Tips for changing Gender bias.

March 8th was international Women’s Day. Although official started in 1911 the fight for equality has been and continues to be a long fight.

Can the improvisation community help?

Yes!

How?

We can all bring more awareness, humility, openness, curiosity, empathy and understanding into our work practice on and off stage and in the rehearsal room. We can make some subtly yet powerful changes in our improvisation that sends strong signals to the audience and creates more freedom on stage.

I would like to share with you a few approaches I use. Basically I try to break gender bias by being aware of societies bias and breaking those patterns in our work.

Setting scenes

If you are setting scenes think of traditional environments that have bias, i.e. where men or women are often placed and do the opposite.

Give women: archery class, paintball, hunting or fishing, climbing mountains, air force pilots, driving a tank, taming lions, playing poker, drinking scotch, watching or playing sports like hockey, boxing, etc.

Give men: having a coffee, in a baby nursery, pottery, garden, shopping, spa, hair or nail salon, yoga class, bedroom, etc.

Casting characters

When casting characters in scenes, either as a director, or calling on someone, or creating space for a player, break traditional casting norms.

Give women: Archaeologist, Commander, Doctor, Scientist, Superhero (who is allowed to fight their own fight), Coach, etc.

Give men: Nurse, secretary, escort, babysitter, fan, teacher, etc.

Power dynamics

Look for places to change traditional power systems.

For example:

Have women read the paper and have coffee and have men cook dinner.

Have women be the Detective and have men be the victim.

Have a woman end a relationship and have men need to talk about the relationship and fight to keep it..

Have a woman hold a chair for a man and have a man worried about what to wear on a date.

Remove pronouns

Call players by their name, characters by their names and remove gender identification. Make the scenes about people, not gender.

Scene content

Give space for women to be strong, decisive, fierce, power hungry, sexual – because they are. Allow scenes where the character has power (and is endowed with power by making choices that others follow without criticizing or thwarting the choice – allow the consequences), scenes about goals / advancement, scenes of control, strong leaders, protectors, role models.

Give space for men to be loving, kind, generous, sympathetic, caring, empathic – because they are. Allow scenes of loving fathers, supportive friendships, loyal partners, strong families, and honourable actions.

For improvisors with strong storytelling skills try flipping biases ‘a man driving a car – unheard of’, or playing the truth of how inequality affects us all.

Include stories that relate to (some) women how did you learn to put on makeup, walking in heels – the joy! the agony!, do you shave and why, menstrual cycles, menopause, the beauty myth, being the ‘object’, feminism, all of the above can be positive as well as negative for example lessons learned or overcoming.

Furthermore include and embrace stories that represent cultures and traditions. If you want to be an inclusive company with diversity in audience and players then people need to feel and see that is space for their stories,

In a class we were having a conversation about space and freedom and the following conversation happened.

A women of Italian heritage said

“If I hear one more Princess described with flowing golden hair I’ll scream. I can be a Princess!”

Another woman from Sweden said

“I am tired of playing scenes that North Americans set up because I am always naked in a Sauna. You know, we do other things.”

A third woman from India contributed.

“I am Hindu and once I was asked to start a scene by praying. So I did, in my way, with my ritual. The next player came on crossed himself and said ‘is there a line at the confessional?”

Another woman from Thailand through her laughter shared

“Yes, yes! I had a similar experience. I am a Buddhist and started a scene turning a prayer wheel while chanting. This guy comes on and says ‘She is in need of the Lord, look at her talking to herself.”

Look at all the story possibilities we are missing because we are not giving equal weight and permission for all. How many family Christmas scenes have we seen? How many family Hanukah scenes?

If your response is: But I don’t know anything about Hanukah.

My response is as follows

Learn.
Have you ever thought this about the players who don’t celebrate Christmas? Did you think about their lack of knowledge or did you just expect them to know? Why should they? Because it is common and everyone should? Ah – your bias is showing through.

We all need to become aware of the impact of what we put on stage and have accountability for our work and choices.

We can take active steps to change societies normal and create a new normal as we project and reflect equality in our work.

The steps are simple, the impact profound.

The same thought should be applied to all people whose voices, inclusion and equality we are still fighting for.

It is easy for me to write the above examples, as I identify as being female, I have experience with the traps that society has cast me in. I have not had the experiences of many of you reading this.

If you experienced marginalisation, I would be interested in hearing what you have faced.

What environments, roles and situations do you face that reinforces societies bias?
What environments, roles and situations would you love to have equal space to play that you feel can change societies bias?
What stories would you love to tell based in traditions, family events, life events or faith? Do you feel we can create space for this?

If you have any tips to share, which creates space for equality of play and opens a world of potential in our stories and for our players - I’d love to hear it.