Women’s voices

On this Oscars Night I am heading off to a recording of The Guilty Feminist. I’m a bit excited. I’m writing stories with strong female characters in the hope that one day I will write something excellent enough, and feminist enough, and Debra Francis White might interview me. #lifegoals

I’ve never watched the Oscars ceremony and other than a flick through the list of winners, I really couldn’t be arsed thinking about it. There are a lot a people up in arms again this year about the white-maleness of the nominees and every post decrying the narrowness of the field is peppered with comments from the ‘meritocracy’ faction. Funny thing; if you click on the profile of someone called, oh I don’t know, men_rights84, you’ll invariably see a profile pic of a car or jetski and it will always be a private account with less than 50 followers.

Sad. But many of these dudes really believe this to be true! ‘If women want to be nominated they need to make better movies…’ Sit down, Kyle.

Sadder still are the people feeding the trolls with massive long threads in which the OP is never seen commenting again. (#russianbots ??) Somewhere down the line the original point of the pile-on is lost and commenters are piling-on each other, vying to see how far left they can lean without falling off.

I’m hoping the Oscars lineup for, say, 2025 will be far more diverse, of course, but if we looked back 10 or 20 years, I think we’d be surprised at how far Hollywood has come towards diversity. We need to encourage a diverse group of people to make movies and the viewing public must support a diverse range of movies. Ladies, if we don’t support female-driven movies (books, art, poetry, musicians) the money won’t flow there!

Or maybe by 2025 the lure of the Oscars will fade and creators will view success in other ways.


Look at your book shelf? Your Spotify most played list? The lineup at your fave music festival. Seeing many women’s voices represented there?