Around the world, gender is the primary division between people. Each society sets up barriers to provide unequal access to power, property, and prestige on the basis of sex (Friedl 1990). Throughout history women have been placed second to men. Approximately one billion adults around the world cannot read; two-thirds are women. About 130 million children are not enrolled in grade school; 70 percent are girls (Ashford 1995). In the United States, women hold about 10 percent of national legislative seats, which reveals that women lack equal access to national decision making (Riley 1997). In every nation, women average less pay then men (Ashford 1997). A global human rights issue is violence against women (Crossman 1995). Of the many aspects of gender discrimination in everyday life that could be examined, the question of gender and authorship has emerged. Gender is relevant when interpreting a dramatic text but it should not be treated as a distinct variable. When one interprets a dramatic event gender should be subsumed into the overall meaning of a work.

As seen in the introduction, women have and continue to face many hardships because of their gender. Theater is a place where women and

In the world of sports men and women are categorized due to their biological differences. Women are not required to run as far or jump as high because in the end they are judged upon their performance in accordance with others of the same sex. In the world of literature there is not a Pulitzer Prize for a man and one for a woman but one for an author. This reveals that a piece of literature, specifically a play, should be analyzed and interpreted on the basis of its content and not on the gender of the playwright.

In the Female Dramatist, Wandor says “The very concept of the ‘writer’ implies maleness, so that the sub-category ‘woman writer’ had to be developed in the nineteenth century to cover a species of creativity that challenged the dominant image.” Through this quote one can see that women struggled to be fully accepted by the male dominated literary world. But now that time has passed a new generation has risen. This generation has not lived through the suffrage and oppression of women but has experienced its aftermath and its apparent status in such places as the government, as discussed in the introduction. This generation is screaming for equality just as the women in the past but this equality is not in the form of a male or a female but in the form of accepting an author for their talent and not primarily because they are of a certain gender.

Some topics in this essay:
Interpretation Drama, Loraine Hansberry, Dramatist Wandor, Lori Parks’, Lori Parks, Pulitzer Prize, Aphra Behn, Howe Vogel, Tina Howe, distinct variable, gender race, overall meaning, Suzan Lori, interpreting dramatic text, gender relevant, dramatic text, plays plays, gender discrimination, suzan lori, interpreting dramatic, basis sex, subsumed overall meaning,