"Feminism? Don't use that word or anything associated with it at the table."

Whenever I think about feminism, I return to a conversation I once had with my cousin. It started with those exact words.

It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear, and the stars were scattered across it. We were sitting around a dastarkhan, the traditional Uzbek table, at my aunt's house. In Uzbekistan, especially during the summer, families often sit outside on a tapchan—a large, raised wooden platform used for dining, socializing, resting, and sometimes sleeping. These platforms are usually open to the sky because summer rain is rare. The day had been scorching hot, nearly 40°C, but the evening was cool and calm, and an occasional breeze made sitting outside particularly pleasant.

My cousin had arrived quite late, just around dusk. I knew she had left home very early that morning, around 4 a.m., to work in the fields. She had spent the entire day working under that scorching sun. When she arrived, she changed her clothes, washed up, and joined us for dinner.

I noticed her hands. Her working hands. And I remember feeling something I couldn't quite put into words. I thought about how much physical labour she had endured that day.

Somehow, our conversation turned to feminism, women's rights, and the opportunities women in some countries have to pursue education, build careers, and become whoever they want to be.

And then my cousin interrupted me.

"Feminism? Don't use that word or anything associated with it at the table. It was that so-called “feminism” of the USSR that made me work in the fields."

I paused.

Suddenly, I remembered something about our history. During the Soviet period, Uzbekistan became a major cotton-producing region, and the Soviet cotton industry relied heavily on the Uzbek labour. The state promoted women's participation in the workforce under the language of gender equality and emancipation. Women working in the cotton fields were presented as evidence of progress and equality between men and women.

But there was another side to that story.

The cotton industry needed an enormous workforce. Women's labour became part of that system, and the language of equality was used to justify their participation in exhausting and often exploitative working conditions. For many women, this wasn't necessarily about having the opportunity to work. It was about being expected to work.

And that night, looking at my cousin's hands, I began to understand something.

Perhaps my cousin's problem wasn't with feminism itself. Perhaps her problem was with the absence of choice.

She had experienced a version of equality in which women were told they were equal to men, but that equality came with expectations, obligations, and hardships. It didn't necessarily give them the freedom to decide what kind of lives they wanted to lead.

For me, feminism is fundamentally about choice.

It means having equal opportunities and the freedom to decide what kind of life you want to live without being judged differently because you are a woman.

If woman wants to work in the fields, she should be free to choose that. But she should not be expected to do it simply because someone has decided that this is what equality looks like.

For me, feminism is not about making women live like men. It is about ensuring that women have the same freedom to CHOOSE, the same opportunities to pursue their CHOICES, and the same dignity and respect, whatever those CHOICES may be.

Because equality without choice is not liberation. 

Iroda 

*

Iroda Abdunazarova is Secretary of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here.

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

*

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.

What Does It Cost to Speak? Fear, Power, and My Feminism

Have you ever wanted to express a different perspective, but paused to consider how it might be received?

I have.

That pause has made me curious about a larger question: why do some people feel free to speak and choose, while others must first weigh their circumstances?

I am Shazia Shaheen. Born and raised in Pakistan, I now call Newfoundland and Labrador home. I am a mother, a human rights professional, and an intersectional feminist. My work alongside equity-seeking communities and people living at the margins has shaped how I understand belonging, power, and social justice.

My feminism did not begin with a single defining moment. It grew through listening, learning, questioning, and noticing how differently people experience the world.

I have come to understand that fear is not always about individual confidence. Sometimes it reflects an awareness of power differences, limited resources, uncertainty, or the possibility of losing a valued opportunity or sense of belonging. These realities can influence whether someone raises a concern, expresses a need, or makes a choice.

And the circumstances are not the same for everyone.

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who introduced the concept of intersectionality, describes it as “a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”

This understanding speaks to my experience. Gender, race, class, disability, religion, migration status, and other aspects of our identities do not operate independently. They interact with social and institutional structures, shaping our access to resources, our exposure to barriers, and sometimes our sense of safety.

Our identities do not inherently make us vulnerable. But their interaction with inequitable systems can create precarious circumstances. What may look like a straightforward decision from the outside can involve complex judgments about security, support, opportunity, and risk.

So I often ask:

How meaningful is a choice when the conditions for exercising it are constrained?

The inequitable distribution of resources and decision-making power matters here. Even initiatives designed to support equity-deserving groups can miss their purpose when the people affected have limited opportunity to define their needs or influence the decisions that shape their lives.

For me, equity requires more than offering everyone a choice. It means paying attention to the barriers that affect whether that choice is genuinely accessible, informed, and freely expressed. It also means respecting people's agency and seeking meaningful participation and consent rather than assuming we know what is best for them.

