This is a bit blast-from-the-past, but I thought I’d introduce you to the Guerrilla Girls. This feminist arts group started in the 1980s to protest the ridiculously obvious underrepresentation of female artists in major art collections worldwide. They are a collective of anonymous activists/artists who tend to make their statements in gorilla masks and via huge poster campaigns. (See their FAQ page for more details.)
I bring them up for a few reasons. First, I think as we wade through the plays of the last twenty years, it’s worth us investigating the changing (or not) notions of feminism. Second, they’ve got two great twitter feeds: @guerrillagirls and @GuerrillaGsOT. Third, in cleaning out a file folder the other day, I stumbled across the poster hand-outs I got in 1996 when the GGs came to my college — in full gorilla masks — to talk to us about the need for equality in the arts. I’ve scanned those posters in, and have uploaded them here for you to see.
And lest you think that the struggle for equality in the arts is a moot point, I invite you to check out the work of a group called 50/50 in 2020. Their twitter feed is here: @5050in2020. They also run an initiative called Works by Women Meet-up that organizes groups to attend plays by women.
