Rebecca Traister has a great article about the 10th anniversary of “The Vagina Monologues” in New Orleans, and ends up having the same reaction that a lot of what you might call advanced patriarchy-blamers have when seeing this play: a reluctant appreciation for how fun it is to see it, after a period of intense irritation at the hoopla around it. I’m definitely in the rationalist category of feminism, as it were, and have little to no patience with the Earth Mother feminism that tries to make a big deal out of the feminine essence. It’s true that we are awash in a culture where anxious men have a submissive relationship to The Phallus, but seriously, the way to correct that is not to make a great emblem out of vulvic energy or whatever you want to call it. There are some men who have a healthy relationship with the penis—they like it, but see it as a tool that belongs to them. I think that route out of shame over having ladyparts is to take that pathway. But, as Traister notes, Ensler surrounds the play itself with this Earth Mother goddess stuff that makes me squirmy.
In Ensler’s megalomaniacal V-universe, everything from voter registration to the Iraq war is seen through the speculum, er, spectrum, of the vagina, and moist metaphor and love for Eve (and beav) rule the day. It often seems, in fact, that Ensler has taken her laudable grass-roots success and turned it into a celebrity-centric, glitzy franchise — one that has, in its unrelenting and patronizing focus on women-as-cootches, often felt as reductive and objectifying as the language Ensler originally set out to fight.
All that is true, but at the end of the day, the “Monologues” continue to draw huge audiences because the play itself is so good. You don’t have to love Ensler’s approach to love the play, because what makes the play awesome is that the monologues are all built from the direct words of a bunch of ordinary women. The factors that were in play 10 years ago when the play made its debut—shame about sexuality, the belief that women are inferior and that control of the ladyparts belongs to men, because women can’t be trusted with it—are only more pronounced now than they were then, and have been enshrined into the law. I think women flock to the play, because it’s refreshing to hear other women talk about their vaginas…..much in the way that men with healthy masculine identities see their penises. It’s mine, but it does not own me. Ensler may skirt the edge of “women as cootches”, but the play itself sends home the all-too-uncommon message that women own their cootches. And because of its emphasis on personal narrative, it does this without being preachy or driven by ideology, and it’s really funny and entertaining.
Which is why the play makes right wingers apeshit, and for that, I will always love it. In this piece, Kasic tries to equate “admitting you have a vagina” with “embracing a status as a sex object”, but of course, that doesn’t follow. Looking at men—which is what Kasic really wants us to do, anyway—shows how there’s no need to be secretive about your genitals in order to avoid being reduced to your genitals. A dude making a dick joke doesn’t relinquish his right to full admission into the human race, and in some quarters, handiness with a dick joke is required, because it’s a way to keep the ladies out.
What’s really funny about Kasic’s piece is that she’s reporting to an audience scared to death to see the “Monologues”, so she can say whatever she wants about it without running into reality-based facts. She could say they sacrifice a chicken on stage, and I doubt anyone would correct her. Instead, she claims that the play stereotypes men as all bad guys, except the guy who enjoys staring at vaginas, which Kasic finds disgusting: “It’s difficult to see how that is a redeeming quality, but in the context of the play he stands out as the most worthy male.”
Statements like that make it hard for me to hate Kasic, because I just feel so sorry for her. Knowing why that’s a redeeming quality in a man makes life a lot sunnier, I’ll tell you what.
Anyway, she’s pulling a bait and switch of sorts. The accusation is that the play stereotypes men, but the evidence is that there’s only one male character with any redeeming qualities. But actually, that’s more evidence that men aren’t a gigantic presence in the play, which makes sense, because the play is about women. I’m sure Kasic sits through many TV shows and movies and plays where women only play small parts, and certainly are more stereotyped than in the “Monologues”, but somehow that fails to raise her ire, which means that she’s relinquished her moral right to bitch about the one instance where men are sideline characters.
The play popularizes a feminist message, and I suspect sometimes that feminist desires to stick pins in it comes from the wrong place, this desire to keep feminism as a “cool kids club” and hostility towards anyone who has managed to find a way to mainstream our ideas so that we who have them aren’t so special anymore. Too bad for us who feel that way, though. Say what you will, but this play has managed to help mainstream the idea that violence against women is wrong, to the point where even a reactionary like Kasic has to say, through the lemon she’s sucking, that it’s a good thing to raise money to help women that have been on the pummeling end of our patriarchy. Since this change in attitudes has a direct effect on the lives of victims of domestic violence, the cool kids club needs to suck it up and realize that reality is more important than our egotistical need to feel special.
