Nazar - The Vagina Monologues

Issue 4, April 2008 | Archives

The Vagina Monologues - A Review

By Shreya Krishnan

A version of Eve Ensler's hit play “The Vagina Monologues” was enacted at UT on Friday and Saturday, March 21st and 22nd at the Burdine Auditorium. Organized by the Women's Resource Center, the main objective was to raise money for and awareness about domestic violence against women. The proceeds from the performance were to go towards Saheli, an organization that helps battered women in the Asian community in Austin, towards helping Katrina survivors and to the VAV Survivors Fund.

I personally thought the performance was extremely well done - moving in parts, funny when necessary and rousing on the whole. “My Angry Vagina” performed by Maggie Cheu and “The Flood”, a monologue by an old woman in her 70s performed by Sara Haji, were especially worthy of note for their stellar performances. “My Short Skirt” by Muneezeh Kabir was also interesting in that it defended the right of a woman to revel in her sexuality without being made to feel like a sexual object meant solely for a man's viewing pleasure. “My Vagina was my Village” enacted by Stephanie N. Perez and Lindsay Tuggey was heartbreakingly graphic in its description of the rape of Bosnian women by the invading army, and the different kinds of orgasms demonstrated in “The Woman Who Loved to make Vaginas Happy” performed by Nicole Barnes was hilariously funny.

The premise behind these monologues is extremely necessary and seems to fill a vacuum that exists in society at large, and especially South Asia. This premise is that the acknowledgment of female sexuality as a powerful force and tool of empowerment has been underutilized and oftentimes ignored. In some cases, its very existence is doubted. A performance like the Vagina Monologues opens up dialogue about female sexuality. This includes, but is not limited to, masturbation, lesbianism and how to achieve orgasms. It uses the vagina as a metaphor by means of which one might understand the world. Very often, the world has been understood in terms of male power and male sexuality. Too few times is the vagina ever considered worthy of metaphor and even as a topic of discussion. I would recommend “The Vagina Monologues” for all women who want to understand and harness the unique power that they command: their sexuality. All the women in the monologues answer two questions in common: If your vagina could wear something, what would it wear? And, if your vagina could say two words, what would it say? The answers to these two questions are the backbone of the story behind each monologue. At the beginning, the narrators said that a little-known fact arose as a result of The Vagina Monologues: it was discovered that women love to talk about their vagina. Through this medium, women can finally interact with each other and realize that they aren't alone, and find strength and support in each other, thus creating a community.

However, the Monologues have also come under criticism for their occasionally hostile stance towards men. But they did redeem themselves with "Because He Liked to Look At It", a monologue about a man who helped a woman truly appreciate her sexuality. One particular monologue “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could” has come under fire for its condoning of statutory rape. In the original version of this monologue, a 13 year old girl was given alcohol and seduced by an older woman. In the version that I saw at UT, the girl was 16 years old. No doubt, the monologues completely ignore men at best and are scorching in their criticism of them at worst, and are often angry rants. “My Angry Vagina”, especially, is a rant against douches, tampons and instruments used at gynecologist check ups. But, in my opinion, rants are sometimes necessary. Rants are what loosen us up, help us discard some of our baggage. And in this sense, I would say that the Monologues are almost a kind of therapy for all women trying to find and reconcile their identity as sexual creatures in a largely unsupportive world.