Once again this year, as they've done for a decade now, colleges and community groups all over the U.S. will perform "The Vagina Monologues" to raise money for fighting violence against women. And once again, anti-feminist groups like the aforementioned Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute will do their level best to marginalize the work done through V-Day, the play and pretty much anyone who's ever performed in or attended the play.
The CBL folks have even prepared a handy-dandy PDF brochure with advice to college students on campuses where the VM is being performed. Since I'm a good sport, I checked it out.
And – Whoa.
Where to begin? Okay, according to this, the VM "is [sic] a lie. It [sic] does not empower women with its message that women's identity and image are wrapped up in their sexual organs." Memo to the propagandist: 1) the word "monologues" is plural. Dipshit. 2) You don't get to decide what's empowering to anybody else. Empowerment is kind of an individual thing – that's the point.
But mainly, 3) the VM DO NOT TELL WOMEN WE'RE DEFINED BY OUR ANATOMY. Do I need to repeat this? The play DOES, however, address the unique experiences that women have *because* society has ascribed certain characteristics to our gender. Like that we're our spouses' property. Or that we can be raped as an appropriate tactic of war. Or that our sexuality is perceived as threatening.
Or that the mere anatomical term for our genitalia is "vulgar." Sheesh.
I appeared in a local production of the VM a few years ago. I wasn't really wild about it – my college had performed it at V-Day for years, and I'd never participated; my friend Colleen practically had to beg me to audition. See, I'm not a girly-girl. I'm not into sitting around the campfire singing "Kum Bay Yah" and willing my armpit hair to grow and all that while I contemplate my awesome womanhood.
Which I guess made me a natural to perform "Because He Liked to Look at It." The piece is, to quote the VM narrator, "about a woman who had a good experience with a man." That was the main thing that I liked about it – its story struck me as very male-positive, a much-needed counter-point to the stories of women who'd been abused by men.
It's about a woman not really connected to her sexuality – she has this great line about how loving her "woman-self" was supposed to come only with massive candlelight, Enya music and bubble bath. But it's a man who shows her how beautiful and powerful she is, and I loved that.
Here's what the Luce Institute pamphlet has to say about that wonderful, loving man, Bob: "Bob is featured in 'Because He Liked To Look At It,' the word 'it' referring to a woman's vagina. [Note to self: representative pronouns are bad, 'emkay?] We learn that Bob is ordinary, boring, and unappealing. That is, until the female character discovers his one redeeming quality: a perverted obsession with women's private parts (Ensler 54-55)."
Oh,. HELL'S NAW! You did NOT just call my Bob a pervert! Hey, guys who think pussies are hot – a leading conservative think tank says you're degenerate! Got that? Way to completely misinterpret a moving, dare I say "empowering" experience between consenting adults.
By the way, these are the same people who protest the global V-Day phenomenon because it overshadows the "romance" of Valentine's Day. A romantic vision that, apparently, doesn't include any icky female orgasms. Dude, I am SO glad I'm a liberal!
Look, V-Day's still around for the same reason the VM became a hit in the first place – violence against women, for no other reason than that we're women, still exists. Maybe if the anti-V Day folks spent as much time raising awareness of this fact as they do poo-pooing it, this wouldn't be true.
As for me, the two months I spent working with dozens of other women on this show were…I dunno, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah – empowering. And the Luce people can eat it.
No, not that "it"………gutter-brain! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment