As part of V-Day, a movement that aims to end violence against women and girls, Drexel University put on the Vagina Monologues Feb. 27 and 28.
The Vagina Monologues is a play originally written by Eve Ensler that stemmed from interviews she conducted with women from all backgrounds. The Vagina Monologues was prefaced with a sobering speech about the reality of domestic violence by a spokesperson from Women Against Abuse, Philadelphia’s largest domestic violence agency. The play is set up as a series of powerful and thought-provoking monologues delivered by various women, and each monologue centers around a main theme: the vagina.
The Vagina Monologues aims to bring empowerment to women and each monologue shows and encourages women taking back ownership of their own vaginas, their own sexuality, their own womanhood. Some topics of the monologues included a woman who comes to find her vagina attractive because of a man that loved to stare at it; the realities of female genital mutilation around the world; the responses that many women gave when asked what their vaginas would wear and what it would say if it could talk; a woman who was made to be embarrassed of her own sexual moaning when with men but soon found that she loved nothing more than making other women moan; and the playwright Eve Ensler’s experience watching her granddaughter being born and the way it led for her to recognize how amazing the vagina is.
The audience of the Vagina Monologues was enthralled with the performance; they laughed at the funny parts in the monologues and you could hear the occasional grunt of recognition and agreement from a member of the audience during a monologue.
The Vagina Monologues is an important play for women and men to see because it brings power to the vagina and womanhood, taking away the shame that some women find revolving around the vagina and sexuality, and also addressing some of the adversities women face revolving around their own sexuality and sexual abuse.
If you missed the Vagina Monologues this year, I highly suggest that you make an effort to support it next year. The proceeds benefit an organization that fights for women’s causes and it raises awareness about the issues surrounding women. The Vagina Monologues are an important event and the message is one that every person could benefit from learning.