On Saturday, February 13th I had the pleasure to attend a production of The Vagina Monologues at the Memorial Union Theater. During the performance, I laughed, I cried, I moaned, I giggled, and I shouted “CUNT!” at the top of my lungs, along with many other students and members of the campus community.
The Vagina Monologues, created by Eve Ensler, is a performance of monologues that discuss all things related to the vagina including pubic hair, sex, pleasure, love, menstruation, orgasm, lesbians, masturbation, societal expectations and perceptions, rape, mutilation and birth.
Produced and promoted largely by the Campus Women’s Center, proceeds of The Vagina Monologues went to benefit the prevention of violence against women, specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is hard to describe how I felt while I watched a dramatic discussion of vaginas, women, and men and how they all interact with each other and society. Surrounded by beautiful and confident women (and some men), I have to say that I felt completely at home. I felt empowered, aware, proud to have a vagina, and simply happy.
The monologues convey a vagina as something sacred, beautiful, important, and powerful. This message is critical for women’s rights and human rights around the world. Many societies, including our own, see the vagina as ugly, unclean, promiscuous, inferior and unwanted. Commercial products are constantly advertised to women, telling them how to clean their vagina to keep it fresh and smelling like perfume. Cultures in Africa practice female genital mutilation, leaving women’s reproductive systems, bodies and lives destroyed. Soldiers around the world systematically rape women as a tactic of war, and their governments use women as supplies for the hungry soldiers. Many women live their entire lives without ever seeing their own vaginas.
The Vagina Monologues raise awareness to all of these issues, perceptions, and discriminations (among many more) that surround the female reproductive system. They call on every woman to grab her hand mirror, spread her legs, and discover her vagina, touch her clitoris and experience the pleasure of knowing and loving her body.
I find the monologues powerful, fun, and incredibly important. Both women and men must be aware of how the world treats vaginas. And more importantly, how we treat our own vaginas and other vaginas we encounter.
So do it. Grab a mirror. Grab a partner. Discover the sacred flower. Become a vagina supporter. Love the vagina, and treat it well.