All this said, I do have to say that I want to crawl under my bed and suck my thumb in frustration when I see feminists play up to the stereotype that women are irrational ninnies. From Traister’s piece:
Fonda — who had drummed up publicity for this event back in February by uttering the word “cunt” on morning television — began her speech with some copious crying. “I am so proud to be a woman!” she’d said, sniffing mightily as she took the stage. It ended with some Eckhart Tolle-influenced wavy-gravy about how we’re all fields of energy. “This is not just new-age hogwash,” she said, “It is actually how reality works
Every time a feminist starts talking in woo, they discredit feminism. We don’t need to lean on bullshit to justify ourselves, because the rational case for feminism is far stronger.
53 Responses to “A cultural phenomenon for a reason”
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**sigh**
I wish Fonda were a Republican, because she poisons everything she touches. We’re energy fields? I’m amazed she didn’t expound on The Secret.
I think that the true value of the Monologues is that it drives conservatives crazy. It makes all of us realize what we’re up against and reminds normal people that conservatives are batshit misogynists.
what makes the play awesome is that the monologues are all built from the direct words of a bunch of ordinary women
Actually, this is what makes the play insufferable. Ensler refuses to own the sentiments expressed in her play, which allows her to adopt mutually exclusive ideologies and avoid criticism by claiming that the stories are someone else’s. It’s a deeply dishonest act as an artist.
One example that comes to mind (I’ve seen the play once, and read it once) is the series of stories that condemn the seduction of teenage girls by older men as exploitative and akin to rape, followed by a story that celebrates the seduction of a teenage girl by an older woman. The older woman’s sexual aggression is played for laughs; it’s “hot”; she’s “liberating” the girl. Watching that segment made me queasy, not because I don’t think that such an encounter couldn’t turn out well for the girl, but because the same story with a man in that role would have been understood (within the ideology of the rest of the play) as a horrific outrage against women.
I don’t think that the VM is some kind of terrible affront to men or that it’s overall socially destructive. If it makes a couple of repressed middle-aged white women feel more comfortable saying “vagina”, then it’s probably doing more good than harm. But in addition to having the vagina-capitalist problems you discuss, it’s simply a bad and dishonest piece of art. It’s certainly no worse than mainstream dick-joke material aimed at men, with their sexual double standards and misogyny. And certainly, if men can have such material, women should have some as well. But while empowering women to be as incoherent, intellectually lazy and unfair as men have been for the past several millennia is a noble undertaking, it’s not exactly the end goal for feminism.
My opinion of The Vagina Monologues starts and ends with this observation:
IT’S A VULVA. WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT IS A VULVA. THE VAGINA IS JUST THE HOLE BIT.
Sorry to yell, but sometimes I feel like carrying a sign that says this to a production of the play. I feel like if you write something like this about the ‘vagina’, it just underscores the attitude that women are ultimately reducible to nifty little holes men like to stick their dicks in. To which: Do Not Want.
That’s too bad, opoponax, because while you’re technically right, if that’s preventing you from seeing the play, you’re missing out. They do resolve the question by embracing, at one point, the word “cunt”, which gets us past semantics with sheer shock value.
My students get involved in it every year and insist that I come see them talk about their cooters in public. It’s really charming, frankly. They’re so pleased to have figured out that they can enjoy being girls and break some still-sorta-taboos. It makes me remember what it was like to be nineteen. There have been about half a dozen instances in the last few years when one of my students comes running up to me and says something along the lines of “Did you see that, Dr. F? I said ‘vagina’ over and over again on stage and my mom was in the audience!!!!1!”
The play is… meh. But then again, I’m in no way its target demographic. I don’t, in fact, think it reduces women to their lady parts, and I think you’re right when you say that it’s about owning them and transcending them. The only thing that really bothers me about the play is the scene where a high-school girl is seduced by an older woman. It’s meant to seem empowering, but I find it highly exploitive: if that were a man seducing that girl, it would be a felony.
I’ve read the play, and seen it. I like it a lot, for what it is, and especially like the fact that it’s a genuinely well-written piece that stands up on its own regardless of the feminism angle. I also love how riled up it gets people.
But seriously, as a queer woman who is actually engaged in her sexuality, the existence of my vagina matters about as much as the existence of my earlobes. Cool that it exists and all, but not of prime importance.
It’s the vulva I care about.
My students get involved in it every year and insist that I come see them talk about their cooters in public. It’s really charming, frankly. They’re so pleased to have figured out that they can enjoy being girls and break some still-sorta-taboos. It makes me remember what it was like to be nineteen. There have been about half a dozen instances in the last few years when one of my students comes running up to me and says something along the lines of “Did you see that, Dr. F? I said ‘vagina’ over and over again on stage and my mom was in the audience!!!!1!”
The play is… meh. But then again, I’m in no way its target demographic. I don’t, in fact, think it reduces women to their lady parts, and I think you’re right when you say that it’s about owning them and transcending them. The only thing that really bothers me about the play is the scene where a high-school girl is seduced by an older woman. It’s meant to seem empowering, but I find it highly exploitive: if that were a man seducing that girl, it would be a felony.
