Sandy Thomson joins the battle against sexism in the arts

When we decided to tackle the idea of sexism in the arts, we got the chance to speak to Scottish playwright and filmmaker Sandy Thomson. For years, she has been fighting discrimination against women in the creative industries.

Sandy Thomson joins the battle against sexism in the arts

The arts are an extremely male-based industry. From directing, writing, producing to running the cameras and even being in front of the camera, the art world is still very male-dominated. Over recent years, there has undoubtedly been a hit on the arts industry, however this does not excuse the lack of women getting a chance to show off their creativity. 

After recently finding out that since the Oscars have been running, there have been over 400 nominations for Best Director and only eight of those have been women, I started to think about this issue. I was lucky enough to talk to Sandy Thomson, who gave me an insight into what being a woman in the arts is like for her. 

Who is Sandy Thomson?

Thomson describes herself as a Story Engineer. She is a multi-talented theatre and film worker who has worked in many areas behind the scenes including writing, producing and directing. She likes to adapt depending on what needs to be done and what she can do best to help portray the stories. “It's just sometimes I wear different hats.” She knew at the age of nine that this is what she wanted to do after putting on a school show. “I remember saying to my teacher that year, I was like, ‘I could do that.’” 

Since then, she produced shows every year of school and, when she left school, she was comfortable in her abilities to enter the industry via working in theatre, starting as a stage director. In 2002, she created her own production company: Poorboy. She worked her way up in the theatre industry and has recently started working in film. Although she is now very experienced and accomplished in her areas, this doesn’t mean that she hasn’t faced challenges along the way. On her journey she has faced a lot of sexism and this has led her to be a huge advocate for women in the arts. 

Getting into the industry

When Thomson first entered the industry professionally in her twenties, she already had years of experience, but a combination of her age and gender made many people doubt her – mostly older men. Through her experience of making plays at school, she didn’t only have writing experience, she also found herself  being a director and a producer – they were her productions, so she had to decide on costumes, music etc. This gave her so much experience, which she wasn’t often credited for as people weren’t used to girls of that age having so much experience.  “I used to sit next to directors and they'd be like, ‘you're not meant to have an opinion’,” she explained. As a natural leader, these weren’t her favourite situations to be in. She mentioned that it would get frustrating sometimes when she had to sit back and watch people making mistakes or not doing things efficiently as they would rather do that than listen to a younger girl. “There was a status thing,” she explained. However, she never took much notice of the status and liked to voice her opinion as she believed that her opinion or idea was just as valid as anyone else’s. Unfortunately, others didn’t always share this same opinion. 

Thomson was shocked by the ways in which women had to work their way into their positions, if they were lucky enough to get there. “I did see that the women who wanted to do those [directing] jobs spent about 10 years of their life being an assistant to some dude. The guys were in charge.” As she thought about this, she knew that she would hate that and it was not what she wanted for herself. This is then what led her on to creating her own theatre company, to allow her to be her own boss. 

Getting jobs

After being in the industry for a little while and going out for jobs, she found that generally, when she got an interview, she would get the job. However, when people saw the name ‘Sandra’, they didn’t give her an opportunity. She believed they didn’t want a woman as they didn’t see her being as capable as a man would be. This is a big part of the reason why she now goes by the name ‘Sandy’. When employers saw the name ‘Sandy’, they made assumptions. “If they saw Sandy, they thought I was a guy,” she explained. This meant that she got more interview offers, then in turn more jobs. “That was why I went by Sandy rather than using Sandra, because I realised that I was getting more responses from a CV.”

Sandy Thomson is keen to provide opportunities for women in theatre and filmSandy Thomson is keen to provide opportunities for women in theatre and film
(Credit: Stillmotion)

Theatre versus film 

Through working in both theatre and film, Thomson has had an insight into both industries and how they work and run. One thing that she found is that the film industry is a lot more sexist than the theatre industry. Although she did come across many sexist men in the theatre industry, they tended to hide it better, whereas she found that in film, men were more likely to openly say that they believed a man could do it better. 

This is what led Thomson to a lot of her recent work in feminist films and advocating for women in the arts. “There's so much talent that’s not getting a chance in film,” she said, and that was something she wanted to change. She explained that, on most film sets, there were maybe a few women. The women behind the camera were in administrative roles and then there would be a few actresses, but she didn’t believe that this was the right way to do things. What Thomson decided she wanted to do for certain films was have an all-female crew. She didn’t like that there were always groups of men wherever there was tech involved, as she believes that women are just as capable. After being a woman in that group of men, she said that no matter how nice they were, it was difficult to ignore as it changed the vibes of the room. 

She doesn’t believe in getting rid of men in the film industry, however she does feel like women have a place there and they should be given that place, rather than being dismissed of the opportunity down to their gender. 

It's not just during the filming process where women are often in short supply. Even during the initial writing stages, films often lose out on the women’s perspective. Thomson explained: “I'm so tired of watching stories where all the women have been written by men who don't know how women work.” This is why one of the things that she was really keen to do was to create feminist work that would actually be applicable to real women.

People often think that these inequalities no longer exist and are buried in the past, but this is not true. A job in the arts industry is difficult to come by for anyone in these times. However, women have constant added barriers thrown their way that they also need to overcome. Women shouldn’t need to change their name to be able to get a job, or be forced to assist a man before being given any credibility. Historically, men got the jobs because their views and opinions were the only ones that were seen to matter, but that never has been and never will be true. So why do women still need to fight so hard to get a successful job in the arts industry?

Find out more about Sandy Thomson and her work by visiting her Instagram page.

Header Image Credit: Matthew Wrightson

0 Comments

Post A Comment

You must be signed in to post a comment. Click here to sign in now

You might also like

Poetry Jam’s 12th Birthday: Everyone needs to hear this.

Poetry Jam’s 12th Birthday: Everyone needs to hear this.

by Ellie Blackwell

Read now