Not My Vagina Monologue

How students are adding diversity to Eve Ensler’s play

By Ashwini Hardikar, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Over the next couple of weeks, hundreds of amateur ensembles throughout the world will produce and perform their own productions of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. The Vagina Monologues is a play that encourages women to simultaneously celebrate their sexuality and stand up to end violence against women in their communities, all through veneration of the vagina. First written and performed in 1996, it is widely known among young people and college students today. This is largely due to Ensler’s choice to give performance rights, free of charge, to students and community groups to stage benefit shows of the Monologues. Using mostly amateur actresses, the proceeds from these productions go to local, national, and international anti-violence organizations.

Creating a “vagina-friendly” world has officially become movement, and for its proponents, Valentine’s Day is sometimes more well-known as V-Day—meaning "Vagina Day." At many colleges in the United States, including my alma mater, the University of Michigan, The Vagina Monologues is an annual event on Feb. 14. Many local domestic violence shelters depend on the revenue from ticket sales at these productions to continue their operations. The play has been produced by women everywhere from Mexico to Indonesia.

At Michigan, I worked on three productions of the Monologues, twice as an actress. My experience with the Monologues was an important part of my personal and political development. One of my personal triumphs was admitting to my rather socially-conservative South Asian mother that I was performing in the show my freshman year. Much to my surprise, she came to see it. Taking pictures post-performance, we both flashed "V" signs with our fingers. "Don’t get any ideas Ashwini. Mine stands for ‘victory!’" she said.

Yeah, right mom.

The Monologues are not without controversy, and not just from the predictable corners—those who say it’s obscene, those who think it encourages promiscuity and lesbianism, those who claim it’s anti-male. Productions at some Catholic universities, for instance, have been met with protests and prayer vigils. But the Monologues have also garnered criticism from feminists.

The Vagina Monologues suffers from the same limitations as the mainstream feminist movement. It claims to represent a broad spectrum of women, but the show’s monologues are delivered almost exclusively through the lens of a white, upper-class, Western female perspective. In response to criticism of a lack of diversity in the first version of her play, Ensler added several monologues that were "marked"—that is, these monologues included specifications for the character’s race or ethnicity. The marked monologues were almost all supposed to represent women of color—and they were almost all representations of violence, brutality, or coercion. Subsequent monologues that focused on Middle-Eastern women, Native American women, and Eastern European women represented them all as victims. On my campus, white women overwhelmingly auditioned for the Monologues. Diversity-conscious casting meant that women of color were cast in marked roles that had to do with negative or violent experiences, and subsequently white women were more often cast in the roles (although they were "unmarked") that portrayed positive experiences. The message to audiences was clear: Only privileged women enjoy their vaginas.

Due to the limitations of The Vagina Monologues, several women have created alternate spaces to speak openly about violence, sexuality, and race. In 2003, a California-based collective called the South Asian Sisters produced Yoni Ki Baat (“vagina monologues” in Hindi), a play inspired by The Vagina Monologues. The play was actually a collection of submissions from Desi women throughout the country, and explored South Asian women’s unique experiences of violence, sexuality, and love for their vaginas. In recognition of the absence of the South Asian vagina in The Vagina Monologues, the play has been produced and performed at several colleges and community spaces, and continues to grow in popularity each year.

In Eve Ensler’s conception of feminism, women of color are always victims. This mirrors the stereotypes of women of color that exist in many aspects of U.S. culture. But when women of color are consistently presented as victims instead of as joyfully sexual beings, it takes away our agency to create change for ourselves.

I hope to one day take my mother to see Yoni Ki Baat. If after the show we both flash “V” signs, I know they will stand for many things—vagina, victory, validation, veneration—but not victimization. Ensler’s “vagina-friendly” feminism should give all women a voice in their liberation.

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