And yes, it is a “vulva”, but that is just the least attractive word in the English language. It’s just a combination of phonemes that shouldn’t go together.
My students get involved in it every year and insist that I come see them talk about their cooters in public. It’s really charming, frankly. They’re so pleased to have figured out that they can enjoy being girls and break some still-sorta-taboos. It makes me remember what it was like to be nineteen. There have been about half a dozen instances in the last few years when one of my students comes running up to me and says something along the lines of “Did you see that, Dr. F? I said ‘vagina’ over and over again on stage and my mom was in the audience!!!!1!”
The play is… meh. But then again, I’m in no way its target demographic. I don’t, in fact, think it reduces women to their lady parts, and I think you’re right when you say that it’s about owning them and transcending them. The only thing that really bothers me about the play is the scene where a high-school girl is seduced by an older woman. It’s meant to seem empowering, but I find it highly exploitive: if that were a man seducing that girl, it would be a felony.
And yes, it is a “vulva”, but that is just the least attractive word in the English language. It’s just a combination of phonemes that shouldn’t go together.
The only one that they ever complain about, in the 3 years I’ve had to deal with the “controversy” of having a play! on a Catholic campus! is the one with the 16 year old and the older woman. Seriously, whenever someone goes on about the Vagina Monologues, I stop them and say “name something offensive without referencing that skit”. Usually they can’t, because it’s not in the talking points they’re familiar with.
I agree about the earth mother woo. It’s abundantly obvious that we’re not fields of energy. I cannot put up with that shit.
At my local college, as a joke, me and a couple of friends were going to do a presentation of “Vagina Monolouges…in SPACE” on the free speech lawn (in which condensed versions of the monologues are acted out by astronauts behind the monologuist and word “vagina” refers to a space creature) but the school officials couldn’t give us approval to do the event before V-Day.
I, personally, find the play to be kind of pretentious and silly.
Watching the HBO special in which Eve Ensler sounds out the c-word, associating the word with other powerful and neutral words to me was just really obvious, trite, and self-indulgent way to get an idea across. And kind of faux-tansgressive too, like that episode of Mr. Show where David Cross says “fuck America!” to a crowd of hip urbanites and then puts his finger to his mouth and says “aw-I’m sorry-did I shock you?”
I probably just need to see it live.
Opoponax, I agree. I like the play a lot, and I understand why she chose the word “vagina,” but the incorrect usage drives me up the wall!
“I’m definitely in the rationalist category of feminism, as it were, and have little to no patience with the Earth Mother feminism that tries to make a big deal out of the feminine essence. It’s true that we are awash in a culture where anxious men have a submissive relationship to The Phallus, but seriously, the way to correct that is not to make a great emblem out of vulvic energy or whatever you want to call it.”
I haven’t finished reading the post yet, but I gotta say Me Too. And I feel really guilty about it sometimes and/or like I’m missing some essential chick piece and/or letting down The Sisterhood in some profound way.
Common usage is the correct usage. That’s how language works.
The problem with all the “woo” aspects of this, in terms of feminist politics, is that it ultimately comes from the world of theatre. They love their woo in the theatre world, and they don’t really give a crap what wonks like us want the party line to be.
D, if enough people insist on honoring the difference between vulva and vagina, they’ll influence the way “language works.” Kimberly-Clark has invested a lot of money keeping Kleenex from becoming a synonym for facial tissue, with some success. We feminists can do the same thing for free.
Opoponax, I had a teachable moment with my 4 year old the other day. We were getting into jammies for bedtime and he expressed concern that my penis was broken. Holding back laughter, I explained that Mommies don’t usually have penises, they have vulvas. We then had to practice saying vulva for 10 minutes before we could settle down and go to bed.
Everybody now: VUL! VAH! VUL! VAH! VUL! VAH!
LOL!
Not to mention that I’m not just picking at nits, here — it’s not like “Bridget Jones’s Diary” vs. “Bridget Jones’ Diary”.
You will never hear a gynecologist, for instance, say something like “The clitoris is located in the vagina.” Because it isn’t!
Of course, you’re right that ‘vagina’ is every bit as apt as ‘coochie’ or ‘yoni’ as a colloquial term to describe the vulva. But half the point of the play is empowering people to move away from euphemism and be able to refer to things by their real names. At which point calling it The Vagina Monologues is almost as silly as calling it The Pussy Monologues.
Certainly those who wish to influence language in such a way can try to do so. However, as long as vagina is commonly used and understood to mean the same as vulva, that’s what it will mean when used in that context.
However, as long as vagina is commonly used and understood to mean the same as vulva, that’s what it will mean when used in that context.
Well, OK. But then so is cooter.
BTW, as I’ve said, my issue is not with “correctness”, per se, but with the aesthetic appropriateness. If you’re trying to get people to dispense with euphemism in favor of the correct term, it’s a little silly to choose to entitle your play with yet another colloquialism.
