It would be easy to think that the row over gender equality in the Abbey Theatre’s 2016 programme will have far-reaching consequences. But the history of inequality is mostly of long, slow struggles, whether it’s been about rich and poor, the haves and have-nots, differences of race, skin colour, sexual orientation or gender, or the mere fact of illness or disability. Inequalities are often effectively invisible to the people who perpetrate them. But they can be astonishing when you meet them unexpectedly. Many years ago I wrote about music for a while under a female pseudonym. I needed to be sure that I wouldn’t be rumbled and thought it was the best cover I could have. Friends who knew...
↧