FEMME
Last Sunday, Valentine’s Day, the Womyn’s Center hosted the second annual performance of FEMME. FEMME is a series of monologues that are written and performed by members of the Hamilton community who identify as women, trans*, gender queer, and gender non-identifying. Popular themes among the monologues include topics of body, self-esteem, sexuality, love, gender, race, sexual orientation, hair, class, feminism, and much more.
As you may recall, Hamilton has not always performed FEMME. In fact, it was only two years ago that the Womyn’s Center ceased performing Eve Endsler’s the Vagina Monologues, and switched to FEMME. While bringing to light important issues of cisgender-women’s sexuality, bodies, and gender, the Vagina Monologues failed to include the lived experiences of those women who are not cisgender. Cisgender, or cis, is an identity for those whose experiences of their own perceived gender are in concordance (or agree) with the sex they were signed at birth. This is a privilege that not all women have. Thus by performing the Vagina Monologues, women in the Hamilton community who identify outside of the cis identity were excluded from sharing their lived experiences. And so it was decided to switch to FEMME which, as mentioned above, is wonderfully inclusive and progressive.
This year, I was lucky enough to participate in the writing and performance of FEMME. While I may be biased from my experiences, I felt that this year’s monologues were some of the most powerful I’ve ever heard. The monologues kept the audience on their toes, to say the least. There was a lot of laughter and, as always, plenty of tears. There is no doubt that this event empowers women, and strengthens the bond among women in the Hamilton community. On a personal note, I’d like to thank the Womyn’s Center for hosting the event and facilitating such a safe, and comfortable space to share. I’d also like to applaud my fellow writers and performers on an incredibly successful night! FEMME is a tradition I hope will carry forward into the future generations of Hamilton women. And as long as I can, I hope to be a part of it.