The Vagina Monologues

PART 3 OF 4

I have looked at the WMST-L archives and a search has not turned up
anything on this specific element of "Vagina Monologues."

To me an EXTREMELY problematic element of the"Vagina Monologues" is
that virtually ALL of the violence against women  is experienced by
women who could be considered "the other."  The emphasis is on women in
foreign countries and non-Western European cultures.  [Iraq, Pakistan,
Mexico, Kosovo.]  Among U.S. women we have the African-American girl
who is raped at the age of 10 and the domestic violence experienced by
the Native American woman in "The Crooked Braid."  There's a mention of
500,000 American women who are raped each year - and THAT'S IT.

Where is the rich, white doctor's wife whose genitals are mutilated by
her husband?  Where is the college woman raped in her dorm room, not by
a stranger, not even by a football player, but by the "nice, ordinary"
guy???  Where is the ordinary, middle-class girl who is sexually abused
by her father or step-father?  For a play that purports to be so "out
there" and "challenging," these omissions are major LIES about women
lives.  And - if  people enter the play believing that rape, incest,
domestic violence and such are experienced primarily by "the other" -
they would not only not be challenged in this belief - but it would be
reinforced by the play.  [In other words, in some way the play's
treatment of the subject is WORSE than if it didn't cover the subject
at all.]

In my view, this cannot be an accident.  I simply don't believe that
Ensler has not been told these stories.  I even believe I've read that
she is "out" as a survivor of sexual abuse from her prominent, wealthy
father or step-father.

I'd be interested in knowing whether and how this issue has been
raised; I can't believe it hasn't been.  And I'd be interested in
knowing if there's been any response from Ensler or others on this
topic.  Domestic violence in the U.S. is my primary field of expertise
and this aspect of the play is disturbing and even infuriating to me.

I believe the subject is appropriate for discussion on-list, but people
are welcome to contact me privately if they prefer.

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Kate Waits
Professor, College of Law &
Coordinator, Women's Studies
Univ. of Tulsa

*************************************

Kathleen (Kate) Waits
Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499
E-mail: kwaits AT utulsa.edu

*************************************

To Kate and others concerned with Eve Ensler's representations of violence
against women:

The following is a link to an open letter last year from the "Bring Our
Daughters Home" group in Mexico, who took Ensler to task on her depictions
of the murders of young women in Juarez:

http://www.thing.net/~cocofusco/EnslerletterEng.htm

I believe this open letter indicates that not everyone is responding to
"Vagina Monologues" uncritically.

What is more fascinating to me, however, is the way in which students are
so caught up in Vagina Monologues, sometimes at the exclusion of other
feminist performances.

Not to take away from the power and affirmation that so many of them find
when they participate in a "monologue" performance, but this praise and
celebration often eclipses other performances, other presentations, other
approaches to the issue of violence against women.

In other words, can we envision "vagina dialogues"?  And, can we move
forward into other discourse?

At any rate, while my students are quite taken up with Feb. 14 and
"V-Day," only about a half-dozen of them were even aware that today is
International Women's Day, much less that there is a "Global Women's
Strike" occurring, events that do call attention to the myriad ways in
which women's lives are wrapped up in violence, from DSV to warfare to
poverty.

Hopefully, we can begin to mark a clear path of events that connect the
V-Day celebrations with annual events organized by the rest of the world's
women on March 8.

Peace,
Janell Hobson

Assistant Professor
Women's Studies
University at Albany, SUNY
Albany, NY 12222
jhobson AT albany.edu

Interesting question.
I've just been listening to her new play on CD: The Good Body. So far
she has mentioned sexual abuse from a father figure, and a rich, white,
doctor's wife whose entire body is altered by her cosmetic surgeon
husband. She also addresses women buying into their own
appearance-related oppression. I've only heard half the play so far.
Daphne Uras

Hi all,
I agree with Kate and try to address this in my intro courses, when I
teach the play (which I do right before it is performed on campus).
We also address the "V-Day initiative" materials and how they
sometimes reinforce stereotypes (for example, one year V-Day sent our
campus a bunch of TVM dry-erase boards that listed all the
improvements in women's lives "when the violence ends," including
"women will be wearing jeans in Italy" and "keeping their clitorises
in Africa"). The FGM references in TVM are almost completely focused
on Africa, which not only reinforces stereotypes of African peoples
but also ignores the experiences of people (women *and* intersexed
people) who have been genitally-mutilated in the U.S. and other parts
of the world. (Also, it provides a very nice buffer for U.S.
feminism--we can be indignant about and work to end FGM because we
perceive ourselves to be safely distanced from it; most of us do not
get as indignant about or work to end the poverty and hunger in
African communities that has been directly influenced by Western
privilege and relative prosperity.)

A couple of years ago, when "Crooked braid" was added to the V-Day
production, I felt very uncomfortable with the production on our
campus, for exactly the reasons Kate outlines.

