Taking back the date

By renaming Valentine's Day, the V-Day movement claims to be standing for Victory, Valentine, and Vagina. However, it seems more likely that the V stands for Vulgar, Victimization, and Violence.

The V-Day movement was sparked by Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues. Though relatively new, the movement has gained enormous popularity. In 2004, more than 2000 V-Day events will take place in the United States and around the world. V-Day has quickly taken root on college campuses across the country, and it's not hard to see why.

The pure shock value of the production seems to be the initial draw. Scenes of masturbation, rape, genital mutilation, sex, and child-birth confront viewers with blatantly graphic material. Taboo language seems to entice college students even more. The use of words like "c**t" "vulva," and "clitoris" pushes the boundaries of public discourse and draws in those seeking to break taboos, or simply be outrageous.

Even the title of the play plays upon the taboo nature of the female anatomy. Ensler spares no time in conveying the message of her play. She says that the word vagina "stirs up anxiety, awkwardness, contempt, and disgust." However, the word also has power; it "propels us and sets us free." The word makes the speaker "feel guilty and wrong, as if someone's going to strike you down," but is also "your word... your most essential place." And this central theme is precisely what is so damaging about the play. Despite its claim to promote liberation, this play truly imprisons women within a sexual stereotype and shrinks their entire being down to their main reproductive organ.

Along with the rest of humanity, women are engaged in a constant search for identity, for definition, for belonging. As the director of this year's Tufts production puts it, the search for a "home." The Vagina Monologues encourages this quest, but provides only one answer. A woman must find "her center" in her vagina. As one character in The Monologues proclaims, "I didn't need to find it. I had to be it... be my vagina." It is this assertion that womanhood is rooted in the vagina that leaves women as nothing more than a sexual object. Didn't feminism used to be about freeing women from sexual objectification?

With this reduction of women to their vaginas, the V-Day movement goes against its stated purpose. If women are encouraged to "be their vaginas," and others in turn see them as such, how will this reduce the violence committed against them? It seems that a more effective way to work against violence would be to elevate womanhood. Women are beautiful creations, the product of the intersection of heart, mind, body, and soul. To focus solely on the physical component is to degrade women, not to empower them.

Valentine's Day used to be about love and romance, but seems as if it is no longer so. Gloria Steinem once said, "The shape we call a heart resembles the vulva far more than the organ that shares its name... It was reduced from power to romance by centuries of male dominance." Steinem and others of the V-Day movement lower the status of love and romance and their role in shaping healthy relationships. In championing ideas such as this, V-Day will not be successful in its goal of ending violence against women. It is the love, the romance, the hearts, and maybe even the Valentine's candy that will do that.

What can be done to counteract the damaging effects of The Vagina Monologues? "Take Back the Date!" Help replace the campus "hook up" culture with meaningful relationships. Stop and think about what you really want. Stand up against a society that tells you that your worth is defined by your sexual activity and prowess. Value women on the basis of their intellect, their character, and their soul... and not their vaginas.

Rachel Hoff is a senior majoring in Political Science.