Together, We can be Strangely Better

 'Top Girls’ by Caryl Churchill and the ‘Vamps, Vixens and Feminists Conference’ gave top billing to feminism at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds early in March.  The Playhouse’s Courtyard Theatre hosted these two significant events which highlighted the position of women in society and in theatre.  The most widely publicised and best attended was the touring production of ‘Top Girls’. This is Caryl Churchill’s great play on the cost, to 1980’s women, of the ‘I want it all and I want it now’ culture.  However, Top Girls ran for twelve days before moving on to Exeter Northcott Theatre, it took something else to single out the second March as a special day.

For thousands of years, women have been subjugated by the systems established by and for the benefit of men.  Over the past hundred years, some of these systems have been challenged and changed to the benefit of us women in Western society.  But for a number of years now, this rate of change has levelled out.  Although we can see there is still much that needs changing, we are living on a privileged plateau compared to most of the women in the world.  And the warning to us is, pay attention, because even though we can still see the unfairness and systemic prejudice against women in the existing set up, “This may well be as good as it gets.”