Linda
Director's Note

 

In the 1970s I attended an all-girls high school in Washington, DC. The captain of our basketball team was a girl. The editor of our student newspaper was a girl. The president of our student government was a girl. They were my heroes.

 

And, at this all-girls school, we had many female guest speakers who regaled us with stories of their adventures, of their great successes and their even greater failures, and of their hopes for us young women as the future leaders of America. Barbara Bush spoke of her exploits in China. Margaret Mead spoke of her research in the South Pacific (and to our continued embarrassment, somehow our questions were fixated on her experiences with outhouses). Gloria Steinem was adamant that my peers and I would succeed in ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment and we would be the first generation of women who could “have it all” if we wanted.

 

I guess this is why every time I encounter sexism I am surprised. Truly. Even after a half a century of it, it never ceases to perplex me. When a male boss comes up behind me and rubs my shoulders, or I’m talked over in a meeting, or a man thinks it’s charming that I know the ERA of my favorite team’s pitcher, it knocks me back, takes my breath away, and honestly confounds me. Or even worse, I simply shrug it off.

 

My mom’s generation knew no other way. But it was supposed to be gone by now. I am a woman in a man’s profession, still. In 2016, according to the Society of Directors and Choreographers (my union), 80 percent of union contracts were given to male directors. Eight years ago, when I joined the faculty of a large university in North Carolina, I was one of two female tenure-line professors in a department of 13 faculty members.

 

But I don’t mean to lecture you, Dear Reader. Because, more than likely you are a woman. More women attend the theatre than men, but less  then 20 percent of plays that are given professional productions are written by women.

 

Linda of Penelope Skinner’s Linda may be a deeply flawed human being (as we all are), but she is battling for all of us women. To be seen. To be heard. To be the hero of the story.

Robin Witt
2018

 

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