In case you didn’t know, the V in “V-day” stands for Vagina. Actually, it stands for Victory. Valentine and Vagina, that is, when referring to the international V-day movement to heighten awareness about violence against women. While most students were cuddled up with their valentine on February 14th, a group of West Virginia student and local community members chose to put their acting skills to good use. They celebrated Valentine’s Day by joining the Global V-day Movement to raise money for battered women in Haiti, and also the local Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center.
Sponsored by the Feminist Majority Leaderships Alliance, the WVU Division of Theatre and Dancer, the WVU Laboratory Theatre and the WVU Center for Women’s Studies, the actresses put on a three-time only benefit reading of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. The award-winning play, which originally was started off-Broadway, was performed at the WVU Creative Arts Center. It sold out at each performance and raised over a thousand dollars for the causes.
Female WVU students acted out the famous monologues that were both humorous and heart-warming. The acting performances went above and beyond the average student theater production. Viewers were challenged to think about provocative women’s issues ranging from sexual abuse to orgasms, from violence against women to most importantly about their own vaginas.