Decisions made for people are not necessarily decisions made with them.

Maya Angelou observed, “You develop courage by doing courageous things, small things.”

I value that reminder. Courage might mean asking a question, expressing a different view, or reconsidering an assumption. Yet we should not place the entire responsibility for change on individuals. We also need to consider how to create environments in which people feel able to participate without unnecessary fear.

This is where my feminism meets my interest in theatre.

As Vice-Chair of PerSIStence Theatre Company, I am drawn to the possibilities of storytelling. Policies, education, and human rights frameworks matter deeply to me, but stories can invite a different kind of reflection. Theatre allows us to encounter experiences beyond our own, question familiar assumptions, and notice voices and perspectives we may have overlooked.

I am an intersectional feminist because I believe equity is inseparable from dignity, belonging, meaningful choice, and the ability to shape one's own life. I continue to learn and unlearn; I certainly do not have all the answers.

But I hope to keep asking questions that matter:

Who feels able to speak? Who helps shape the decisions? And what would it take for more people to exercise their choices with dignity, agency, and a genuine sense of belonging?

*

Shazia Shaheen is Vice-Chair of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here.

What does feminism mean to me?

Despite having availed of the benefits and advantages gained by feminist advocates throughout my life, I have hesitated to identify myself as a feminist. What is that shadow that falls over the label “feminist”?  

I was born in the ‘50s and when I was becoming a young woman, it was all about Women’s Liberation.  Women were calling out the patriarchy with angry voices, and I guess I thought I should be angry too.  I thought equality was about being, “the same as” men – identical, indistinguishable. Women’s traditional roles were denigrated, including those of housewives, such as my own mother, who first taught me dignity and self-respect, self-love, a sense of humour and the joy of living. I suppressed my feelings, recklessly claimed my sexual freedom, drank with the boys, entered the trades.  Clearly, my notion of feminism never accurately reflected the movement, as evidenced by the truly meaningful improvements in the status of women that feminists have fought for and gained.

Feminism means believing in the right of women to an equal status with men in a patriarchal society such as ours.  For me, it means feeling confident that women belong everywhere – no public space is excluded to you – in the Engineering class, on the construction site, in the fishing boat, on the wharf, on the Municipal Council or any other political body – without having to suffer discrimination or harassment because of your gender.

It also means that women bring a unique female (or other) perspective to all of these spaces, which cannot truly represent them without them, and that the female perspective is worthy and true. Feminism is knowing the value of all women’s work, including women’s traditional work, and proving it by creating a society that secures their financial safety and prosperity. 

The rights that feminists have advocated for and gained, to one degree or another, are too numerous to enumerate but I will mention a few that have been gained only in my lifetime, and I think men, too, would have to admit that all of this has been great for our society: the Matrimonial Property Act - now the Family Law Act, including child support enforcement; pay equity laws, divorce laws, child care and parental leave. Women no longer face the same barriers to the trades and higher educational programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, based on their gender alone. 

And yet, gender-based violence has recently been declared an epidemic in our province.  There’s still so much to gain on every level and especially on violence and sexual abuse. 

Today I feel honoured and privileged to support PerSIStence Theatre Co., which continues to hold up the banner of feminism and to remind us that our evolution as a society - and my evolution as a feminist - is not finished.  I look forward to learning about activism which includes, “all those facing gender-based barriers, such as “transgender, non-binary, 2SLGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, racialized, Deaf, disabled, and people with lived experience”.  

Joan

*

Joan Woodrow is Treasurer of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here. 

Hi! I’m Sharon, and I’m new here.

Well, new-ish. I took on the title of Producing Artistic Director back in March, but I was easing out of my previous full-time role, so I’ve only been able to dedicate my whole focus and energy to this company for the past month. 

And it’s been a while since this company has been in touch. There have been some pretty big changes over here, not the least of which is my appointment as the company’s second ever artistic leader. The Board of Directors has also turned over by half, including three quarters of the executive roles. 

So, we thought we’d introduce ourselves a little bit, and I’m going first. Over the next little while you’ll see some posts from our board members, our artistic collaborators, and our community partners. The prompt we are all working from is:

“What does feminism mean to you?”

While I’m still feeling pretty new to this specific role, I do feel like I’ve been “at this” for a long time, where “this” = “working toward social justice.”

To me, feminism is not distinct from any other social justice advocacy work, except that it prioritizes equity across the gender spectrum. I believe that feminists and other social justice advocates are (or, should be) fighting the same fight. We can and should be learning from each other, taking in one another’s best practices, engaging in thoughtful and sometimes challenging conversation. We should all be fighting for access to the Rooms Where The Decisions Are Made, and whenever we get in there, taking note of who isn’t in the room with us.