Certainly those who wish to influence language in such a way can try to do so. However, as long as vagina is commonly used and understood to mean the same as vulva, that’s what it will mean when used in that context.
That’s the philosophy that gives us BS like “partial-birth abortion” and “death tax” and “Islamofacist”. Once language declines to marketing buzz words, we just stop communicating.
Instead, she claims that the play stereotypes men as all bad guys, except the guy who enjoys staring at vaginas, which Kasic finds disgusting: “It’s difficult to see how that is a redeeming quality, but in the context of the play he stands out as the most worthy male.”
Two questions: 1) Isn’t Kasic’s reaction kind of missing the whole point of the play?
2) Does Kasic actually know any heterosexual men, personally?
traitster also had an excellent article recently about the weird gender shit happening during this campaign season. (it’s linked in the homepage). i was rather disappointed it got so little coverage in the blogosphere. not surprised, but saddened.
–the opoponax
I agree with you 100% — it bugs the shit out of me that it’s all about the “vagina” and not the “vulva.” It seems to just utterly defeat the whole purpose. *sigh*
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/64
A video from 4 years ago about how the Vagina Monologues happened.
The point of calling it the Vagina Monologues is that the word “vagina” is taboo (unlike vulva, which is a word that shockingly few people seem to know), and that’s stupid.
The Vagina Monologues, at my school (a very conservative campus in the south) is the one time when there seems to be an actual push to talk about violence against women. Sororities frequently pick causes, like breast cancer and domestic violence, but don’t do anything about it. It’s an obligation, not something they feel connected to. V-Day, meanwhile, is the one theatre production where most of the people participating are not theatre. It’s the one production every year that sells out, in spite of also being the only production where tickets cost money for students.
Also, am I the only one noticing that most of the people who have a problem with V-Day in the comments above are male?
“Instead, she claims that the play stereotypes men as all bad guys, except the guy who enjoys staring at vaginas, which Kasic finds disgusting: “It’s difficult to see how that is a redeeming quality, but in the context of the play he stands out as the most worthy male.””
That was one of my favorite parts!!
“Statements like that make it hard for me to hate Kasic, because I just feel so sorry for her. Knowing why that’s a redeeming quality in a man makes life a lot sunnier, I’ll tell you what.”
YEP.
I haven’t seen the Vagina Monologues, but read the book version. I’d just like to point out that I’d never heard/seen the word vulva until I read the Vagina Monologues (yeah, my abstinence only sex ed in high school was AWESOME /snark). Had it been named the Vulva Monologues I wouldn’t have picked it up off the library shelf because I simply wouldn’t have associated it with me or my genitalia. So I think the title is a good one, even if it is referring to only a piece of the whole package. It’s going to appeal more to those of us who aren’t already well educated about our anatomy, and really, aren’t the uninformed the main target audience?
the word “vagina” is taboo (unlike vulva, which is a word that shockingly few people seem to know)
Why not call it The Cunt Monologues.
Had it been named the Vulva Monologues I wouldn’t have picked it up off the library shelf because I simply wouldn’t have associated it with me or my genitalia.
Ditto above. Inge Muscio’s book, Cunt, drew me for identical reasons to those cited here. And managed to do so without also propagating a lot of complicated and incorrect baggage about the purpose of female genitalia.
She could say they sacrifice a chicken on stage, and I doubt anyone would correct her.
[obligatory cock joke goes here]
I think the comments here are indicative of the point Amanda makes: we’re not the target audience for this play. Just look back at some of the posts of the past few days, reporting on reputable newspapers substituting “spiritual marriage” for “organized rape of teenage girls” or on people getting paid to make straight-faced claims that women who don’t get married before they have children cost the US $100+ billion a year. And the big thing wrong with Eve Ensler is that she didn’t name her play so it could be confused with a brand of car or bottled water. Oh, yeah, and minor woo, and one of her characters does something immoral (because all the characters in a play have to be above reproach for the play to be good).
OK, that’s probably enough dismissive snark. Sorry. But I still think that the discussion exactly makes the point of the post.
I don’t remember if I posted about this before, but there is this documentary on the clitoris.
http://www.arte.tv/fr/histoire-societe/Sexe-des-femmes/Programme/387780,CmC=387788.html
This from the German-French cultural channel ARTE. But I suppose you can find it in English as apparently Australian television has also shown it under the title “The Clitoris - Forbidden Pleasure”.
Ha ha ha. I can’t believe that reviewer is whining that something called THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES is too vagina-centric. Of no, what next, does Harry Potter focus on too many child wizards and not enough right-wing politicians? Of course it’s about vaginas, you’d be entitled to a refund if it wasn’t.
