Word: enslerã
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Ensler penetrated the public consciousness in 1998 with The Vagina Monologues, a collection of women’s descriptions of and reflections about their vaginas. The work emerged from a conversation Ensler had with a friend. While discussing menopause, Ensler??s friend, a self-proclaimed feminist, complained about how much she hated her vagina. Distressed to hear a woman, a feminist no less, speak this way about her vagina, Ensler began asking her friends to share impressions of their vaginas...
...though she says the scars of the abuse she suffered will always be with her, Ensler??s decision to dedicate her life to ending violence was a turning point. With the V-Day movement, she found purpose, a community, and fulfillment. “All of a sudden, I got happy,” she says...
...Ensler??s official website boasts that her play “has given a voice to women of all ages all over the world.” Ensler never attributes her stories to anyone. They may be composites of people she talked with. They may be complete reproductions of one side of a conversation. The monologues were all originally interviews. Ensler has written herself as interviewer out of the dialogue, and re-inserted herself as the interpreter of what she has now constructed as a monologue...
...play reflects a tiny fragment of the breadth of women’s experience. Even in the Ensler era, many voices remain excluded. What about women who have not had the opportunity to go to college, who are excluded from performing since the bread and butter of Ensler??s enterprise is V-Day performances at colleges and universities? Where is the transsexual woman who loves her female sexuality, who came about loving her vagina in a different way than the voices that are shown? What about people who don’t want their vaginas touched, not because...
...there’s one thing you can’t deny Ensler, it’s that her play does encourage dialogue about the vagina. If that expands to include broader discussions of patriarchy, gender and sexuality, great. Ensler??s woman-types are more affirming and complex than those presented in much of Western culture. But if it stops with Eve’s Vagina, then we’re not much better off than we were before...