It's that time of year again ' not just for Valentine's Day, but also The Vagina Monologues, the play by feminist writer Eve Ensler that is now in its 10th year of production. About two years ago today, I was writing a column slamming the play as a pointless raunch-fest that didn't live up to its mission, which is to fight violence against women and girls. As I said back in 2006, I G? found no connection between any of the monologues and V-Day's goal.
I agreed with the two main arguments against the play: that a bunch of privileged college girls discussing their private parts does nothing to help oppressed women in other countries and that the hyper-sexualized content of the play is degrading rather than empowering. Since then, I have seen the play twice, spent many hours researching the V-Day movement and debated with women who had different views on the Monologues. At the risk of ruining the rest of this column: I changed my mind.
Why? First, one of the main reasons I don't associate with the modern feminist movement ' which I assumed V-Day was part of ' is its absurd self-centeredness. While women in many foreign countries are treated like property, subjected to genital mutilation and forced marriages, and raped as a course of military strategy, many American feminists are busy advocating for more worthy individuals: themselves.
Despite the fact that most prominent feminists are upper-class women with a college education, they're often obsessed with their own sense of hurt and victimization. In her 1994 book Who Stole Feminism?, writer Christina Hoff Sommers described a women's studies conference where feminists discussed their ouch moments
which included such minor transgressions as being interrupted by a man while speaking. (What about the ouch moment of girls in Muslim countries who have their clitoris and labia hacked out to keep them pure?) For years, feminists struck me as an ungrateful bunch that had no idea what it was like to be truly oppressed.
However, The Vagina Monologues, which has become the largest feminist activist event worldwide, indicates that feminism might be moving in a new direction. V-Day is undoubtedly outward-focused. Since the movement's inception, Ensler and her band of Vagina Warriors have been vocal about the hideous abuses visited on women in foreign lands, including honor killings, acid attacks, forced prostitution and female infanticide. Much of the more than 30 million dollars V-Day has raised is used to combat these practices.
V-Day activists have opened shelters for battered women in Egypt, demonstrated against honor killings in Pakistan and founded a safe house in Kenya for girls fleeing genital mutilation. Ensler has even inspired women to bring The Vagina Monologues to countries where women have almost no legal rights, let alone any control over their sexuality ' and many of these women have found the play to be infinitely empowering. I'm not willing to argue with them.But the Monologues are performed in America too ' and many women I like and respect believe that the play's graphic vagina-talk is degrading and reduces women to their sexual organs. They argue, as I once did, that the play is obscene and even pornographic.
However, after looking at the play more closely, I believe it's actually a rebellion against the porno culture, which puts pressure on women to imitate pixilated babes who look perfect, don't talk back and orgasm on cue. The Vagina Monologues is graphic, but it's also real. After all, it's based on interviews that Ensler conducted with several hundred women and covers everything from getting your first period to having a baby. As pornography's influence grows, the monologues push back by showing what it's like to be a real woman: We have insecurities and body hang-ups, unique experiences and personalities, and ' despite what hard-core porn is brainwashing a lot of men to believe ' we don't spend every waking minute thinking of some bizarre sexual experience. Far from reducing women to body parts, the monologues show that we are much more than that. As Eve Ensler put it, the vagina becomes the least significant thing.
I'm not ready to become a Vagina Warrior just yet. There are a few monologues I won't ever defend, such as the one that features a lawyer-turned-prostitute who claims her new job is empowering. But overall, I have to hand it to Ensler and the Monologuers. Whether you're an American woman demanding your right not to have to emulate the faux sexuality of strippers and porn stars, or a woman in a foreign country struggling against a system that gives you no sexual rights at all, The Vagina Monologues offers something for all of us.
Ashley Herzog is a senior journalism major. Send her an e-mail at ah103304@ohiou.edu.
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