Theatre work is Empathy work

The causes of social inequality are, of course, extremely complex, and I don’t pretend to understand all or even most of them, but I do think one of the biggies is a failure of empathy. 

It is very hard to imagine other people as fully human; that is, as human as oneself. It is even harder to imagine this when the other person in question is significantly different from you, if they don’t share your language, your culture, your family structure, your socioeconomic status, if they are from another country or another generation.

It is both easier and harder than ever to empathize with other people on a society-wide scale.

Easier, because we have access to stories from around the world, more immediately and more bountifully than we did before the internet age. We can toggle between languages with a few keystrokes. We can see videos and photographs the faces and hear recordings of the voices of the people who tell those stories. 

Harder, because so many of us live so much of our social lives online, using platforms that have been designed to disincentivize thoughtful discourse and to privilege quippy point-scoring. Scoring points is not an empathetic activity. If we spend too much time in these "spaces," our empathy skills start to erode.

So, we need the arts. Artistic expression is uniquely positioned to present nuanced perspectives. It is also founded (mostly, I believe) on the premise of helping the audience to feel, or think, in a way that they normally wouldn’t… and that’s how empathy takes root. Making and taking in artistic work is a form of empathy practice.

What I love about live performance in particular is that the audience isn’t just taking in the work after the fact; they are making the piece of art alongside the artists with their presence and attention. At the theatre, the audience becomes a creative collaborator.

If I’m doing my job right, when I tell a story on stage, the audience feels for and with the characters in that story. It’s a stretch of the empathy muscles.

But what stories do we tell?

It isn’t enough to make theatre. We can’t just tell stories about the world as it exists today, or as it has existed in the past, with humour and without critique, and assume that we are improving the world through empathy practice. Stories are just as capable of being regressive as they are of being progressive. And they are powerful tools to wield, whether for or against the status quo. 

To pursue social justice through theatre, we have to reframe those stories to address the path we want for the future. 

We have to privilege stories that haven’t been told often enough, or loudly enough, or at all.

We have to ask ourselves: who isn’t in the room yet?

*

Sharon King-Campbell is Producing Artistic Director of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Bio.

"Feminism? Don't use that word or anything associated with it at the table."

Whenever I think about feminism, I return to a conversation I once had with my cousin. It started with those exact words.

It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear, and the stars were scattered across it. We were sitting around a dastarkhan, the traditional Uzbek table, at my aunt's house. In Uzbekistan, especially during the summer, families often sit outside on a tapchan—a large, raised wooden platform used for dining, socializing, resting, and sometimes sleeping. These platforms are usually open to the sky because summer rain is rare. The day had been scorching hot, nearly 40°C, but the evening was cool and calm, and an occasional breeze made sitting outside particularly pleasant.

My cousin had arrived quite late, just around dusk. I knew she had left home very early that morning, around 4 a.m., to work in the fields. She had spent the entire day working under that scorching sun. When she arrived, she changed her clothes, washed up, and joined us for dinner.

I noticed her hands. Her working hands. And I remember feeling something I couldn't quite put into words. I thought about how much physical labour she had endured that day.

Somehow, our conversation turned to feminism, women's rights, and the opportunities women in some countries have to pursue education, build careers, and become whoever they want to be.

And then my cousin interrupted me.

"Feminism? Don't use that word or anything associated with it at the table. It was that so-called “feminism” of the USSR that made me work in the fields."

I paused.

Suddenly, I remembered something about our history. During the Soviet period, Uzbekistan became a major cotton-producing region, and the Soviet cotton industry relied heavily on the Uzbek labour. The state promoted women's participation in the workforce under the language of gender equality and emancipation. Women working in the cotton fields were presented as evidence of progress and equality between men and women.

But there was another side to that story.

The cotton industry needed an enormous workforce. Women's labour became part of that system, and the language of equality was used to justify their participation in exhausting and often exploitative working conditions. For many women, this wasn't necessarily about having the opportunity to work. It was about being expected to work.

And that night, looking at my cousin's hands, I began to understand something.

Perhaps my cousin's problem wasn't with feminism itself. Perhaps her problem was with the absence of choice.

She had experienced a version of equality in which women were told they were equal to men, but that equality came with expectations, obligations, and hardships. It didn't necessarily give them the freedom to decide what kind of lives they wanted to lead.

For me, feminism is fundamentally about choice.

It means having equal opportunities and the freedom to decide what kind of life you want to live without being judged differently because you are a woman.

