Celebrating the inner beauty of all women….The Vagina Monologues.
The Vagina Monologues has been performed throughout the world to bring awareness to a variety of issues including sexual assault, female genital mutilation, birth and sexuality. This play was created in 1996 by Eve Ensler after she conducted over 200 interviews with women on their views about sex, love, relationships, and violence against women. This play is a sassy and direct way of starting the conversation about not only sexual assault, but femininity and sexuality. Each cast that has the opportunity to perform this play adds its own spice and flare, making each production across the globe truly unique.
The production I viewed was hosted by the University of South Carolina. An ensemble cast of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, ages and gender created a dynamic cast for this performance of the Vagina Monologues. The different skits such as, My Vagina was My Village and The Little Coochi Snoter That Could, documented experiences of sexual assault. My Vagina was My Village highlights the experience of a woman during the war in Bosnia. This compelling piece was performed by a woman who was a victim of sexual assault. The emotion displayed during the piece spilled over into the audience, bringing tears to my own eyes and a lump to my throat.
There were several skits that provided comic relief at necessary times such as The Woman Who Liked to Make Vaginas Happy and The Angry Vagina. The Angry Vagina playfully highlighted a woman’s experience of a gynecological exam and other thoughts and perceptions of a male oriented world. These helped lighten the mood and balance the heavy moments throughout the play.
A new edition to the play was a monologue that was inspired by recent natural disasters and the sexual assaults that occurred during the aftermath. Voices were finally heard from violence that occurred during Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti. Even in times of devastation, women were still fighting against aggression, but still holding on.
Experiencing The Vagina Monologues not only rekindled my sense of pride for my womanhood, but also reminded me of the power of words. So much intensity and feeling went into each of the pieces preformed, an intensity that I felt could never be put into words, yet it was done so very eloquently. I laughed, cried and got angry, as well as felt empowered all because of the powerful words spoken. Survivors of sexual assault were asked to stand during the end of the program to speak out against the violence, after those brave individuals stood, people were asked to stand if there was someone in their lives who was a survivor. The message was clear. We are all touched by sexual assault in some way, shape or form.
If you have never seen The Vagina Monologues, I highly recommend it. Not only to feel connected to your womanhood, or to understand women better, but to stand up against violence and sexual assault.