Felagund:
“There have been about half a dozen instances in the last few years when one of my students comes running up to me and says something along the lines of “Did you see that, Dr. F? I said ‘vagina’ over and over again on stage and my mom was in the audience!!!!1!””
Uh, whut? How old are these kids?
I’ve done the Monologues twice - once as an actress and once as the director (before that I saw it twice) and what I really like about it is the opportunity to open dialogue with other women about issues like violence, racism and stuff like that.
Once I went to the chaplaincy to do some one-on-one PR with a friend in the office. What was going to be just a quick message became a thirty minute conversation with four other students in the chaplaincy and the chaplain himself, who encouraged the guys to go.
It’s nice because it’s the one time of the year when the local women’s shelters really get any notice by the general public, and it raises awareness of their roles too.
I’m going to comment with glee, as is usual when you mention Kasic’s inanity. She’s been freaking out forever over the Vagina Monologues, as has the rest of the BUCC. Every year they drag out the same tired points and get some poor woman to write an article on it.
Page 20
Page 19
Page 10
After all this time, you’d think she’d have come up with some new material.
It kind of annoys me, actually, that a common reaction to the vulva point is “omg nobody knows that word anyway so who cares?”
Women’s genitalia (outside of the part most useful to men) is so taboo that most people don’t even KNOW the correct term for it. You can get through an entire sex-ed class without hearing it, or without really grasping that it is the collective term encompassing the vagina, the clitoris, the labia, etc. And a lot of very well-meaning people not only don’t like to use the right term, but think the word itself sounds repulsive.
Maybe someone should write a groundbreaking play encouraging women to come to grips with the official “correct” term for their genitalia.
Oh, wait…
Its the fate of political art to outlive itself. I couldn’t stand the Traister piece and blogged about it over at If I Ran the Zoo. What I want to say here is that I loved the Vagina Monologues and a lot of women, around the world–not just teenboppers or whoever–have drawn a lot of strength from its iconoclasm and its randiness and its humor and its pathos. Its a phenomenon, a political and cultural phenomenon. To our credit, or it is our good fortune, a lot of us have moved past where Eve was when she first constructed it. Its as dated as Judy Chicago’s dinner party. But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t have a lot to say to us and for us when it started. Or that the kind of freedom to talk about our bodies and our experiences with sex (and without it) that we now enjoy would have been possible without it. There’s a reason why it gets performed over and over–because it (if I may say so) fills a gap in theater and performance.
Another thing I want to say is that Eve has worked with lots of people to get their own stories down on paper, and out to the public. She’s a true teacher and nurterer of other people’s work. many people don’t know her work with the women of Bedford Hills Prison which was eventually performed by famous actresses both at Bedford Hills (for the prisoners) and in Allice Tully Hall. Eve did that work for *years*, faithfully coming out to the prison to work with women who often could not admit to each other what they had done, or why. She helped them find their voice.
Contra Matt up above I actually know something about a) art, b) collective art, c) monologues and their history, d) eve ensler. So fuck you, matt, for saying this patently stupid thing:
“Actually, this is what makes the play insufferable. Ensler refuses to own the sentiments expressed in her play, which allows her to adopt mutually exclusive ideologies and avoid criticism by claiming that the stories are someone else’s. It’s a deeply dishonest act as an artist.”
You don’t get to say what becomes, or doesn’t become, the artist or what is, or is not, an “honest act” of art. And you don’t get to dismiss a world wide phenomenon as “making middle aged women more comfortable saying vagina” or however else you have dismissed it.
aimai
I guess I’m not sure why it’s important to call it the vulva when there’s no equivalent clinical term for the entire male genitalia? I mean, I get that there’s more there than just the vagina, but if you’re going to use another term, why not use clitoris–that’s the part most women get the most pleasure from anyway. Clitoris and labia and vagina, go ahead and name them all. Vagina alone is inaccurate, but I think vulva alone is rather reductionist.
Betty Dodson, whose seminal works inspired the play, thinks the play is craptastic.
The first time I saw The Vagina Monologues was in 1996 when it was off, off, off Broadway. Friends of mine who’d seen the play had alerted me that the author and sole performer, Eve Ensler, mentioned my workshops. That evening I sat in a small theater listening to a charming young woman who talked about my Women’s Sexuality Workshops with a distorted view of what I’d been doing for over twenty-five years…
So what did I expect with the conservative Ms. crew on board? They have rarely been able to talk about sex without bringing up rape, abuse, wife beating, and genital mutilation. It was déjà vu. In the seventies Ms. had held up publication of my article “Liberating Masturbation” for more than two and a half years fearing they would loose subscriptions. Ms. Also supported Woman Against Pornography in the eighties. The idea that feminists were pushing for the censorship of sexual entertainment led many of us to identify ourselves as pro-sex feminists.
