (Keep up the good work, Garrison. Remember, MORE WOMEN....or at least as many as the men.)A friend, Katelin Wilcox's, one woman show last night, performed at Theater Row on 42nd Street in the United Solo Fest left me thinking thinking thinking. She was stunning in a brilliantly written piece she herself wrote of the tale of Bertolt Brecht (1989-1956), or rather, the tale of his women. She switched between the roles of five fundamental women in the playwright's life - their love, losses and perspectives. These women each not only fueled Brecht's creativity, but were often the literal composers of his work, only eventually to be discarded. It was a feminist tale and one that, unfortunately, could be told countless times across history. One of the women, Elisabeth Hauptmann, literally wrote the piece that launched Brecht's career (The Threepenny Opera) and received next to no credit for having done so. If you look up the piece, she is still often listed, at best, as a 'collaborator' - when 80-90% of the writing was hers. The women in his life were writers, actors, creative forces who were stunted merely because they were women (Brecht seized the opportunity to make use of their force and these women often saw the 'collaboration' as the only way their voices could be heard, having been rejected from publishers and industry heads repeatedly).
The performance and its story were such a great illustrative response to anyone who asks, where were women in history? Artists, writers, thinkers, philosophers - they were there.
And thank you, Ms. Johnson, for blogging so all of us out here can see your spirit.
XE--It's enough to tick a person off, isn't it? Things are sooooo much better now than years ago; but, we still need to keep up the effort to make women in the arts more visible/audible.
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From this man's point of view, I find female artists (visual or written) to be much more interesting than most males of the same age. There is a depth of emotion and expression that their male counterparts often lack.
ReplyDeleteMost of the blogs I read or sample are written by women. They tend to contain less ranting and stuff that gets under my skin.
I've noticed this, too, but we women are often our own worst enemies. I'm guessing that my blog is a 'chick blog' because mostly women read it. I checked and I read men and women's blogs pretty much equally. I try to refrain from ranting too often out of respect for my blood pressure although, given current events, it's getting a LOT harder!!!! Sigh.
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