One of the difficulties of addressing this bias in TVM is that many
of my students share the same bias--that domestic violence mostly
affects poor women, women of color, and women who are not very
strong. On our campus, we have had a fabulous grant-funded project
that deals with issues of all kinds of violence against women and
relationship violence. One of the staff members is a community
educator who speaks to classes and  groups on campus, and his
presentation is a wonderful stereotype-buster. Unfortunately, the
grant funding has ended, and the "campus life" administration
determined that the project was not vital, in the face of state-wide
budget cuts.

Now that Susan Koppelman's *Women in the Trees: Stories of Battering
and Resistance* has been reissued, I plan to teach it along with TVM,
in order to help work against these stereotypes. (Thanks, Susan!)

Many thanks to Janell for forwarding the link to the "Bring Our
Daughters Home" letter. I'm very sorry to see that the local V-Day
organization did not support this group better.

Peace,
Jeannie

Jeannie Ludlow wrote:

> The FGM references in TVM are almost completely focused
> on Africa, which not only reinforces stereotypes of African peoples
> but also ignores the experiences of people (women *and* intersexed
> people) who have been genitally-mutilated in the U.S. and other parts
> of the world. (Also, it provides a very nice buffer for U.S.
> feminism--we can be indignant about and work to end FGM because we
> perceive ourselves to be safely distanced from it; most of us do not
> get as indignant about or work to end the poverty and hunger in
> African communities that has been directly influenced by Western
> privilege and relative prosperity.)
> 
This kind of rhetoric is counterproductive to achieving anything. The
implication
is that unless you can do everything (ending FGM PLUS ending poverty )
we shouldn't attack FGM or try to work against it. By that logic, we
shouldn't have tried to get women the vote before we ended poverty in
the US. Ridiculous! This kind of thinking derives from the Marxist idea
that only revolution, which will get rid of everything bad, is the only
thing to work for. Well the revolutions we experienced didn't work out
so well, and attacking evils one or a few at a time seems more
productive. As for FGM being mostly an African problem, that doesn't
detract from its evil nature, and fighting it would help a lot of people.

--
******************
Barbara R. Bergmann    bbergman AT wam.umd.edu
Professor Emerita of Economics,
American University and University of Maryland
Mailing address: 5430 41 Place NW, DC 20015
*******************

> As for FGM being mostly an African
> problem, that doesn't
> detract from its evil nature, and fighting it would
> help a lot of people.
>
> Barbara R. Bergmann

But in fact, genital mutilation is *not* mostly an
African problem -- that's the whole point of this
critique.  American hospitals routinely surgically
alter the genitals of infants who have "ambiguous"
genitals.  Sometimes this means completely removing
the clitoris; sometimes this means removing a penis
and constructing a vagina.  Often this happens purely
because a doctor feels that a clitoris is too big or a
penis is too small, and therefore the child's gender
is reassigned with accompanying surgery (often without
ever informing the child, as Cheryl Chase has
demonstrated).  Increasing numbers of feminists are
calling male circumcision "genital mutilation," as
well, and even among Jewish people to whom it holds
religious significance, there is a growing movement
against male circumcision as a barbaric practice.

Americans tend to focus on FGM in Africa and ignore
the genital mutilation we do in the U.S.  My
experience of watching how others introduce FGM in
their classrooms is that it's often brought up in
hushed, horrified tones, tones that are reserved for
only this subject.  Yes, it's horrifying!  But I have
not witnessed other horrifying topics being dealt with
in the same way, and I think this is because when we
American feminists talk about FGM in Africa, we are
othering to the nth degree -- sometimes race, class,
nationality, ethnicity, culture, religion,
First/Second/Third World, etc.  -- there's a lot of
potential for othering in this discussion.  Were we
really outraged and upset by the practice of cutting a
girl's (or boy's) genitals, itself, then we wouldn't
have such an inconsistent stance when it comes to male
circumcision or surgery on intersexed infants.

I don't think we should ignore FGM.  I do think that
when we teach about it, we need to incorporate it into
a broader context in which we discuss this
cross-cultural fixation with cutting/harming genitals
(and looking at American anti-masturbatory practices
of the not-too-distant past makes this obsession
incredibly clear).  I think such a discussion is
helpful for students to think critically about FGM and
also about these other practices of genital
mutilation, and I think it can also motivate them to
take action.