If woman wants to work in the fields, she should be free to choose that. But she should not be expected to do it simply because someone has decided that this is what equality looks like.

For me, feminism is not about making women live like men. It is about ensuring that women have the same freedom to CHOOSE, the same opportunities to pursue their CHOICES, and the same dignity and respect, whatever those CHOICES may be.

Because equality without choice is not liberation. 

Iroda 

*

Iroda Abdunazarova is Secretary of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here.

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

*

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.

What Does It Cost to Speak? Fear, Power, and My Feminism

Have you ever wanted to express a different perspective, but paused to consider how it might be received?

I have.

That pause has made me curious about a larger question: why do some people feel free to speak and choose, while others must first weigh their circumstances?

I am Shazia Shaheen. Born and raised in Pakistan, I now call Newfoundland and Labrador home. I am a mother, a human rights professional, and an intersectional feminist. My work alongside equity-seeking communities and people living at the margins has shaped how I understand belonging, power, and social justice.

My feminism did not begin with a single defining moment. It grew through listening, learning, questioning, and noticing how differently people experience the world.

I have come to understand that fear is not always about individual confidence. Sometimes it reflects an awareness of power differences, limited resources, uncertainty, or the possibility of losing a valued opportunity or sense of belonging. These realities can influence whether someone raises a concern, expresses a need, or makes a choice.

And the circumstances are not the same for everyone.

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who introduced the concept of intersectionality, describes it as “a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”

This understanding speaks to my experience. Gender, race, class, disability, religion, migration status, and other aspects of our identities do not operate independently. They interact with social and institutional structures, shaping our access to resources, our exposure to barriers, and sometimes our sense of safety.

Our identities do not inherently make us vulnerable. But their interaction with inequitable systems can create precarious circumstances. What may look like a straightforward decision from the outside can involve complex judgments about security, support, opportunity, and risk.

So I often ask:

How meaningful is a choice when the conditions for exercising it are constrained?

The inequitable distribution of resources and decision-making power matters here. Even initiatives designed to support equity-deserving groups can miss their purpose when the people affected have limited opportunity to define their needs or influence the decisions that shape their lives.

For me, equity requires more than offering everyone a choice. It means paying attention to the barriers that affect whether that choice is genuinely accessible, informed, and freely expressed. It also means respecting people's agency and seeking meaningful participation and consent rather than assuming we know what is best for them.

Decisions made for people are not necessarily decisions made with them.

Maya Angelou observed, “You develop courage by doing courageous things, small things.”

I value that reminder. Courage might mean asking a question, expressing a different view, or reconsidering an assumption. Yet we should not place the entire responsibility for change on individuals. We also need to consider how to create environments in which people feel able to participate without unnecessary fear.

This is where my feminism meets my interest in theatre.

As Vice-Chair of PerSIStence Theatre Company, I am drawn to the possibilities of storytelling. Policies, education, and human rights frameworks matter deeply to me, but stories can invite a different kind of reflection. Theatre allows us to encounter experiences beyond our own, question familiar assumptions, and notice voices and perspectives we may have overlooked.

I am an intersectional feminist because I believe equity is inseparable from dignity, belonging, meaningful choice, and the ability to shape one's own life. I continue to learn and unlearn; I certainly do not have all the answers.

But I hope to keep asking questions that matter:

Who feels able to speak? Who helps shape the decisions? And what would it take for more people to exercise their choices with dignity, agency, and a genuine sense of belonging?

*

Shazia Shaheen is Vice-Chair of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here.

What does feminism mean to me?

Despite having availed of the benefits and advantages gained by feminist advocates throughout my life, I have hesitated to identify myself as a feminist. What is that shadow that falls over the label “feminist”?  

I was born in the ‘50s and when I was becoming a young woman, it was all about Women’s Liberation.  Women were calling out the patriarchy with angry voices, and I guess I thought I should be angry too.  I thought equality was about being, “the same as” men – identical, indistinguishable. Women’s traditional roles were denigrated, including those of housewives, such as my own mother, who first taught me dignity and self-respect, self-love, a sense of humour and the joy of living. I suppressed my feelings, recklessly claimed my sexual freedom, drank with the boys, entered the trades.  Clearly, my notion of feminism never accurately reflected the movement, as evidenced by the truly meaningful improvements in the status of women that feminists have fought for and gained.

Feminism means believing in the right of women to an equal status with men in a patriarchal society such as ours.  For me, it means feeling confident that women belong everywhere – no public space is excluded to you – in the Engineering class, on the construction site, in the fishing boat, on the wharf, on the Municipal Council or any other political body – without having to suffer discrimination or harassment because of your gender.

