It was not even 200 years ago that the only option a woman had, when it came to choosing to work outside the home, was to serve as a teacher. Of course, in many communities, the teacher did not have a home of her own, but instead spent the school year living for several weeks or a month at a time in each of the homes of her students, whose parents supported her living in this way. It took the horrors of the American Civil War, with the sheer volume of soldiers who needed tending, during and after battle, to convince society that women could perform well as nurses, and even then, these vital members of the medical profession often received condescending treatment from doctors and patients alike. Even in the 21st century, there are issues specific to the equality and treatment of women that are unresolved in our society. Beginning in middle school, I have pursued various lines of inquiry into women’s issues, for different research projects that I have had to complete in my classes. I have learned that, even in an age where women are often encouraged to lead independent lives, heading from university out into the workforce and to lead careers with men as their colleagues, there are still issues of discrimination and bias that affect women detrimentally.
My major is Women’s Studies with an emphasis in Theatre. I believe that entertainment can make a significant difference in the views of the public about important issues. For example, the movie Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks, radically altered the way that the public viewed AIDS patients. With regard to women’s issues, films from Fried Green Tomatoes to The Help to Thelma & Louise to Erin Brockovich have brought many of the concerns of women into the public spotlight, and the subsequent discussion has led to real change in the experiences of women who live through similar situations as the main characters in those movies. Similar innovation in thinking is possible through the use of theater. One reason why I added a Theater concentration was to find ways to use this art form to bring issues specific to women into the sphere of public discussion. One of the powerful aspects of theater is the way that, when an audience views a scene, that scene influences them in more visceral ways than a persuasive essay or speech about the topic might. Consider, for example, how the tragic death of Ophelia, who committed suicide by weighing herself down with stones and then sliding into a river, affects not only the man she loved (Hamlet) and her brother (Laertes) but also the audience. The visual image of this sad young girl, flowers in her hair, driven to devising her own demise as a result of the combined effects of her father’s overbearing control, her lover’s fickleness, and her own captivity as a woman of nobility in that time period, lasts far longer in the mind of the audience than a profile of her in, say, People would. I want to use the medium of the theater to bring issues that are important to women into view, so that over time, society can make the adjustments that will bring about justice and equality. Art, in other words, is never just for art’s sake.
