University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/55822 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. PHILOMELA AND HER SISTERS: EXPLORATIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN PLAYS BY BRITISH CONTEMPORARY WOMEN DRAMATISTS by KYUNG RAN PARK SUBMITTED TO THE JOINT SCHOOL OF THEATRE STUDIES THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK for the Degree of Philosophical Doctor July 1998 for My Parents CONTENTS Acknowledgements IV Summary V Introduction 1 Part One. Philomela and Her Sisters in the Past 43 Chapter 1. Philomela's Story 44 Chapter 2. Witches 69 Crux 72 Chapter 3 . Women in Social Turmoil 85 The Taking of Liberty 87 Chapter 4. Madwomen 106 Augutine (Big Hysteria) 111 Chapter 5 . Working Women in the Late-Victorian Age 128 The Gut Girls 133 Part Two. Philomela's Sisters in the Present 146 Chapter 6. Rape 147 Ficky Stingers 152 Chapter 7. Child Sexual Abuse 164 Beside Herself 168 Chapter 8 . Women in the Sex Industry 181 Thatcher's Women 183 Money to Live 196 Chapter 9. Pornography in Low Level Panic 207 Chapter 10. A Concluding Play: Masterpieces 223 Conclusion 240 Bibliography 248 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank God for strengthening me whenever I felt lost in the course of writing up my thesis. I deeply thank Dr Geraldine Cousin for her supervision and valuable comments on my thesis. I wish to express my appreciation to the dramatists whose plays are discussed in this thesis for the valuable issues they have raised. I am grateful to my parents who have made what I am today. I am deeply indebted to Mr Anthony Gribbon of the International Office and Dr Joan Sinclair More for their help to find funds towards the final stage of my thesis. I also acknowledge the moral support from my brothers and their families, especially from my younger brother, Soochul, who has taken care of my financial matters for the completion of my PhD. I also appreciate the prayers and encouragement of Rev. Lee and his wife and the congregation of Coventry Korean Church, for which I have served as a deacon. Last, but not least, I thank all my friends for their comfort and consolation during my PhD. SUMMARY The theme of this thesis is women and violence explored in eleven plays by British contemporary women playwrights in the 1980s and 1990s. In order to explore these plays, I have made investigations into a basic knowledge of violence against women in the Introduction. Violence against women is also called sexual violence or gender-related violence. The knowledge I have gained includes how sexual violence is defined; why sexual violence occurs; what kinds of sexual violence there are; how people perceive sexual violence. My definition is that any act which limits the autonomy of women constitutes sexual violence. Based on a variety of definitions by feminist scholars, there are many forms of sexual violence in women's history around the world. As a result, I have found out the continuity, diversity, and universality of women's pain. The nature of sexual violence has been mistaken by many people from the perspective of prevailing myths about women's sexuality. Because of them, many women and female children become double victims. Having understood the true nature of sexual violence, I have selected eleven plays which explore women and violence: The Love of the Nightingale (1988) by Timberlake Wertenbaker; Crux (1991) by April de Angelis; The Taking of Liberty (1992) by Cheryl Robson; Augustine (Big Hysteria) (1991) by Anna Furse; The Gut Girls (1988) by Sarah Daniels; Ficky Stingers (1986) by Eve Lewis; Beside Herself (1990) by Sarah Daniels; Thatcher's Women (1987) by Kay Adshead; Money to Live (1984) by Jacqueline Rudet; Low Level Panic (1988) by Clare McIntyre; Masterpieces (1984) by Sarah Daniels. The thesis is divided into two parts depending on whether the plays are set in the past or present in order to identify the continuity of sexual violence. They depict the exercise of men's power through sexual violence. In the plays women experience vi violence committed by men and then they are silenced. However, the women demonstrate their fighting spirit and regain their voice or find ways to express themselves. Women's hope for change is expressed through theatre. 1 INTRODUCTION Since the Women's Liberation Movement started in the United States in the late 1960s, women's status has improved greatly in many parts of the world. Over the last quarter of a century women have had increasing opportunities for education, employment, and other activities for a better quality of life. However, women still do not enjoy equal opportunities with men. Male supremacy has been institutionalised, simply on the basis of gender, in every aspect of our lives. Economic and political power controlled by men is so dominant over women in most societies that women in the majority of countries still have had less access to power and privilege than men, even though the degree of power allowed to men varies from society to society. For example, in many third-world countries over 90% of the women are illiterate. Women represent 70% of 1.3 billion people world-wide who live in poverty. Although they do 66% of the world's work, women earn 10% of the world's income and own 1% of the world's property. In 1994 only 8 countries were close to having 30% of their government representatives as women. I '[I]n the UK, only one In ten MP's are women ... ; only one in ten judges are women. Britain, unlike Germany, France and Italy does not have a policy of paid paternity Ieave.'2 As the above statistics show, except for highly advanced societies with well-developed welfare provision (some Scandinavian countries, for example), women in most patriarchal societies are inferior to men in their homes, their jobs, and in other spheres of societies. Women are oppressed economically in employment and in marriage. As wives and mothers, still many women are excluded from job opportunities, especially because of child-rearing and housework. Even when women are employed, most of them are in low-paid insecure job. In the same status of work women are frequently less paid than men. 2 They are also expected to carry out unpaid housework. Some women have made their way into senior positions, but they are still a minority in positions of power and influence. They have fewer prospects for promotion and are often less paid than men in the same position. Overall, the situations of employment are not favourable to women. Today, women still have to suffer this discrimination to earn their living. Women are also oppressed sexually. They are still vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. It is estimated that a quarter of women world-wide are physically battered. For example, in Pakistan, over 80% of women in custody are subjected to some form of sexual assault. East Timorese women are forcibly being sterilised in an attempt by the Indonesian government to annihilate their race. One million young girls in Asia are prostitutes. In China abortion is compulsory for unmarried mothers. The punishment for being a lesbian in Iran is for the guilty women to be cleaved in half. In Algeria women are gunned down by terrorist groups for not wearing head scarves. Approximately 100 million women and girls throughout the world have undergone genital mutilation. In the USA a woman is raped every six minutes. In the UK around a thousand cases of domestic violence are reported to the police every week. Also in Britain girls have disappeared close to their homes and have later been found raped and killed, or, worse still, have never been heard of again. Women have to avoid certain places and certain times for their own safety. Their freedom of movement in public places, at least, at night time, is restricted. Even in the daytime women are not necessarily safe. They may be sexually harassed in the streets and in their workplace. Women are thought to be safe at home, where they are presumed to be protected by their fathers, husbands, or male relatives such as brothers, uncles, or grandfathers, but the truth is that they are not safe at home. either. Women and female children ,lre sexually and/or physically abused by men in their homes. Thus 3 irrespective of differences arising from age, class, colour, religion or culture, and of the type of political and legal systems under which they live, world-wide women's freedom is limited while are beaten, abused, raped, sexually harassed, killed and psychologically tormented in the home, workplace, and society. They are verbally and visually humiliated and objectified as sexual beings in the mass media. Violence sometimes threatens or devastates women's lives. Yet the prevalence and the problem of violence against women have not been widely acknowledged. It was only in the early 1970s that feminist campaigns and actions in many societies made sexual violence, which is sometimes of a private nature, a public issue. It was not until recently that sexual violence was recognised as a crime and a major obstacle to sexual equality and women's welfare in society. A woman's right to be free from danger and fear for her personal safety within the home, the workplace, and society should be secured sooner or later for the good of half of the population of mankind - women and female children.