Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, USA. Women push back and tell their own stories in The Vagina
Monologues, a play by Eve Ensler that a group of women activists put on last night on the campus of the
University of Minnesota. Eve interviewed more than 200 women, young, middle-aged, and old, from
many cultures and social classes. From these interviews, Eve created in women’s own words a
celebration of women and a pushback against the degradation of women. The play has been translated
into 45 languages and put on in 120 countries. Last night’s performance was a fundraiser for Women’s
Advocates, the oldest women’s shelter in the nation and part of V-Day, a global movement to end
violence against women and girls.
Women rejoiced in the beauty of their vaginas and transgressed myths and stereotypes. For the
most part, the skits are funny and sad at the same time. The skit on hair, for example, celebrated pubic
hair and also told a funny and poignant story of a woman whose husband insisted that she shave. The
woman’s declaration of her worth—pubic hair and all—makes the skit a celebration.
Happy Vaginas
In “The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could,” a woman tells of the sexual abuse she experienced
as a child and how as an adult she became a fully sexual woman who delights in her sexuality. Once
again a woman overcomes degradation and becomes her own proud self. “I Was There in the Room”
celebrates vaginas in childbirth. How they stretch to accommodate babies and the miracles that vaginas
make possible. This is as far away as possible from Freud’s male-centered image of vaginas as dark
openings with shark’s teeth.
“The Women Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy” is a terrifically humorous take on a woman
whose life mission is to make other women’s vaginas—and the women themselves—happy. This is a
complex skit whose teller is a former attorney who found her true calling in her late 30s and now delights
in the moans that accompany different kinds of orgasms. This skit is a celebration women through and
through, with lots of humor.
Celebration of Vaginas as Liberation
The play set me to wondering about two things. Am I my vagina? Is my vagina me? No, it is
not, but it’s an intimate part of me and a part that needs celebration. Celebration of vaginas liberates me
and other women from shame and secrecy about an important body part. I also wondered what would
happen if someone interviewed 200 men about their penises. The two questions are related.
The OBS Express is a newsletter that appears occasionally to call out perpetrators of unkind deeds
and cover-ups, to celebrate those who stand up to perpetrators, and to recognize perpetrators who change
their ways.
The editor is Jane Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW, a professor, School of Social Work, University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities. See Professor Gilgun’s book, Child Sexual Abuse: From Harsh Realities to
Hope, which is available at on-line booksellers. Based on interviews with perpetrators and survivors of
child sexual abuse, the book shows was child sexual abuse MEANS. What child sexual abuse means to
survivors and perpetrators is largely absent from today’s discussions. She also writes other books,
children’s stories, and articles that are available on Amazon Kindle, scribd.com, iBooks for iPad, and
many other on-line booksellers.