Now in the nineties they had done it again. V no longer stood for vagina. It stood for violence. Sex and violence, never sex and pleasure- talking about sexual pleasure when there is so much sexual violence against women would be inappropriate, insensitive and politically incorrect. And who is to blame for all the sexual violence against women? According to feminist extremists it’s still the patriarchy. Does that mean daddy or our brothers? Is it the stranger who raped us? Or is it the first man who broke our heart or the first one we married who cheated on us? Maybe it’s the pope or God himself, but it’s definitely mankind.
It’s very difficult to criticize V Day without sounding anti-woman or pro-violence. Dare we ask why so many feminists think women have cornered the market on being victimized by violence? Will we sound too insensitive in mentioning the violence caused by poverty, hunger, and wars that affect women, men and children of every gender? Are we to ignore all the wives who verbally abuse and dominate husbands? Shall we pretend there are no mothers who all too frequently raise a hand to punish a child? It’s almost as if feminists insist on ignoring the power that many mothers wield in the home to preserve the image that all woman are helpless victims incapable of violence.
Could we cut to the chase and say that the source of violence against women comes from the extreme fundamentalists in all the major religions including Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims? That all forms of authoritarianism exercised by both women and men are the source of violence along with ignorance and prejudice?
Read the whole thing. Heh.
I am generally pro-Vagina Monologues, mainly because I really do think seeing it is fun and positive even if I’m not a fan of the earth-mother stuff that gets bundled into it. But honestly, if the earth-mother stuff helps people feel like having a vagina isn’t something to be ashamed of, I don’t think it’s really damaging unless it veers into essentialism territory (women are good because they are mothers woo! or whatever).
But I am sort of ambivalent about the bigger argument about “mainstreaming” feminist ideas. Obviously I want feminism to gain as wide an audience as possible (and I am a big fan of Feministing; I think they get treated as a lot fluffier than they actually are and I like how comprehensive they are a news source), but how can you “mainstream” ideas that are…not mainstream, and even critical of the mainstream, without losing the things that make those ideas powerful? Like, I don’t have an answer, I’m an academic but I don’t really think that feminism should stay in some kind of secret theory-language that is not really accessible to most people nor does it actually help women, but at the same time I feel like “mainstreaming” feminism is always in danger of reducing a lot of complex, searing critiques to empowerfulness. Is it okay if sometimes things get distorted if there’s still a “women are equal” trojan horse in there that maybe some women grab onto and embrace? I think that is the danger with any kind of revolutionary idea.
Richard Feynman said that if you couldn’t discuss your ideas with a reasonably educated high school student, then you really didn’t understand your ideas.
He also insisted on absolute, strict, intellectual honesty, anything less leads to cargo cult junk science.
It’s a kind of scientific integrity,
a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil doesn’t soak through food. Well, that’s true. It’s not dishonest; but the thing I’m talking about is not just a matter of not being dishonest, it’s a matter of scientific integrity, which is another level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will– including Wesson oil. So it’s the implication which has been conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what we have to deal with.
Its as dated as Judy Chicago’s dinner party.
You want to hear something funny?
I, like many other under-30 feminists, always thought The Dinner Party was dated. I think they teach that in Women’s Studies classes now; it’s officially on the exam. Then the Brooklyn Museum of Art bought it and installed it permanently in their new Women Artsists wing, as Judy Chicago always meant for it to be seen. I live about a half-hour’s walk from there, so I decided, OK, one of my favorite museums, which is practically right in the neighborhood, installs The Dinner Party. I should pay my feminist dues and go see it, even if it’s dated.
It’s so not dated, at all. You just have to see it in person to “get” it properly. The work is fantastic, the effect is fantastic, and it is so subtle, with so many interesting little threads of meaning, that even though the basic concept of “unsung women of history” might be kind of played out (though none of my friends I’ve dragged there knew who half the subjects were), there is still so much going on in that piece that it really does transcend all the silly Political Art stuff.
You know what would be awesome?
Vagina Monologues: The Musical
It’d be like Company; a series of vignettes connected by a main character with musical numbers scattered throughout.
Bernadette Peters could sing a stirring ballad about ovarian cancer.
I’ll just let you guys contemplate how completely awesome that would be.
I’m not sure why it’s important to call it the vulva when there’s no equivalent clinical term for the entire male genitalia?
If the visible male genitalia encompassed like 10 different little thingamabobs, there probably would be a collective name for it. And every English-speaking person on the planet would be well versed in its use.
Contra Matt up above I actually know something about a) art, b) collective art, c) monologues and their history, d) eve ensler. So fuck you, matt, for saying this patently stupid thing:
*snip*
You don’t get to say what becomes, or doesn’t become, the artist or what is, or is not, an “honest act” of art. And you don’t get to dismiss a world wide phenomenon as “making middle aged women more comfortable saying vagina” or however else you have dismissed it.
