Women Playwrights Onstage Final Class Notes « Human Doing; Human Being

Age of Enlightenment (18th C)–HUMANISM
1. critiqued traditional power (church, king, nobility)
2. centrality of freedom, democracy, reason
3. belief in rationality-science
Mary Wollstencraft published Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

Abolitionism
1. second Great Awakening (1820s-30s)
2. Quakers, abolitionism, women's suffrage, peace activism
Leaders of feminist movement influence by quakers, compaigned for abolition of slavery

Seneca Falls 1848: Declaration of Principles
Mrs. Warrens Profession (1893)
–> First wave feminism ("the woman question")
1920-Nineteenth Amendment-right to vote

"New Woman" (emancipated woman)
–worked, smoke, drank, sex
Machinal (1928)
Backlash (1930-1950)
Great Depression
WWII: Women reenter work force
1950s: "jobs for vets"
The Children's Hour (1934)
Raisin in the Sun (1959)
Funnyhouse of a Negro (1960)

Second Wave 1960s-1970s "Women's Movement"
1963 Bettey Friedan Feminine Mystique
           President's Report on Status of Women
1966 National Organization of Women
     legal victories: Title IX, Roe v. Wade
     ==>Identity Politics
Night Mother (1983)
Heidi Chronicals (1988)
Belle Reprieve (1991)
Desdemona (1993)
Stop Kiss (1998)
Venus (1998)
Hungry Women (2001)
Ruined (2010)
Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (2010)

 

What does/might a feminist theatre look like?
1.  –foreground women's roles
      –critique focused on 'men'
      –present problem-(realism)
      –Brechtian Analysis-(confronts problem)
      –solidarity, empowerment Share Facebook StumbleUpon