'We were silenced and disappeared': New book looks at how Waking The Feminists shook Irish theatre
WTF Happened co-authors Lian Bell and Sarah Durcan. Picture: Mark Stedman
There is a photograph which hangs proudly in Sarah Durcan’s home that serves as a powerful reminder of what can be achieved when women come together to demand change. It shows a large group of women gathered outside the Abbey Theatre holding a massive banner reading '#WakingTheFeminists'.
Taken on Thursday, November 12, 2015, before a historic public meeting in the Abbey Theatre, the mood was jubilant but also defiant. The same photo adorns the cover of the book written by Durcan, with Lian Bell.
It marks ten years since #WakingTheFeminists, and is a comprehensive chronicle of a movement which grew out of a hashtag coined in response to the announcement of the Abbey programme marking the centenary of the 1916 Rising.
Titled 'Waking the Nation', only one out of the ten plays programmed was written by a woman, while only three were directed by women. Once the glaring disparity was noted on social media, #wakingthenation was forgotten and #WakingTheFeminists was going viral around the world. In the following weeks, women working in theatre and the wider arts sector took the opportunity to speak out about the inequality they had been experiencing silently for years.
Theatre producer Durcan and Bell, a set designer, were among the public faces of a movement which mobilised quickly to demand more equal representation.
Editing the book has been an emotional experience for Durcan, especially compiling the testimonies of women which were read out on the Abbey stage on the day of the public meeting.
“I've cried so much writing this book, especially spending time with those words, reading them all together. There were so many people involved throughout that year. This was a model of feminist collective action, and we did not hang around,” says Durcan.
The movement’s birth may have been ad hoc but its approach was anything but, focusing on governance, policy and measurable results, backed up by data and research. According to Durcan, it was important not to make Fiach MacConghail, then director of the Abbey, solely responsible for the lack of female representation.
“This was a wider system that needed to change, and we went at it from that point of view. We talked to the Arts Council, to various ministers, to boards right across the theatre sector. By taking that kind of network approach, I think it was more deeply embedded, rather than trying to blame a person, because you can't blame a person for this. This is absolutely part of how we all grow up. There were certainly plenty of us in the arts, and yet we were silenced and disappeared, like so many women throughout history. That’s why that photo outside the Abbey was such a moment, because it was us being visible, and that was huge.”
In terms of tangible change, comparison with previous research was able to show that after the campaign, there was a ‘very clear’ improvement in female representation. In 2017, Katie Roche by the previously overlooked playwright Teresa Deevy, was revived at the Abbey, followed by several female-authored works within the next couple of years. There were also significant changes in national cultural policy and improved gender equality measures in institutions.
“Tracking the numbers, five years later, we came pretty close. It certainly improved, I would say, arguably, more than any other sector in that period of time. It shows with a concerted, organised, targeted effort, you absolutely can make changes,” says Durcan.
However, Durcan is aware that progress isn’t linear and what the campaign achieved cannot be taken for granted. There are ongoing issues with precocity and low pay in the sector, which disproportionately affects women. She also says data needs to be monitored on a continuing basis, something which requires a renewed effort.
“There is still deeper work to be done. My concern is, where do we go for the next 10 years? We can't just go, ‘well, that’s sorted now’. I want to see the new figures — that is my challenge to boards and so on. It doesn't stay fixed forever, unless you keep fixing it.”
The campaign also had knock-on effects, such as the establishment of the Safe to Create programme, which aims to provide safe and respectful working conditions for those working in the arts and creative sectors.
“You can't deal with gender equality or other types of equity and inclusion without dealing with bullying and harassment. It's very much part and parcel of the patriarchal system that keeps us out and down,” says Durcan.
Throughout the campaign, the organisers amassed a significant amount of material, now held in a digital archive in the National Library and a physical archive in the National Museum.
“From day one, it was always really important for us to keep things. We still get requests for interviews a few times a year from people all over the world doing research. We were also conscious of the amazing feminist work that came before us which was silenced.”
While #WakingTheFeminists was a success story in terms of grassroots activism, it took off just before the election of Donald Trump in the US. It was a harbinger of things to come for the feminist movement, something Durcan says they warned of at the time.
“We absolutely called it out in terms of what was going to happen in the States and the implications that would have for women's healthcare, bodily autonomy and for the future of democracy. You can't make any progress in anything, whether it's climate change, sustainable development goals or racial equity without feminism,” she says.
It is hard to imagine the campaign unfolding in the same way today, given that society has become more atomised and discourse even more polarised.
“It is harder to connect now in the way that we did online. Post-pandemic we're not necessarily as social as we used to be and there are fewer public spaces for us to go and have those conversations. And social media is very different now — so much of this ignited on what was Twitter, now X, which is a complete sewer. Yes, we dealt with some trolling, it wasn't a complete picnic,” says Durcan.
The hope and sense of possibility that came with the campaign is still very much alive and more necessary than ever, she adds. “There is a lot of incredible activism and resistance happening. What we've learned from #WakingTheFeminists has not been lost. Even though it was just a year-long campaign, every single person who was involved in it or witnessed it has done something to advance gender equality.
#WakingTheFeminists was about all of those conversations that happened online but also in person, those little moments of reflection and personal dedication to taking some action. Where there is opportunity to gather and to organise, it’s more crucial than ever.”
On a personal level, she describes the campaign as a profound experience. “It continues to reverberate through the lives of the women involved. It’s rewired the way we think, and reinforced our own sense of our power and what’s possible.”
- written by Sarah Durcan with Lian Bell, published by UCD Press, is out now.