I apologize if I offended you or said something dismissive about your friend. It’s possible that I’ve taken statements about the play from people closely involved with Ensler, and involved in producing the play, and misattributed them to her. But I get the sense that the “dishonesty” I mentioned is very real, and very convenient, as a mechanism for avoiding criticism on political grounds: on the one hand, Ensler has mobilized the play quite conspicuously as a vehicle for a (somewhat obscured) political message; on the other hand, when she is asked what this message is, or how she can square it with certain sentiments expressed in the play, she disowns the piece, claiming that it is composed of other people’s stories. (This is my sense, from what I have read and what people involved in producing the play have told me; please let me know if I’m wrong.)
This is, as I said, a dishonest tactic as an artist. Even a compiler of other people’s stories makes choices about the selection and framing of those stories. Ensler wants to tell a particular kind of story, about self-loathing and sexual violence, and about the possibility of recovering a positive self-image and a positive attitude toward sex. That’s great, in theory. But I’m with Betty Dodson in her piece cited above: the play carries such a toxic emotional attitude toward sex that it’s grating to watch, and its political ideology is too incoherent to be of any use to anyone.
Of course, my bottom-line criticism is really quite petty: “it’s not for me”. Which, as I said in my original post, is just fine. If Ensler wants to put together a support group for women who have been traumatized by sexual violence, that’s great; but to think that what is therapeutic for them is relevant or enjoyable for people with relatively healthy attitudes toward their bodies and toward sex is akin to the narcissism of the recovering alcoholic or addict: just because your life was destroyed by the Demon Rum doesn’t mean that the rest of us need you warning us away from the bottle with your sermons.
In other words, the message of the play isn’t universalizable — gay men, or men who have been the victims of sexual abuse might find the portrayal of their sex in the play to be a bit off-putting, for instance — but Ensler’s marketing machine goes out of its way to label anyone who criticizes or even just prefers not to participate in the “V-Day” phenom as some kind of misogynist. This is another sentiment I share with Dodson. I’m not obligated to like every piece of art made by someone who was traumatized and wants to write about it. Not even if other people like it. Not even if it has tremendous positive effects on women young and old all over the world. I can still not like it as a piece of art, and that is not a moral failing on my part. The piece has a cult following, which is fine; I’d rather not be part of the cult. And I’d rather not be told I’m an asshole for not liking the play.
I’d be a lot happier if it were the Vulva Monologues. Vagina’s just too reductive—if I had to pick one or the other, I’d take the vulva any day of the week. The vagina obsession is too everything-is-about-the-penis for my taste. In my life, *nothing* is about the penis. The clitoris, OTOH ….
I’ve read that Betty Dodson article before: to me it reads like “shut up, rape victims, you’re killing my buzz.”
Maybe I’m not charitable. In fact, I know I’m not. But this part:
Toward the end of the evening Eve asked everyone who’d ever been raped to stand up. Only a smattering of women stood. Then she asked for those women who had been beaten to stand. Many more stood. Finally she asked all those to stand who knew any woman who’d been raped or beaten which included most of the audience. I refused to stand as an insignificant protest knowing she would never ask those of us who had never been raped or beaten and who enjoyed our sexuality to stand.
Seems to suggest that she thinks having been raped or beaten means you don’t enjoy your sexuality. Or:
Until they receive a positive sex education, young women will continue to be overly emotional, sexually passive and potential victims.
So if a girl learns to masturbate right, she won’t be a “potential victim.” She won’t get raped. And if she did get raped, it must be because her sex education wasn’t positive enough, because she’s “overly emotional” and “sexually passive.”
This has nothing to do with me or the women I know — many of whom know sex as both pleasure and violence, and wish they did not know the latter.
It may be that the Vagina Monologues isn’t the show Betty Dodson wanted to see, but that doesn’t mean it is bad.
Well, this is where I object to Dodson; I don’t think it’s possible to grow up female in a patriarchy (and yes, I believe this is a patriarchy) without being familiar with these messages of self-loathing and threats of violence. They are ubiquitous. The contention that self-loathing and sexual victimization are the preserve of only a few weak or unlucky women is just not supported by the facts. It is not an individual problem.
I’m still not a huge fan of the Monologues, but I’m even less a fan of the idea that women should be personally ashamed if we’ve internalized sexist messages.
Heh. There was a lot of grumbling about that older-woman-on-young-damaged girl scene at my college, too. It was a conservative liberal arts college, so really people wanted to complain about the whole play, but since that would be deemed censorship, they had to nitpick.
One young man posted on our online bulletin board that the sex in that scene wasn’t seduction, it was “coercion.”
I said, “How many women can claim that their first sexual experience wasn’t coercive?”
I wish the answer wasn’t “I can’t,” but that was the general response when women on this bb spoke up.
He shut up.
