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When people ask me what feminism means to me, I think about a girl named Ada.
Ada is the heart of my play, Beauty Behind the Norms. I wrote her out of stories from my grandfather's home, where wives had to share one husband and where a girl's future was often decided before she could speak. Ada desires to pursue an education but everything in her world makes this impossible, yet she strives to defy all odds and fight for what she believes in.
For me, feminism starts there: with the right to want something for yourself, to say it out loud and to fight for it despite all odds.
I don't think of feminism as one fight or one look. The women in my grandfather's house were not powerless. They negotiated, they protected each other, and they found beauty inside norms they did not create. I wanted the play to honour that while being honest about what it cost them. Too many women, in the diaspora, here and at home, are still living in marriages and systems that shrink them. Ada is my way of telling them you are allowed to grow and fight for what you believe in!
Feminism also shapes how I lead. As Artistic Director of Centra Cultural Collective, I spend a lot of time thinking about who gets a seat in the rehearsal rooms, who gets paid, and whose stories make it to the stage in Newfoundland and Labrador. Black women artists here deserve to have their stories told. We built training programs, a showcase and a residency, and women have been at the centre of all of it, as writers, designers, producers and leaders.
To me, feminism is practical. It is a young designer getting her first credit. It is a woman in the audience seeing her own story on stage and feeling, possibly for the first time, that her voice and experience mattered.
Change rarely arrives in one moment. It comes from showing up again, applying again, asking again, and making room for the next generation of women to come.
That is the feminism I believe in: the kind that holds the door open behind you.
Nicole Obiodiaka
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Nicole Obiodiaka is a playwright, producer, and the Founder and Artistic Director of Centra Cultural Collective Inc., a St. John’s not-for-profit creating opportunities for Black artists across Newfoundland and Labrador. Through Centra, she built the province’s first training program for Black artists, training more than 40 emerging artists across five streams: playwriting, production, stage design, stage management and directing. Her play Beauty Behind the Norms was presented at Centra’s Black Theatre Showcase in August 2026. As a producer, she has worked with CBC on series including HerStory and Dish It Out. She serves on the board of St. John’s Shorts. Her honours include the Frank H. Sobey Award for Excellence in Business Studies, the Afropolitan Canada Youth Leadership Award and the Memorial University Centennial 100 Award.