The Vagina Monologues

Plot summary

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). Each of the monologues deals with an aspect of the feminine experience, touching on matters such as sex, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the various common 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:

Every year a new monologue is added to highlight a current issue affecting women around the world. In 2003, for example, Ensler wrote a new monologue, called Under the Burqa, about the plight of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. In 2004, Ensler also wrote a monologue called They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy. . .Or So They Tried after interviewing a group of women whose gender identity differed from their assigned gender at birth. Every V-Day thousands of local benefit productions are staged to raise funds for local groups, shelters, and crisis centers working to end violence against women.

History

Eve Ensler wrote the first draft of the monologues in 1996 (there have been several revisions since) following interviews she conducted with 200 women about their views on sex, relationships, and violence against women. The interviews began as casual conversations with her friends, who then brought up anecdotes they themselves had been told by other friends; this began a continuing chain of referrals. In an interview with Women.com, Ensler said that her fascination with vaginas began because of "growing up in a violent society". "Women's empowerment is deeply connected to their sexuality." She also stated, "I'm obsessed with women being violated and raped, and with incest. All of these things are deeply connected to our vaginas."

Ensler wrote the piece to "celebrate the vagina". Ensler states that in 1998, the purpose of the piece changed from a celebration of vaginas and femininity to a movement to stop violence against women.

The play opened at HERE Arts Center in New York City on 3 October 1996 with a limited run that ran through November. The play gained popularity through a word of mouth campaign that culminated with a performance at Madison Square Garden in 2001, which featured Melissa Etheridge and Whoopi Goldberg performing segments of the play.

In 2004, the first all-transgender performance of The Vagina Monologues was held. The monologues were read by eighteen notable transgender women, and a new monologue revolving around the experiences and struggles of transgender women was included.

The play was also adapted into a Marathi play called Yonichya Maneechya Gujagoshti by feminist writer-activist Vandana Khare in the year 2009.

V-Day

The Vagina Monologues is the cornerstone of the V-Day movement, whose participants stage benefit performances of the show and/or host other related events in their communities. Such events take place worldwide each year between 1 February and 30 April. The performances generally benefit rape crisis centers and shelters for women, as well as similar resource centers for women. During the rest of the year the play is performed in thousands of communities and colleges worldwide.

On 21 February 2004 Miss Ensler in conjunction with Jane Fonda and Deep Stealth Productions produced and directed the first all-transgender performance of The Vagina Monologues, with readings by eighteen notable transgender women and including a new monologue documenting the experiences of transgender women. It debuted in connection with "LA V-DAY Until the Violence Stops" with monologues documenting the violence against transgender women. Since that debut, many university and college productions have included these three "Transgender Monologues". Beautiful Daughters (2006) is a documentary about the cast of the first performance by transgender women.

Notwithstanding those additions, in 2015 a student organization at Mount Holyoke College canceled its annual performance of the play for being, in its opinion, insufficiently inclusive of transgender people. "At its core", Erin Murphy, the president of the school's theater group, said, "the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman … Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive." The traditionally all-female college had begun admitting students who identified as female the previous year, but the college denied that had anything to do with the decision to discontinue the annual performances of the play.

Two years earlier, Columbia University's V-Day decided to stage the play with a cast entirely of non-white women. That decision, too, was controversial.

Criticism

Elements of the play that critics find contentious include:

Criticism from feminists

The Vagina Monologues has been criticized by some within the feminist movement, including pro-sex feminists and individualist feminists. Sex-positive feminist Betty Dodson, author of several books about female sexuality, saw the play as having a narrow and restrictive view of sexuality. Individualist feminist Wendy McElroy stated that the play "equates men with 'the enemy' – heterosexual love with violence". McElroy also identified problems with the work's lesbian bias, stating "A play that claims to unveil the truth about vaginas but, somehow, overlooks the salutary role men play in most women's sexuality has no credibility."