It also means that women bring a unique female (or other) perspective to all of these spaces, which cannot truly represent them without them, and that the female perspective is worthy and true. Feminism is knowing the value of all women’s work, including women’s traditional work, and proving it by creating a society that secures their financial safety and prosperity. 

The rights that feminists have advocated for and gained, to one degree or another, are too numerous to enumerate but I will mention a few that have been gained only in my lifetime, and I think men, too, would have to admit that all of this has been great for our society: the Matrimonial Property Act - now the Family Law Act, including child support enforcement; pay equity laws, divorce laws, child care and parental leave. Women no longer face the same barriers to the trades and higher educational programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, based on their gender alone. 

And yet, gender-based violence has recently been declared an epidemic in our province.  There’s still so much to gain on every level and especially on violence and sexual abuse. 

Today I feel honoured and privileged to support PerSIStence Theatre Co., which continues to hold up the banner of feminism and to remind us that our evolution as a society - and my evolution as a feminist - is not finished.  I look forward to learning about activism which includes, “all those facing gender-based barriers, such as “transgender, non-binary, 2SLGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, racialized, Deaf, disabled, and people with lived experience”.  

Joan

*

Joan Woodrow is Treasurer of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Find her bio, and those of our other board members, here. 

Hi! I’m Sharon, and I’m new here.

Well, new-ish. I took on the title of Producing Artistic Director back in March, but I was easing out of my previous full-time role, so I’ve only been able to dedicate my whole focus and energy to this company for the past month. 

And it’s been a while since this company has been in touch. There have been some pretty big changes over here, not the least of which is my appointment as the company’s second ever artistic leader. The Board of Directors has also turned over by half, including three quarters of the executive roles. 

So, we thought we’d introduce ourselves a little bit, and I’m going first. Over the next little while you’ll see some posts from our board members, our artistic collaborators, and our community partners. The prompt we are all working from is:

“What does feminism mean to you?”

While I’m still feeling pretty new to this specific role, I do feel like I’ve been “at this” for a long time, where “this” = “working toward social justice.”

To me, feminism is not distinct from any other social justice advocacy work, except that it prioritizes equity across the gender spectrum. I believe that feminists and other social justice advocates are (or, should be) fighting the same fight. We can and should be learning from each other, taking in one another’s best practices, engaging in thoughtful and sometimes challenging conversation. We should all be fighting for access to the Rooms Where The Decisions Are Made, and whenever we get in there, taking note of who isn’t in the room with us.

Theatre work is Empathy work

The causes of social inequality are, of course, extremely complex, and I don’t pretend to understand all or even most of them, but I do think one of the biggies is a failure of empathy. 

It is very hard to imagine other people as fully human; that is, as human as oneself. It is even harder to imagine this when the other person in question is significantly different from you, if they don’t share your language, your culture, your family structure, your socioeconomic status, if they are from another country or another generation.

It is both easier and harder than ever to empathize with other people on a society-wide scale.

Easier, because we have access to stories from around the world, more immediately and more bountifully than we did before the internet age. We can toggle between languages with a few keystrokes. We can see videos and photographs the faces and hear recordings of the voices of the people who tell those stories. 

Harder, because so many of us live so much of our social lives online, using platforms that have been designed to disincentivize thoughtful discourse and to privilege quippy point-scoring. Scoring points is not an empathetic activity. If we spend too much time in these "spaces," our empathy skills start to erode.

So, we need the arts. Artistic expression is uniquely positioned to present nuanced perspectives. It is also founded (mostly, I believe) on the premise of helping the audience to feel, or think, in a way that they normally wouldn’t… and that’s how empathy takes root. Making and taking in artistic work is a form of empathy practice.

What I love about live performance in particular is that the audience isn’t just taking in the work after the fact; they are making the piece of art alongside the artists with their presence and attention. At the theatre, the audience becomes a creative collaborator.

If I’m doing my job right, when I tell a story on stage, the audience feels for and with the characters in that story. It’s a stretch of the empathy muscles.

But what stories do we tell?

It isn’t enough to make theatre. We can’t just tell stories about the world as it exists today, or as it has existed in the past, with humour and without critique, and assume that we are improving the world through empathy practice. Stories are just as capable of being regressive as they are of being progressive. And they are powerful tools to wield, whether for or against the status quo. 

To pursue social justice through theatre, we have to reframe those stories to address the path we want for the future. 

We have to privilege stories that haven’t been told often enough, or loudly enough, or at all.

We have to ask ourselves: who isn’t in the room yet?

*

Sharon King-Campbell is Producing Artistic Director of PerSIStence Theatre Company. Bio.