« Slick Willie on the prowl for interns | Main | Plastic Surgery Trumped Katrina Vote for NV Dem »

April 01, 2009

The Vulgar Monologues

The Vagina Monologues were performed at hundreds of campuses across the nation on Feb. 23, 24, and 25. While the (alleged) motivator—raising awareness of domestic violence—is one I can understand, no correlation has yet been made regarding this cause and the chanting of the ‘c’ word, the intoxication and rape of a girl by a lesbian, or the general dismissal of women as anything other than sexual objects.

The Monologues are nothing short of betrayal. As a critic of the radical form of feminism I am faced with on campus, I find in them a trace of irony as well.

Eve Ensler was looking for attention, and nothing else, when she penned the Monologues. The play is not based on interviews Ensler had with over 200 women; it is based on her disdain for men and her desire to desensitize. Ensler writes: “Some of the monologues are close to verbatim interviews, some are composite interviews, and with some I just began with the seed of an interview and had a good time.”

Personally, I find relief in the fact that the Monologues are fiction. I don’t know who would want a six-year-old girl—or any self-respecting female, for that matter—subjected to Ensler’s “interviewing,” which includes questions such as “What does your vagina smell like?” “If your vagina could talk, what would it say?” and “If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?”

One woman’s misguided pursuit of fame has turned into a national disgrace, and it is difficult to know where to begin when attempting an analysis of what went wrong. The label of domestic abuse awareness certainly grabs attention, but Ensler admits to writing the play because she “was worried about [her] own vagina” as well as “what we think about vaginas” and even more worried “that we don’t think about them.”

The biggest concern regarding the Monologues, however, ought to be the claim of empowerment. Pardon my ignorance, but how exactly is this empowerment being conveyed? I have seen the Monologues. I have read the Monologues. I have listened to Monologue performers attempt to justify their involvement. I have yet to catch even a lone strand of empowerment.

Rather, after sitting through a three-hour production on my campus, I found it difficult to see females as females. I suppose I am somewhat ashamed to admit that all the chanting and describing had an affect on me: It left me seeing women as vaginas. Indeed, in a monologue titled The Vagina Workshop, a woman is reassured that she cannot ever lose her vagina because she is her vagina.

Funny, isn’t it, how much a girl’s view of feminism can change after a few years at an institute of higher learning? I thought—silly me!—that feminists were against the sexual objectification of women. It turns out that the hostility I receive from a select group of peers and professors just may stem from a sense of jealousy. After all, I’m not the one who measures her self-worth in relation to the state of her genitalia.

The Vagina Monologues are a hypocrisy-laden betrayal of women everywhere. In turning women into vaginas and nothing more, these “empowered” women are reverting to the pre-19th Amendment era, or worse.

Raising awareness of domestic violence is an honorable cause. Leave it to the radical Leftists who have hijacked the (equity) feminism movement to turn such a cause into a playground for obscenity, a not-so-hidden agenda of desensitization, and a vehicle for homosexist indoctrination.

Posted by Danielle at April 1, 2009 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 by author. May not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for brief quotes) without express permission of author. Articles published with permission by Pardon My English.

Comments

Posted by Richard Frankel at February 27, 2006 12:35 PM

Note: Comments once posted become the property of Pardon My English. We therefore reserve the right to make use of such in any manner and for whatever purpose we deem appropriate. Please refer to comment policy for further information.