Colonialism

Kim Hall further criticizes the play, particularly the sections dealing with women in the Third World, for contributing to "colonialist conceptions of non-Western women." Although she supports frank discussions about sex, Hall rescales many of the same critiques leveled by feminists of color at white privilege among second-wave feminists: "premature white feminist assumptions and celebrations of a global 'sisterhood.'"

Social conservative criticism

The play has also been criticized by social conservatives, such as the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), and the Network of Enlightened Women. The TFP denounced it as "a piece replete with sexual encounters, lust, graphic descriptions of masturbation and lesbian behavior", urging students and parents to protest. Following TFP and other protests, performances were cancelled at sixteen Catholic colleges. Saint Louis University made the decision not to endorse the 2007 production, claiming the yearly event was getting to be "redundant." The response of the university's student-led feminist organization was to continue the production at an off-campus location.

Robert Swope critique

In 2000, Robert Swope, a conservative contributor to a Georgetown University newspaper, The Hoya, wrote an article critical of the play. He suggested there was a contradiction between the promotion of rape awareness on V-Day and the monologue "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could", in which an adult woman recalls being given alcohol and statutorily raped at 13 by a 24-year-old woman as a positive, healing experience, ending the segment with the proclamation "It was a good rape." Swope also noted the double standards involved, asking "why is rape only wrong when a man commits it, but when it's by a woman committed against another woman, who just happens to be 13-years-old, it is celebrated and a university club sponsors it?" Outcry from the play's supporters resulted in Swope's being fired from the staff of The Hoya, before the piece was even run. Swope had previously criticized the play in an article he wrote entitled "Georgetown Women's Center: Indispensable Asset or Improper Expenditure?" His termination received critical editorial coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Salon, National Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, and by Wendy McElroy of iFeminists.

At Gonzaga University

In 2002 the first major proposal to host The Vagina Monologues at Gonzaga University resulted in a decision by then-President Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., to ban the performance. After a vote, the Gonzaga Board of Trustees supported Spitzer's decision. Father Spitzer retired as president in 2009.

In 2010, students accompanied by faculty and the Women's and Gender Studies department again proposed The Vagina Monologues performance on campus. After deliberation and discussion among Gonzaga's administration, it was reported on 19 March 2010 that Interim President Thayne McCulloh, although in support of the Monologues, would uphold the decision of Father Spitzer's 2002 ban. McCulloh stated in an email to the University that he “could not ignore the historical context that informs review of the current proposal.” As a result of Dr. McCulloh's decision, the supporters of The Vagina Monologues held on campus protests the day the play was originally scheduled to be performed. The play was performed instead at an off-campus location.

In March 2011, it was announced that for the first time in Gonzaga University's history, The Vagina Monologues will be allowed on campus. (Palmer, 2011) The women and gender studies program, the English department, the sociology department, the Honors Program, and the Institute for Hate Studies all teamed up to sponsor Monologues, Dialogues, & Stories, Interdisciplinary Academic Discussion on Women's Narratives, Catholic Theologies, Violence Against Women, and The Vagina Monologues. On 10 April 2011 the first performance of The Vagina Monologues was performed in Wolff Auditorium at Gonzaga.

The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) launched a campaign to stop The Vagina Monologues performances, and a public reading, on Catholic Campuses, across the United States was a success. A then-record-low 22 Catholic colleges and universities hosted The Vagina Monologues in February and March, a significant decline from 27 performances or readings in 2005, 29 in 2004, and 32 in 2003. As of 2010, the Cardinal Newman Society reported that there were 14 Catholic colleges and universities hosting the Monologues. It was later noted that in 2010, only 13 catholic institutions hosted the Monologues.

The Cardinal Newman Society reported the presentation after much protest, stating that with Gonzaga University's production of the performance on campus, the count of productions on Catholic campuses in 2011 had risen to 14: ten of those schools being Jesuit institutions.