Special to the Daily, the producer of Tufts' version of The Vagina Monologues interviews the woman behind the show.
"I think what happens when you love your body and love your vagina is that you hold a sacredness around it and you know it's yours and you know it's your choice to give it or not to give it."This is one of Eve Ensler's many thoughts regarding issues raised in her book and Obie Award-winning, Off-Broadway play, The Vagina Monologues. The play is being shown across the country this week in conjunction with Ensler's V-Day, a substitute for Valentine's Day promoted by women around the world "until all the violence stops."
As evidenced by the show's title, the play deals with issues surrounding women and their vaginas. And while it may sound like an elementary topic, Ensler was able to tap into a complex world of problems and concerns that include rape, domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, and genital mutilation. Responding to societal ignorance and mystery surrounding the vagina, the monologues address all of these issues, and range from happy to sad to funny to tragic.
"Well, I can only say it was very accidental. This whole thing has been like a divine accident" Ensler said of her creative process.
Ensler recalled a conversation when, talking about menopause, she and her friend stumbled upon the topic of vaginas. She found herself surprised by many of the things that were said. "I realized I had no idea what women thought about their vaginas."
Well, she can't say that anymore. Her realization sparked a quest during which she traveled across the country and around the world, interviewing over 200 women about their vaginas. While she sensed hesitation in response to her questions at first, Ensler soon found that women secretly love to talk about their vaginas - it's just that no one ever asked before. The interviews eventually turned into monologues which resulted in her award-winning performance. But it didn't end there.
As Ensler hit city after city on her first tour, she found herself overwhelmed by the stories of countless women who approached her with their own accounts of abuse and desecration. "I just couldn't keep doing the piece if I didn't do something. It was too awful," she recalled. So V-Day was born.
"We picked Valentine's Day because the theme was to take the romance out of Valentine's Day and put the vagina back in," Ensler explains. "I think a lot of violence has been committed towards women in the name of romance." Now, the "V" stands for many things, including "vagina," "violence," and "victory."
"We have just about every women's group in the world working on this issue to stop violence whether it's female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa or the desecration of women in Afghanistan through acid burnings and wife burning," Ensler said. (Female genital mutilation is the ritual practice of cutting a woman's clitoris or removing it altogether.) With the help of V-Day funds, a major group in Kenya is working on a movement to provide an alternative ritual to FGM.
So what do The Vagina Monologues have to do with ending violence? On an individual level, Ensler believes that talking about their personal experiences helps women who have been victims of violence to recover.
"I think the more you can talk about what you've been through, the more you can share it, the more you can process, the more you can have your feelings, the more possible it is that you can recover from this and move to another place in your life," she said.
One of the greatest challenges to the movement is increasing male involvement. While men cannot be actors in the performance, they can get involved in all other aspects of the show and surrounding events.
Ensler made it clear that this project "...is not so that women can become the dominant gender and oppress men, it's so that women can come into their full rights and their full being and liberate this Earth." Her advice to men is not to pretend they "know everything," as they are raised to do. This attitude, Ensler said, leads men to make assumptions that can be disastrous.
"I think one of the things men could do is not know and not know openly," she said. "The other thing is for men to really think about what vaginas are and what women are and the depth and the profundity of that, and to honor where they come from. I mean, men come from vaginas, they pass through them. I think men often forget it. You know, it's like desecrating the house that you were brought up in."
With The Vagina Monologues currently being performed in 20 countries around the world, and V-Day celebrations taking place at over 250 colleges and in 50 international cities, Ensler has sparked a movement that is growing more popular every day.