Jessica Nathanson

Dr. Jessica Nathanson
Instructor, English and Gender Studies
Augustana College
Kilian Community College
janathanson AT yahoo.com

Hi

I have a few comments I would like to add to this thread. No matter how
valid the points are for the criticism on Ensler's work, I am very concerned
about "public" criticism of her work and what might manifest in the larger
culture if we, as women studies professionals, participate in criticism of
her without proper respect for the present social conditions we are in.
Being a woman artist myself and being very aware of the obstacles, I see
Ensler's ability to bring her work public as she did as a huge phenomenal
success ( no matter how flawed), I feel compelled to point out how women who
have achieved this kind of success, as I see it, are so relatively rare that
there is a huge gap in perspective here and what she has actually
accomplished is being overlooked and there needs to be articulation of what
exactly she has managed to do. Otherwise, what is being faulted on Ensler's
work is actually the fault of society, not Ensler.  As a pioneering woman,
it is not her responsibiility to bring more or all into the public than what
she managed to do. That is impossible. I feel strongly that before any
criticism  continues, the criticism should be put in a proper context of
women's lives, particularly what is true for women artists in this time in
history. As the Guerilla Girls have published  "Bus companies are more
enlightened than NYC Art Galleries....% of women in the following jobs....
Bus Drivers 49.2%, Sales Positions 48%, Managers 43%, Mail Carriers 17.2 %,
Artists represented in 33 major NYC art galleries 16%.....Truck Drivers
8.9%"

So there are relatively few women artists to begin with. And from my view as
an artist, it is easier for a woman artist to produce art and stay within
the art community than to manage to move her work out in a public arena
where there is a significant public awareness and response to that work. The
Guerrilla Girls quote I mention does not have the number of women who  have
actually accomplished what Ensler has done, but my guess is that it  would
be something a smaller number.  . In fact, I don't know if there is any one
who has done research on this, so if someone here knows of any references, I
would like to hear about them - and correct me, if I am wrong. With the
above quote, I am also aware that I am making a jump from visual artist to
another creative art form, that which Ensler has done. I doubt there is much
difference in numbers of women in the field.
I believe strongly that whatever the flaws in Ensler's work, the best
solution, for future generations of women,  is not open public criticism but
instead for others to do what Ensler did...create a context and a form to
bring the correct information about women to the mass public. The world does
not need more fault finding of women in the mass media within the context of
relatively little information about women's lives. I realize that this list
is not "completely public" but I do believe that what gets discussed among
women studies professionals as a community can have lasting results in
people's lives - and we are the carriers of information about women. I also
want to say that I am NOT saying the discussion should not happen nor do I
think criticism should be silenced. I simply just had to say what I see and
think.

I, myself, have been annoyed with the word "vagina" and the fact that this
word is reinforced publicly at such a level. I happen to believe that the
more appropriate word is "vulva". I would love to hear the word vulva
repeated publicly. I do not care for the mental image and concentration of
focus on "vagina" which carries with it an invisibililty of the wholeness of
women's sexual parts and reduces those parts to the one part that is of
importance to man with a fictious understanding that that part is simply for
the entrance of man going in and exit for baby going out. The "vagina" as I
see it and know it today from a woman's perspective certainly has more
purpose than only serving a man and a baby...which leads me back to the
beginning of my message...the information about women needs to be brought
out to the public in a huge way and that is why I am involved in this work
and on this list.

Recommended reading:
 
Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood:  Disputing U.S. Polemics,
eds. Stanlie M. James and Claire C. Robertson, Urbana, University of
Illinois Press, 2002.
 
Nancy Jabbra, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, njabbra AT lmu.edu

On these issues regarding The Vagina Monologues and "ignoring" the issue of
genital mutilation:

1) In teaching TVM, it's a good idea to broaden the scope of Ensler's
presentation, but I think karen henninger was right on in her comments defending
Ensler's work and urging perspective in how it's criticized so as not to fuel
anti-Ensler sentiments by the public at large (non-feminists), even backlash
against the show and its content.
    I wonder how effective criticism of the work would be for some students.
Strategies such as those proposed regarding TVM are risky depending on the
kinds of students one is teaching. I know that as a student I might not have been
ready to have Ensler taken off the pedestal I would have surely put her on in
participating in V-Day activities until I had worked through much of this
adulation myself. Such criticism might have backfired for me against those doing
the criticism and not Ensler depending on how ideas were presented and phrased.
    Sometimes, it's better to lead the students to these conclusions
themselves instead of making them for the students. Perhaps a worthy exercise would be
to have students in groups concoct more material that could be in TVM, which
would include some of these unexplored statistics and realities that elicited
this criticism from listers here in the first place. If the students find it
themselves, then they are more likely to accept such ideas.
    I spend much of my time simply urging people to go see TVM. I find it
difficult enough to encourage students here to even consider seeing the show. The
material therein is enough of a shocker for them, and they do not really need
MORE material in my introductory course, though I do often hint at it. Other
courses would have other mandates.
    But I think Karen's point is well taken and worth acknowledging. It's not
the job of an artist to present all views or fair and balanced views. It's
not the job of a playwright to coddle any groups special interests and desires
of dogma or rhetoric. Sure, okay, TVM doesn't address every reality in regards
to certain women's issues. But was this it's purpose? Are the short-comings in
it a fault of not fulfilling its purpose or the fault of people wanting more
out of it than Ensler intended for it to give?
    And maybe Ensler was wiser than those who wished she had included other
material in her script. Ensler understood that drama, seriousness, scare
tactics, shock, and heaviness would not allow her show to have the impact that it
does have. She constructed a very very funny show that's inspiring, motivating,
and powerfully entertaining. As such, the more serious monologues and parts
stick out painfully, almost as if they are out of place. Ice Cube recently said
in an interview that the way to reach people is through humour and that drama
just is too heavy, too much like beaning them over the head with a baseball
bat, which just is not as effective as making them laugh. As such, the heavy
stuff can be presented in the classroom, in special lectures open to the public
that express realities of genital mutilation in the U.S. and other issues no
well explored in TVM. Doing so, will not damage the marvelous work done by
Ensler nor create unneeded ire towards her work and feminism in general (there is
enough of that already).

