Equality of Genders
(A Major Theme in Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing)
One of the themes that we see in Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing in the roles that gender plays. In an interview with Tomson Highway, he had stated that:
"All my plays are about that in some way, the terrible way misogyny has split the world . . . why are women treated like this? God is a man, Jesus was a man. Until we conceive of God as female, women will not have that power to be treated with respect. And that's why . . . [in Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing] you see the birth of the goddess as a little girl. The difference between Indian people and white people is that one is patriarchal in structure.... In the Cree language, there's no gender. The world isn't divided into that kind of gendered hierarchy. But along the road in history, God as man met God as woman and raped her. And that's where that line comes from [in Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing], the one that so many people reacted so strongly against, that they couldn't stomach: "Because I hate them, them fucking bitches. They took the power the ones with the power." That's Big Joey's line. He can't stand being impotent in the face of women, and he blames women. But people don't want to hear what's true all the time. I think that's where a lot of writers get in trouble. What the writer is doing is using characters to express a whole range of perspectives, that you might not agree with."
(You can find more of this interview from the link to Tomson's biography on the previous page)
It is clear that this theme of gender roles is dominant throughout the play. Highway had put things in the story about prosthetic bottoms, and fake breasts. In my mind, I was honestly thinking that this author just saw women as being fake and not needing any real respect from anyone. However, after reading this quote, I saw that the author was making us open our eyes so that we see that there are a broad range of different perspectives that we are getting from all of the different characters throughout the play and that women aren't just being seen as some object, but that we deserve the same amount of respect as anyone else. Which is why in the play, men were not the only ones allowed to play hockey on the team.
