Susan Evans is an award-winning performance artist, widely published poet, storyteller, innovative educator, campaigner, and occasional chef from working-class, multicultural East London, living in Brighton, UK. Her one-woman spoken word show Amuse-bouche kicks off 26 May, 2025 at Komedia Brighton, who are ‘Celebrating Women in the Arts’ as part of International Women’s Day, 2025.
Miss World
Weekends, our family would gather around the TV together for gameshows — The Generation Game was considered good, clean fun. Some, of its time, in accessorising its mature, male host, with a young “glamorous assistant” in post. ‘Women as accessories.’ I hadn’t viewed it like that back then; aged just nine or ten; still playing with dolls; replica Barbie & Ken. I became increasingly aware of the situ, starting work in the city, as a ‘Girl Friday.’ & sad to say, later, when some male poets & poetry promoters openly booked me as token ‘tottie’ & to ‘avoid a willy fest.’ (A mindset I naturally detest). My family also enjoyed watching Miss World; a parade of international gals ‘give us a twirl.’ I was obsessed with hair & make-up; styling on my model Girl’s World. Our portable TV, with its makeshift, wire coat-hanger aerial, had just three manual channels to scroll. Many shows seem to portray woman as ‘living doll.’ Aged just nine or ten, how was I to know then, that us young girls were largely under the influence of media men? Scroll decades forward to male, billionaire-owned, mass global online social platform… Cue rise of female “Influencers” whipping up a storm. Hair & make-up just isn’t “glamorous” enough for some — it seems many beautiful, intelligent, young women are submitting to cosmetic surgery to numb, with Botox, lip fills, breast implants, BBLs (Brazilian Butt Lifts)., extended locks — Keeping up with the Kardashians, with ‘before & after’ TikToks … ‘Our bodies, our choices.’ YES to female empowerment; to raising our voices. Female empowerment. But is it though? Or has Miss World become more Miss Guided? Oh! Might I succumb to the surgeon’s knife, to a series of injections — not expecting to have reached mid-life & looking more naturally lived in, I ask myself? No. I don’t think so. Not for non medical reasons. Aging feels a privilege, with hair & make-up an art-form for all seasons. ‘War Paint’ in some contexts. Cosmetic surgery, to me, seems a bit extreme — having a facial tumour removed was traumatic enough., (for that male NHS surgeon, I am truly thankful). There must be alternative ways to raise self-esteem — to feel more seen, more loved, more equal.
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While you’re shopping
bombs are dropping! We chant along Brighton’s North Street; stopping traffic at the Clock Tower. An emaciated looking woman yells at us from outside Boots : I’ve enough problems of my own! (It’s tough).
Young male gang are recording via mobile phones. A together-looking couple lean in by the crossing at Waterstones, mouthing: well done & making solidarity fist shapes — a friendly marcher, holding a Jews Against Genocide banner, invites them to join in. A Busker carries on busking & this made me smile more than anything. We continue marching & chanting until we finally reach the Peace Statue. We are still tied together by metres of symbolic red ribbon & our shared humanity. Huddled on Hove lawns, we listen to resilient women & children sharing stories of old, & of lost family, from Gaza & from Jaffa; home of the original farmers of Jaffa oranges, that also gave us Jaffa Cakes. We hold the hope & reflect on what a difference a day makes.
