The Vagina Monologues

I never saw The Vagina Monologues when SAFER presented them on campus last year, but my roommates had told me about a particular scene involving screaming "c---" over and over again. Being extremely opposed to using that particular word, my roommates were taken aback and definitely were feeling the shock aspect clearly intended in this show. When I read it, there were stories I liked and stories I really did not feel needed to be stated the way that they were. While I definitely support the campaign to end violence against women, I did not quite understand why that word had to be "reclaimed" in order to do that. Of all the different “scenes” in the show, this is the one in particular that stood out to me that may turn people off of the whole idea of The Vagina Monologues. While I am extremely liberal when it comes to ideas about free speech, it may be more effective to edit just some of the scenes so that you can reach a wider audience and therefore influence more people. I was surprised at my interest in the older woman’s story as well. She had so much difficulty talking about her experiences because they were so private and she felt that it was inappropriate to discuss them. While her story was awkward and uncomfortable, it was interesting at the end when she said that she had never told that story before.

However, I think that a shock factor is effective when discussing rape and sexual assault instances. There is a lot of misconception and misinformation that people believe about rape, and even though graphic stories can be uncomfortable, I think that they are the best way to communicate the information to the general public. In this sense, I like the mission statement of the “V-Day Project,” but I disagree with the way they carry out this idea. Being a woman is not just about having a vagina, and I feel like when a day is devoted to raising awareness about violence against women, there should be more to discuss that just her physical aspects. There could be less focus on women’s body parts and more focus on the woman as a whole, including her personality and intelligence rather than focusing on just her womanly parts. I think the who device of using the shock factor to make people listen can be effective but is overused in the case of The Vagina Monologues.