Elinor:
but I’m even less a fan of the idea that women should be personally ashamed if we’ve internalized sexist messages.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. Did Dodson say something to this effect? And if you really mean that: does this logic extend to men as well? Because personally, I do think people, men and women, should be “personally ashamed if we’ve internalized sexist messages.” Isn’t that a pretty basic tool of feminism: shaming people for their sexism? I do it all the time. Shame is a powerful tool for getting people to admit they have a problem and ultimately for exorcising these internalized ideas. Without shame, feminism never would have gotten off the ground.
To clarify my “recovering addict” analogy: recovering addicts do have a real problem, and 12-step programs and their accompanying philosophies do tend to be relatively effective in treating the problem, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in acknowledging you have a problem and doing what you need to do in treating it.
But even if the VM were therapeutic for every woman raised in a patriarchy — and that’s a very big if — there’s no reason to think that men stand to learn anything from seeing or reading it. It focuses on themes that I find simplistic and obvious, and it seems to be trying to solve a problem that most women in my peer group seem to have dealt with pretty capably without Even Ensler’s help, i.e. fear of sex and hatred of their sexual organs.
Last weekend, there was this terrible movie on television with Zach Braff in it where he and his 30-ish buddies go through little midlife crises and act irresponsibly: cheating on their pregnant girlfriends, abandoning their wives and infant children, stalking their exes, etc. I kept waiting for there to be something interesting in the movie, but it was just irredeemably sexist garbage about how boys will be boys, and how grown men have license to act like teenagers if they feel threatened by the idea of settling down, and how any man who holds up his end of a contract he made with a woman should be celebrated as a big fucking hero. Of course, it condemned these behaviors, but it made it clear how hard it was for men to refrain from them, and how we ought to forgive them if they manage to find the immense courage and integrity necessary to do the right thing in the end.
It might have been therapeutic for certain male audience members who are still having trouble accepting grown-up responsibilities in their late 20s and early 30s, and for them, it probably had a positive impact because it patted them on the back for doing good, responsible things, albeit things that the rest of us manage to do without too much bellyaching about it. Like the VM, it addresses unhealthy attitudes some people have adopted because of their patriarchal cultural upbringing, e.g. the belief that men are entitled to a “do-over” when they decide they don’t, in fact, want to grow up, or the belief that men in committed, monogamous relationships are entitled to sleep with any hot young thing that comes along if they can get away with it. But most of us have rejected these patriarchal tropes without, as I said, any help from Eve Ensler or Zach Braff.
So: the VM, like this Zach Braff movie (”The Last Kiss”?), probably helped some people to deal with some tough issues caused by their internalized patriarchal attitudes and to come to terms with themselves as sexual, responsible adults. But neither piece is great, or even good, art, and I didn’t enjoy being exposed to either one.
Of course, it’s quite possible that I live in a dream world where people have mostly come to terms with these issues, and that in the real world most men are still arrested in adolescence and most women hate their vulvas. But even if that’s true, it doesn’t make a play or movie that panders to these pathologies a good piece of art any more than Camille Paglia’s book sale figures make her a better feminist theorist than Katherine Franke. The Harry Potter books are garbage — grown-ups especially should be reading something a bit more ambitious — but I’m glad people read them if the alternative is watching TV. My sentiments toward the Vagine Monologues are similar.
Uh, we are. Check out QM sometime — I don’t mean the woo woo kind, I mean the kind where you calculate Phi. All matter is a wave and a particle.
Em
Choad. Which brings me to Matt.
If a piece has multiple viewpoints in it, that’s dishonest to you. Let me ask you, if that piece of art had only one view in it, would that then be one-sided? Would you say that it was a bunch of stupid feminists marching in lockstep with one another because they can’t think for themselves?
It’s supposed to have different viewpoints in it. It represents the thoughts and feelings of multiple people.
Matt:
Matt, feminism isn’t “over.” We’re not in a post-feminist world.
You talk about women who have been traumatized by sexual violence as if they are a small minority.
They’re not. Women with relatively healthy attitudes towards their bodies are either lucky, or got that way through some hard work overcoming the effects of that violence. Just like men who have relatively healthy attitudes towards their bodies and sex and women’s bodies are either lucky or had to go through some hard work to get there.
Just because women of your acquaintance don’t talk about negative feelings they have about sex and their bodies don’t mean they don’t have them. It’s one of the ironies of insecurity about sex and your body that talking about them is considered unsexy and un-confident, so they’re unlikely to spill to you about it.
“The Harry Potter books are garbage — grown-ups especially should be reading something a bit more ambitious — but I’m glad people read them if the alternative is watching TV.”
Another choad bashing TV with a strawman. What if the alternative was watching, not “TV”, but “The Wire” or “The Shield”?
Idiot.
Ha! Someone ELSE also identified Matt’s choadish demeanor!
{high five to JoAnne}
*high five* back to Eric!