I went to watch the Vagina Monologues presented by Penn students at the Irvine Auditorium on Feb.10th and it was awesome. I have heard about this play for so many times and finally I got the chance to watch it myself.
The play was very thought-provoking, especially for me since I am taking the "language and gender" course this semester and I found so many connections between the scripts and what I have learned in the class. The play made me re-think about lots of issues in gender and enhanced my understanding towards topics regarding feminism, gender, and equality etc.
After watching the play, I began to notice a lot of ideologies underlying the gender issue. As I have learned from the class, gender is a social constructed attribute of a person. People do not behave in a certain way because of their biological gender, instead, people are shaped as certain identity because of their being. Therefore, how the society treats the issue of gender, especially women, in this case, can to a great extent reinforce the ideology and as a result, put women or other gender identities is a very vulnerable position.
I believe that the Vagina Monologues is a very innovative and brave action to advocate the equality of different gendered groups and it aroused awareness among people, no matter regarding males, females or other gender identities. It's a clever way to provoke reactions.
Some information about the Vagina Monologues from Wikipedia:
The Vagina Monologues is made up of a varying number of monologues read by a varying number of women (initially, Eve Ensler performed every monologue herself, with subsequent performances featuring three actresses, and more recent versions featuring a different actress for every role). Every monologue somehow relates to the vagina, be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the variety of names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality. Some monologues include:
- I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me: a chorus describing many young women's and girls' first menstrual period.
- My Angry Vagina, in which a woman humorously rants about injustices wrought against the vagina, such as tampons, douches, and the tools used by OB/GYNs.
- My Vagina Was My Village, a monologue compiled from the testimonies of Bosnian women subjected to rape camps.
- The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could, in which a woman recalls memories of traumatic sexual experiences in her childhood and a self-described "positive healing" sexual experience in her adolescent years with an older woman. In the original version, she is 13, but later versions would change her age to 16. It also originally included the line, "If it was rape, it was a good rape." This particular skit has sparked numerous controversies and criticisms due to its content (see below).
- Reclaiming Cunt, a piece narrated by a woman who illustrates that the word "cunt" itself is a lovely word despite its disconcerting connotations.
- The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy, in which a sex worker for women discusses the intriguing details of her career and her love of giving women pleasure. In several performances it often comes at the end of the play, literally climaxing with a vocal demonstration of a "triple orgasm."
- Because He Liked to Look At It, in which a woman describes how she had thought her vagina was ugly and had been embarrassed to even think about it, but changed her mind because of a sexual experience with a man named Bob who liked to spend hours looking at it.
- I Was There In The Room, a monologue in which Eve Ensler describes the birth of her granddaughter.
