Of the five Bluffers’ guides we’ve done so far this term, we are yet to feature a female playwright. To what, dear readers, ought this be attributed? Does Cherwell Stage hate women? Perhaps a better question is: where are all the female playwrights? The Wikipedia page lists a paltry 141 names, of which this reviewer had previously only come across three (one of whom is dead). It is unsurprising, then, that of the many productions being put on this term, not one is written by a woman. The problem seems to lie in the way in which contemporary women’s writing is received. Last week’s allegations of sexism in the Jesus College JCR followed the opposition of a motion supporting making female empowerment events constitutional, where the most vocal adversaries were female. A similar movement, where women are not supporting other women, appears to be taking place internationally in Stage communities. Emily Glassberg Sands, a Harvard economist, conducted an extensive study which gave concrete evidence about the way in which female dramatists find it harder to have their work performed.
Sands reviewed 20,000 playwrights in the Dramatists Guild and Doollee.com, an online database of playwrights, and discovered that there were twice as many male playwrights as female ones and that these men tended to produce work at a substantially faster rate. To an extent, this explains why good scripts by women are in such short supply. Yet the most compelling results from this study are revealed not from the limited number of scripts but from the way in which these scripts are received. Sands sent identical scripts to artistic directors and literary managers around the United States, labelling half the scripts as being by a man (for example, John Doe), and the other half as being by a woman (i.e. Jane Doe). Jane’s scripts received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response than John’s. Clearly, a large part of the problem stems from the way in which women’s work is received. The most troubling thing about this, however, is that these results were ‘driven exclusively by the responses of female artistic directors and literary managers. Men rate men and women playwrights exactly the same.’
Evidently this is a widespread problem in the greater dramatic world, but is the same true within Oxford? The current OUDS president is female, as is half of the committee – a fantastic statistic in a university where women are grossly underrepresented in positions of leadership. Furthermore, the inimitable Meera Syal – actress, singer, writer, playwright, comedienne, and general all-round wonder – judged the OUDS New Writing festival. But it’s not all rosy: of the four plays that were eventually produced this year, all were written by men.
Now is a time to encourage women’s writing, and support its production. The Bluffers’ Guide below highlights the unfortunate stock roles that women so often have to play: women’s writing often features female protagonists, who challenge tedious, two-dimensional representations of women on stage. A call to the women of the Oxford Stage community, then: write. And those around them, support them, if not for the good of the wider community, then because it would be jolly nice to feature a female playwright on the Cherwell Stage page.
