The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Women at the helm for festival
Creative workshops, music, talks on gender equality and inspirational women from history. It’s all part of Women of the World, at Perth Theatre, September 29-30
Gender politics will be top of the agenda in Perth this weekend.
Since first appearing in London in 2010, the celebratory Women of the World Festival has landed in various English cities as well as Cardiff and Derry, and also takes place in as farflung locations as Karachi, Baltimore, Beijing, Melbourne and Rio.
Taking in the arts, debates and mentoring sessions with social inclusion from a female perspective the common theme, WOW enjoyed its Perth debut last year and now returns as the global movement’s sole Scottish platform.
This weekend’s activities are preluded today by a series of creative workshops and interactive talks for secondary pupils on gender equality and inspirational women from history.
Tomorrow’s opening day highlights include a performance of the play The Vagina Monologues, a discussion on men and feminism featuring Rizzle Kicks star Jordan Stephens and comedy from Edinburgh Fringe regular Elaine Miller, plus activist art sessions and themed conversation cafes focusing on body image in literature, women in the criminal justice system, breastfeeding and support for mothers.
Along with free weekend-long pop-up music and dance performances and a market, Sunday boasts workshops with African-Caribbean dance collective Project X and puppeteer Yamina Peerzada, speed mentoring, a menopause cafe and a closing acoustic gig from songsmith Horse McDonald.
Festival programmer Louise Brodie says the inter-generational extravaganza’s appeal crosses class,
cultural and gender boundaries.
“We’re the only WOW festival in Scotland and there’s a real ambition for Perth to shout about that,” she explains.
“Our remit is to give the festival a local and a national flavour, and an international outlook. We’re joining in on a conversation that’s massive globally.”
Applied artist Louise says WOW Perth took shape at a series of all-inclusive planning sessions called ‘Thinkins’.
“It’s really important that we get a rich and diverse roomful of people because we want to capture those voices and the reality of Perth,” she adds.
“Perth sometimes gets a bad rap for being statistically older than the rest of Scotland’s population, or its women are seen as a bit quieter — but that’s not the women of Perth that I’ve encountered.”
Far from being a female-only gathering, Louise stresses that men are actively encouraged to attend.
“It’s so important that we’re having these conversations together because otherwise we’re not going to be able to make any changes towards gender equality,” she says.
“The systems we’re talking about are as detrimental to men and young boys as much as they are to women. We’ve got speakers from Andy’s Man Club coming along to talk about what they do in Perth, along with Jordan Stephens who’s spoken out loads about toxic masculinity.
“Making those kinds of men visible and hearing what they’re grappling with and how they’re making positive waves is important. The festival’s for everyone because women’s stories aren’t inherently different from men’s.
“We all have things within each other’s stories that we can identify with, it just happens we’ve made a conscious choice to put women’s stories front and centre.”
Around 1,000 visitors joined 100 speakers, performers and workshop leaders at Perth Concert Hall last year, with even greater numbers expected at Perth Theatre this weekend.
The festival’s for everyone because women’s stories aren’t inherently different from men’s