According to Wikipedia, Perez is a feminist (‘radical feminist, if you don’t mind’), author, journalist and activist. What Wiki doesn’t mention is that Perez is also an extraordinary speaker, a punchy communicator.
Fuelled by fire, she leans over the lectern and looks the audience right in the eye as she delivers so much content that she couldn’t fail to have made points which were new and surprising, even to the most aware of audience members.
Perez was firing on all cylinders in this talk – from the quotation of shocking statistics on female under-representation in popular culture to the unrecognized contribution of unpaid female labour to the national economy, from the gender data gap to the lack of respect and recognition of women who choose motherhood, and from the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft to the lyrics of Taylor Swift.
All that was missing was reference to Shakespeare’s Sister as in all honesty, I was struck by how I was brought back by this talk to the very vivid memory of my first reading of A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. I loved Perez’s contemporary version – a relatable roar of outrage and a clear call to action addressed to the entire population, not just to women but to men as well.
The talk ended with a Q & A which was a little haphazard but then, perhaps all the best Q & A’s are – everyone falling over themselves to express what’s on their minds. Interestingly, one of the questions was shouted from the balcony by a teacher who had been deeply moved by Perez’s point that girls start to become adversely affected by male-biased education from the age of six. She asked, ‘what can we do?’.
Reactions such as this are powerful. Talks such as this can make a real difference.
Reviewer: Susan Cohen
Reviewed: 18th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: