Noh, epic poetry, bagpipes.... In Classical Greek and Elizabethan
theatre, acting and playwrighting. Seriously, most cultures
have assigned certain arts to each gender.
"We" don't-- but as someone on one of the lists we share
just reminded us, the majority of womankind even today is
illiterate.
I don't think you are old enough to remember this sort of
thing, but when I was in college in the 50's those of my professors
(all male) who voiced an opinion on the matter believed and
taught that there had never been and would never be first
rate women artists (or thinkers) in any field. A certain proportion
of them held that women should therefore be barred from higher
education, where they wasted scarce resources, distracted
males, and became unfit for their proper fullfilment in motherhood.
Sounds like an Urban Legend, doesn't it? But I was there,
I listened to them-- and sometimes I took their comments quite
personally. In point of fact, besides the glamorous actresses
I had heard and read about, and the not at all glamourous
women whose direction and design I was familiar with from
my town's community and childrens's productions, there were
brilliant creative women in the theatre then: Agnes DeMille,
Margaret Webster, Susan Gaspell-- but I never saw their work
or heard it discussed, at the time.
A number of splendid women writers post WWII turned to novels
and short stories only after deciding that they would not
be "permitted" to write for the theatre: Doris Lessing, Iris
Murdoch, Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt... others whose bios
I read but have forgotten.
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