How Bad Is Being A White, Middle Class Female?

Doesn't it just suck when you get really cold with the aircon on, but a few minutes after you turn it off you get all hot and sweaty? Or when your house is too big for your wifi and you can only watch Instagram videos in the lounge room? And really bad spray tans… they're not great either. These are the every day problems faced by Tiffany and Kendall, aka Judy Hainsworth and Kaitlin Oliver Parker in their stage production #FirstWorldWhiteGirls, which, as the hashtag suggests, is a satirical take on modern females.  

"What Tiffany and Kendall are saying is 'we're feminists because we want to be like Emma Watson and she proved feminists don't have to be ugly."

Hainsworth's most recent 'white girl' moment happened last week when the show played in Adelaide during the Clipsal 500. "I was trying to have a nap and the Clipsal was on and I could hear all these cars going [makes roaring car noises] and I was trying to have a nap to be all rested for my show in the evening and I couldn't sleep!" she laughs. The ability to be a bit tongue-in-cheek about materialistic personal issues "like not wanting to touch toilet handles when I go out or my favourite barista put[ting] too much milk in my macchiato," was the inspiration for the show, which doesn't so much shed a bad light on modern women as highlight our trivialities with the purpose of instigating self reflection. "I think we make some really good comments — we do this whole section about cosmetic surgery and women's appearance. We're satirising, and what Tiffany and Kendall are saying is 'we're feminists because we want to be like Emma Watson and she proved feminists don't have to be ugly,' and it is an actual issue; that women are judged on their appearance.

"I think it really does raise an awareness in the audience, because they're laughing and going 'isn't it crazy that we inject poison into our face and let fish nibble at our feet?' and then start to question those and go 'hang on, maybe we shouldn't be doing this, it's a bit extreme and unnecessary.'"

Hainsworth's character Tiffany "is a bit of a socio-path who idolises Kim Kardashian and thinks that she's the epitome of perfection", with her partner Kendall as the 'frienemy'. "They're the only two people who would put up with each other's crap and it sort of sends up that whole idea of female bitchiness. They're best friends, but Tiffany is always talking about how fat Kendall is and what a loser she is."

Coming from a self-professed "privileged" white girl background — "I went to private school… I never went hungry and I was able to pursue a career in the arts which is, like, the ultimate indulgence, isn't it?" — Hainsworth thinks that these characters, though exaggerated, really exist among young modern women. "It's definitely a trend. We hope as the audience are laughing at [the characters] they might actually recognise a bit of themselves and have a bit of a moment," she muses.