In comments, Izzy Grinspan responds to my post: "I've only seen the Vagina Monologues once, but what's stuck with me, in a way that I would describe as both horrifying and surprising, is the section about the woman who was repeatedly raped in Bosnia. . . . For me, at least, this was the most memorable, most upsetting part of the show—much more than a 'dutiful footnote.' . . . Where is the line between play-acting and really acting? What would you like the cast of the Vagina Monologues to do instead of putting on the show?"
I agree that this part of the production, which I do remember vividly, is both memorable and upsetting and a welcome depature from the fatuity and navel-gazing (well, vagina-gazing) of the production as a whole. But I still call it "dutiful," and woefully inadequate. The only other serious "monologue" in the script is spoken by a Lakota Sioux woman who has been abused by her husband. Powerful stuff, until we reach the ending: "They took our land; they took our ways; and they took our men—and we want them back!" It's characteristic of protest literature to be parasitic on the thing protested; it's in the interest of Eve Ensler and the Vagina Monologues to decry sexual violence while ignoring those of its perpetrators who can and should be held accountable.
The last time I saw the Monologues, the U.S. military had just driven the Taliban from Afghanistan: that is, real people had taken real risks to improve the lot of women in that country. This fact didn't receive a mention. I don't suggest that the young students acting in Ensler's production should take up arms and march on the failed state of their choice. But the fact that the production refused to acknowledge or honor real risks and real gains—rather than mere sentiment—has stuck with me. To say that something good can be done, has been done, is to accept responsibility. The cast of the Vagina Monologues is responsible only for sound and fury, signifying self-love.
The putative argument of the Monologues is that sexual violence is real and must be stopped. The argument of someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali is that the abuse and repression of women around the world comes from specific conditions and ideologies that can be changed. The perennial sneer on campuses where "awareness" posters and panels are common is that no genuinely violent person ever changed his ways because of a poster or "discussion group." Hirsi Ali is petitioning our "awareness" in terms that may actually force us to do something.
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