We present an extract from WTF Happened: #WakingTheFeminists and the Movement that Changed Irish Theatre by Sarah Durcan with Lian Bell.
Great theatre changes how we see our lives. Great campaigning changes how we see our future. When the Abbey Theatre's 2016 centenary programme announced just a handful of women artists, it triggered something extraordinary: a nationwide movement for gender equality in Irish theatre. What began as outrage on social media rapidly evolved into #WakingTheFeminists - an award- winning, year-long campaign that transformed the Irish theatre landscape, made global headlines and left a legacy still felt today. This new book captures the passion, power and legacy of the grassroots movement that reshaped Irish theatre and reverberated far beyond.
After the End: Legacy and Impact
There is power in shaping a story, not only on the page or stage, but in the world. Through our combined efforts we made extraordinary advances in just a year. #WakingTheFeminists had a profound effect on Irish theatre, and it still reverberates within Irish society. It was not only inspirational and influential: it was highly effective.
After the year-long campaign ended, we stepped away and let the theatre organisations step in, in their own way, and at their own pace, but with a fiveyear deadline to keep up some level of urgency. That level of campaigning is not only exhausting, it's unsustainable; if we had maintained it, the core #WakingTheFeminists group would have burned out, and fallen away. We were prepared to play a part in fixing the problem, but not the only part. It was not solely or even mainly up to us as women to fix this. All too often there is an onus within activism for the marginalised group to have to do all the heavy lifting. This is an additional burden of labour, often unpaid, to 'help’ the dominant power structure understand and alter itself and which in most cases leads to burn out and ‘protest fatigue’. This dynamic abdicates the dominant group’s responsibility to think deeply and take action. Those in power can continue blithely as usual, and while there may be a veneer of change, the systemic work necessary to achieve enduring change is not actually being done.
Our key successes can be summarised as: grassroots ownership and involvement; widespread visibility of the campaign; setting firm objectives including a five year deadline to gender equality; broad recognition that gender bias was indeed a problem everyone is susceptible to; responsibility and accountability placed at the top of organisations; completing baseline research from which to measure progress; negotiating buy-in from all key organisations and funders; and a sea change in relation to gender in Irish society.
There are so many impacts and ripple effects of the campaign that we are aware of, and undoubtedly many we are not; a few key ones are outlined below.
Gender Equality Policy Working Group
The commitment, collaboration, and actions of the Gender Equality Policy Working Group, set up as a result of the sectoral meeting we held following the final public event in the Abbey 14 November 2016, continued the work begun by #WakingTheFeminists. The working group, which was spearheaded by Loughlin Deegan as Director of the Lir Academy and Julie Kelleher, Director of the Everyman Theatre, also included representatives from the Abbey Theatre, Druid, Dublin Theatre Festival, Fishamble: The New Play Company, Gate Theatre, Rough Magic, and Corn Exchange, with Lian Bell as a post #WakingTheFeminists representative.
It was the first and only time that these major theatre organisations worked collaboratively in this way. Regular meetings over the course of the following year necessitated people to talk honestly through the real life implications and responsibilities of making change in their organisations. They learnt from each other, were mutually supportive, and accountable to each other; a powerful demonstration of the network effect of collective action. Had the Abbey just worked alone, there would not have been the equivalent transformative impact on the Irish theatre ecosystem. In some ways, this was the legacy from what we learned of the ethos of Tonic Theatre's Advance programme.
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Watch, via RTÉ News: #WakingTheFeminists three years on
This work culminated in the launch of gender policies by ten major Irish theatre organisations on 9 July 2018 at The Lir Academy by Josepha Madigan TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. The press release accompanying the launch read:
Gender Equality in Practice in Irish Theatre began after #WakingTheFeminists drew international attention to the gender inequality that then existed within Irish theatre. This cultural phenomenon encouraged the participating theatre organisations to consider their own record in programming and supporting women within the sector and identify processes that would ensure gender parity and dignity at work in the future.
Each gender policy statement has been ratified by the boards of the organisations and each organisation has undertaken to measure their progress against their published targets on an annual basis using the #WakingTheFeminists Gender Counts guidelines.
Included in the list of measures are the following:
1. Gender blind readings for plays
2. Unconscious bias training for all staff
3. Achieve equality of gender of board members
4. 50% of new play commissions to be allocated to women writers
5. Gender blind casting
6. Addition of Dignity at Work clauses to employees charter
7. Re-examination of the female canon
8. Work with third level institutions to encourage gender parity in
areas that do not reflect equality of gender.