2) I have a huge problem with people taking up the causes of things done to
people in other countries. On the one hand, I understand the call to arms for
women in Afghanistan or for women who are victims of genital mutilation in
African countries. However, on the other hand, such crusading reeks of
ethnocentrism. When I teach FGM in my classes, I tell the students that though we make
think this practice is abhorrent, (and I do), that for the women in that culture
it is normal. They feel a bond because of it and pity women from other
cultures who do not experience that same bond because of that shared experience. Now
this fact does not make FGM right nor do I endorse it in anyway, and yet I
find myself hard-pressed to dictate what the practices of other cultures should
be. That's not my place. As awful as FGM is, the changing of it stinks of the
same arrogance of missionary work, the same superiority of culture and
dissemination of that culture to these poor, awful, barbaric peoples, the bringing of
civilization to them by fighting to make them stop their bizarre and clearly
wrong cultural practices.

As such, Jessica's advocation of working to stop genital mutilation in the
U.S. first and foremost is an excellent point. It's not our job to fix the world
when we cannot even fix ourselves (Iraq??).

And finally, on that point, circumcision in males may have abated some what
but have the numbers decreased significantly? I don't think so. Aren't the
majority of males still circumcised shortly after birth?

chris tower
Western Michigan University
gmrstudios2 AT cs.com

Gmrstudios2 AT CS.COM wrote:

> 2) I have a huge problem with people taking up the causes of things done
> to
> people in other countries. On the one hand, I understand the call to arms
> for
> women in Afghanistan or for women who are victims of genital mutilation in
> African countries. However, on the other hand, such crusading reeks of
> ethnocentrism.
> 
If a black New Yorker deplores a crime committed by a white in
Mississippi, where the ethos is very different, is that ethnocentrism?
If the anwser is no, then why can't we deplore a crime against humanity
committed in Africa?

> When I teach FGM in my classes, I tell the students that though we make
> think this practice is abhorrent, (and I do), that for the women in that
> culture
> it is normal. They feel a bond because of it and pity women from other
> cultures who do not experience that same bond because of that shared
> experience.
> 
How do you know that? Is a "bond" worth a mutilation that affects sexual
functioning and can have serious health effects? Even if  many are glad
about it, those who aren't  shouldn't  have to go through with it. How
horrible does the "shared experience" have to be before you will say
it's a bad custom and decent people everywhere on earth should fight it?
Would you have also been against criticizing foot-binding?


--
******************
Barbara R. Bergmann    bbergman AT wam.umd.edu
Professor Emerita of Economics,
American University and University of Maryland
Tel 202-537-3036     Fax 202 686-3456(call first)
Mailing address: 5430 41 Place NW, DC 20015
*******************

It has been interesting to read the discussion regarding Ensler's text and
V-Day.  Many of you may recall me doing a CFP for a book project on these
very questions in the past, and I'm happy to say we have a terrific
manuscript that is addressing these and many other issues relative to the
play.  We have analyses of lesbian feminist responses to the play,
transgender and intersex concerns, global feminisms in dialogue with
Ensler's approach to FGM and veiling, and explorations of the continuities
between the women's health movement of the 70s and the V-Day initiative in
general.  Many of them are critical, and many of them also acknowledge the
power and potential of this movement.

We have not started shopping the book to presses, so if any who have posted
recently on the issue of violence would like to submit a paper to us for
consideration, we would be happy to read it. None of our essays address the
particular question of representing violence primarily in monologues that
feature U.S. women of color and non-U.S. women, so we would welcome a
submission on this topic.  We asked for papers of 20-25 pages in length.
Email me off-list with any questions, or if you would like more details.

Adrienne

Adrienne McCormick, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Associate Chair, Department of English
Director, Women's Studies Program
SUNY Fredonia
Fredonia NY 14063
(716) 673-3125
adrienne.mccormick AT fredonia.edu