Feminist Theatre

Feminists realized the absence of women in theatre in the 1960s. After this awareness, they tried to take roles in feminist theatre. Women started to write plays and they wanted to exhibit these plays. Marginalized topics about society, politics, and gender roles started to show themselves in theatres with the help of the Feminists. As known, censorship finished in theatre in 1968 and this event helped feminists because they became freer in theatre. Patriarchal British society lost a lot of power after this freedom. In this context, it has been adopted to open the private sphere for discussion and to highlight the negative impact of patriarchal ideology on social life in all aspects. Thus, it was tried to create an environment in the theater where prejudices were broken and safe space was offered to women on the basis of freedom.

A lot of changes came into being after the feminist theatre, as it was mentioned above after the censorship of theatre women writers and female actors were seen more. They could write about their situation, problems, needs, and goals. It can be said that theatre is governed by a patriarchal hierarchy and adopted an androcentric stage understanding, but after the second wave of feminism and censorship the pencil that was under the rule of men started to serve women also and the stage that was a place for men started to host women also.

After the second wave of feminism, feminist writers could write everything that they want. This confidence came from the absence of censorship and the fights that they were in, as mentioned above.  Topics like women’s problems live, and pressure on them have fallen from the pencil of women playwrights.

Caryl Churchill is one of the most popular feminist playwrights, she is known for feminist themes and she can be the best example of a feminist pen. She wrote a play namely, Top Girls. The traditional female role can be is seen in this play. The newcomer, who is on an equal footing with men, while the female figure is being judged, an alternative female figure is exhibited at the same time in this play. Pam Gems is the other prominent figure in feminist playwrights. She also wrote a lot of plays. Dusa, Fish, Stas, and Vi by Pam Gems serve Feminism. It narrates the story of four women and their relations with their lovers from a feminist perspective.

Pam Gems, Caryl Churchill, and more women writers changed a lot of things in British Theatre. The first thing that comes to the fore is the language. Since the men writers’ authority, the language of theatre had become masculine language yet women writers changed it. Masculine language started to change, Feminist writers tried to delete the masculine phrases of drama in view of the fact that women writers and characters could not exist in such a language. As we all know, Virginia Woolf is one of the most popular women writers in the world. In her work namely,  A Room of One’s Own tries to demonstrate that women also need a special place, language, and feelings. This philosophy of this work has the same perspective as Feminist playwrights. They needed to get rid of masculine and phallocentric phrases.  The second important thing that feminists focused on was women that could not watch theatre. As we all know, there is an English saying ‘’Angel in the House’’ this is the most disgusting and important term in Britain. British men were thinking ‘’women are housekeepers, babysitters, and cooks’’ This was the perspective of an English man. So, most women had not a chance to watch the feminist plays, but feminists found a solution to this problem. They made special organizations for women.  In short, theatre as a device for change could reflect both the real roles of women and make powerful socializing women in particular identities. And also feminist theatres were used for manipulations, theatres could be used for empowering women so they could be used theatre for different aims.

But still women are in trouble in western culture we can see sexual discrimination. For example; women earn less salary than men in some positions of work, they are doing same things but women earn less. In addition to this, women are objectified in cinema that is the other part of theatre/ drama. In traditional western culture, a man has the power so he is a viewer and the female is in a position of being watched. So, we can see that the constructin of visual media through an imagined male viewer and his desire. We can see a lot of examples of movies in Western. Women are still fighting against them, they have taken a place in theatre stage and cinema but they are still in trouble. We can see a lot of community walk to make people aware of this situation but in our culture, there is not a problem about this situation Western still gives us teachings about civilization.

In conclusion,  women and men generally associated with roles and characteristics and in Western and Britain culture, men are the superior one at the other hand women are the inferior one also phallocentric thinking is on the top in these cultures. And Feminism tries to challenge with it and criticize gender-biased. Theater that is a way that is narrating people through the people is the easiest way to criticize or challenge something because Theater is all about human and human life, and human is best expressed on the theater stage. Therefore, with the help of Feminist theater women were able to a good place for themselves in stages and in playwriting. After the abolition of censorship, women's power increased on theater and they had the same rights in theater with men. But as it was mentioned above women have still some problems in Western culture. But with the help of the best way of art to demnostrate people, they will rise more and more.