9. To achieve gender balance in programming within a 5 year period.
Keeping Track of the Changing Numbers
Five years on from the start of the campaign, the #WakingTheFeminists research group voluntarily worked on follow-up quantitative research. The overall picture showed that Irish theatre was coming very close to gender equality for women in nearly five years.
In late 2020, the researchers published their follow-up report counting the years from 2017–2019 inclusive to check progress since Gender Counts, their study of 2006–2015:
There is evidence to support the strong correlation between executive and/or board support within an organisation and best practice in gender counting, tracking, and reporting. Supportive governance structures correspond to how complete the data set is and how regularly it is reviewed and reported – in line with the recommendation from #WakingTheFeminists to have sustainable policies and processes with measurable results.
The percentage of work being written/created by women has increased across all organisations included in the original research, who also submitted figures for the period since.
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Listen via RTÉ Radio 1: Lian Bell and Sarah Durcan talk to Sean O'Rourke in 2016
Since Season 1 of 2017, the Gate Theatre has increased female representation overall, notably with directors at 68% (up from 8%), and creators/writers at 26% (up from 6%). This is an overall increase cross categories measured by #WakingTheFeminists by an average increase of 23%.
The Abbey Theatre has seen an improvement in its female representation across every category, with directors up to 46% (from 20%) over the past three years, and creators/writers at 35% (up from 17%). This is an average increase of 16% across seven categories.
Achieving gender equality in some roles in some organisations can be a case of reducing rather than increasing representation – for example, Rough Magic Theatre Company has come closer to gender equality in the role of director, at 62% (down from 80%).
One of the figures that hasn't shifted significantly, across all companies, is the percentage of female representation in the category of Cast. This continues to average below 50%, with the exception of The Ark and Rough Magic Theatre Company, although The Lir Academy figures show acting students for the period 2016–2020 were 57% female – raising questions about the parts being written, by both men and women.
In addition to the recommendations from the original report, which are still valid, we recommend:
1. the implementation of a standardised template across the sector for counting, recording, and publishing gender statistics.
2. that theatre organisations ensure that they track gender figures across creative roles. Some organisations have only provided statistics for selected roles, and we recommend that all roles be tracked.
3. that the gender pay gap be tracked alongside gender representation statistics in order to give a fuller view of gender equality.
4. that gender representation should continue to be a key consideration for the planning of future andproposed productions.
The opportunities for, and careers of, many women in theatre have improved greatly as a result of the campaign. Many plays have been commissioned and programmed that would most likely not have seen the light of day had #WakingTheFeminists not happened, including (to name but a few from the first years after the campaign): The Remains of Maisie Duggan by Carmel Winters at the Abbey in 2016; a remount of Katie Roche by Teresa Deevy at the Abbey in 2017; Rathmines Road by Deirdre Kinahan produced by Fishamble at the Civic Theatre Tallaght as part of Dublin Theatre Festival in 2018; The Patient Gloria by Gina Moxley produced by the Abbey Theatre and Gina Moxley in association with Pan Pan as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival 2018; Asking For It adapted by Meadhbh McHugh in collaboration with Annabelle Comyn from the book by Louise O'Neill, produced by Landmark Productions and The Everyman in association with the Abbey Theatre and Cork Midsummer Festival in 2018; This Beautiful Village by Lisa Tierney Keogh at the Abbey in 2019; and The Beacon by Nancy Harris, co-produced by Druid and Gate Theatre, 2019.
Influence on National Policy
In November 2016 a #WakingTheFeminists delegation of Anne Clarke, Caroline Williams, Lian Bell and Loughlin Deegan met with Minister for Arts, Heather Humphreys TD, and presented her with a framed photograph of the first public meeting. They suggested some key actions that she and her department could take to improve gender equality.
In 2017, Minister Humphreys instructed all national cultural institutions and funding bodies to have gender equality and diversity policies in place by the end of 2018, to coincide with the celebration of 100 years of women's right to vote. To begin this process, a workshop with leaders of all these organisations was held at the National Museum, Collins Barracks. Lian and Sarah addressed the group. As a direct result of #WakingTheFeminists’ action and advocacy, all national cultural institutions now have policies in place.
WTF Happened: #WakingTheFeminists and the Movement that Changed Irish Theatre is published by UCD Press
