Mónica Huarte
I live in México City, a country where there are psychological, emotional, social and personal burdens that have taught us that we have limits. We grow up with these crazy ideas that women should obey, be submissive, weak, that there are roles we need to follow. That you should be below men, and they are the ones who have the power. We learned it from soap operas and Mexican TV, we learned it from our grandmas and the generations before them. It´s also the consequence of male chauvinism and sexism. But fortunately something has been changing lately, we have been learning that we can be empowered as women, that we can develop our capacities and be leaders in everything we do.
I always believed that there were no limits for me as a human being , as an artist and especially as a woman. I always believed that I was as capable as any men to do anything I wanted to do and I think that has enabled me to be able to produce my own plays and be a lead in them. I’m not afraid, I dare because I know I can.
When I told my father I wanted to be an actress he told me: "If you really want it I want you to be the best” so he provided me with the possibility to prepare myself with a University degree as well as an acting degree and I did. There were people around me that believed that it was a dangerous career for women and maybe it is (when you read about Harvey Weinstein and all the people who used power to play with the illusions of so many women that wanted to be in the business you get horrified) but I have always believed that there are bad people but also good people everywhere and you just need to find your clan, your tribe, you just need to be surrounded by the ones that see life the same way you do. People that are in the arts because they want to communicate a story, people who need art to explain the world, that are passionate about it and are there for the right reasons, they exist and you need to find them and treasure them because they will be your collaborators, your teachers and with whom you will grow in body, mind and spirit.
When I think of how to inspire women to empower themselves I think of this five pieces of advice:
Crystal Skillman (previous page)
After my play Geek premiered in New York a few years ago, I was walking uptown (right by Saint John the Devine). I happened to be there after a rehearsal, but I’m not often in that area. As I was walking I heard my name being called. I turned and saw a woman I didn’t know was calling my name. She came running up to me and asked if I had written Geek. I said yes. She said she recognized me from the back because of my pigtails, as she had read an interview with a picture of me. She wanted to tell me that her thirteen year old daughter loved Geek. Her daughter had begged her to see it again. So they had seen it twice. Something similar also happened with my punk rock play Another Kind of Love that played in Manhattan. My work was really speaking to teenage girls and their families, and I think does. As a playwright who write strong, young female characters for the stage, that makes me feel super empowered.
As a playwright, and the wife of a comic book writer, the conversation which tends to dominate my life is about the work of women in these industries. Two years ago at a comic con, at a Women in Comics Now panel, the Professor running the panel was asked why, if this was the title, there was no women on the panel. This was true - there was only men. He said he didn’t know how to get in touch with them. When we heard of this, the legendary comic book artist Trina Robbins and I walked down the aisles of the convention, gathering our friends, creating our own panel. At the end of the day there were so many female creators on stage for our panel, we could barely fit. The audience, who filled the hall at a moment’s notice, were not only moved to tears by the ability to ask their favorite female creators questions, but also by the sheer number of women standing together. The message was loud and clear. “You are not alone.”