Women can be anything, including being gloriously, shamelessly stupid

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Who decides the benchmark of feminism?

We do what we think is right, but not everyone is doing the emotional labour for the men around them or living in the trenches raising children. Certainly not Steph, Nic and Tess, who are unmarried twenty-somethings doing the best they can.

Multi-award-nominated (always the bridesmaids) sketch comedy trio Sugar Bits are Feminist Trash, smeared with socio-political grime and idiocy.

Feminist Trash is about how trashy we can be as activists.

The trio say, “We’re not perfect and have plenty of nights when we can’t even bring ourselves to take the bins out.”

Life is messy. Life is stinky. Life is trashy.

Sure, some feminists do need to lift their game, like the show’s pro-life Pentecostal priest’s daughter who thinks she’s helping and the potato sack-wearing whistle-blowing witch burner. Do we judge them? We’re trying not to, but we do.

Life is messy, stinky and trashy. Photo: Yuthika Addina.

Sugar Bits encourage conversations with ridiculous comedy, absurd sketches, characters and razor-sharp songs that validate the feminist experience, such as the fan-favourite hillbilly earworm The Feminism Left My Body When…

They say, “We laugh at the fact that we’re not perfect, because if we’re trying to be perfect, surely we’re doing the work of the patriarchy.”

Steph, Nic and Tess are a collective of clowns who met studying Acting and Music Theatre at Federation University, and were drawn to each other through their ability to be profoundly unintellectual and rigorously physical.

They see the personal as political and use their experiences to fuel parody, theatricalising current events and speaking to a wider feminist perspective.

Feminist Trash is directed by the multi–award winning Sharnema Nougar (director of Mel McGlensey’s Motorboat, Lauren Bok’s Boklesque, and Gemma Caruana’s Rage Bait) and the drag/clown/burlesque powerhouse Liv Bell (Winner Apprentease Victoria 2025).