screw it
I’m the kind of feminist who might be expected to enjoy The Vagina Mologues, and welcome the reclaimation of the sex-role-based stereotype-laden Valentine’s Day to V-Day in favour of awareness about violence against women. I’m young, middle-class, sex-positive and fairly literate.
Other than the half-price snazzy chocolate that goes on sale in time for my birthday, I’m indifferent to Valentine’s Day, but V-Day can put itself on a stick and suck it, because I want nothing to do with it. Awareness about violence against women has plateaued among the intended audience, making V-Day a hollow excuse for a pseudo-feminist echo chamber. The people who will be exposed to this awareness of violence will not benefit from it, and those who might benefit will not be exposed, due to this resolute insistence on throwing around the word “vagina”. Moreover, “reclaiming” a day requires having had it in the first place, and “reclaiming” Valentine’s Day for violence awareness allows a pseudo-feminist manifestation of our cultural obsession with sexual violence to eclipse the embrace of healthy, normal sexuality, or the discussion of what constitutes healthy, normal sexuality.
Canned vignettes about how men done our lady parts wrong are not empowering, and the pretension that Eve Ensler speaks for all women–or rather, their vaginas–is offensive. More so is the appropriation of the words of women who were raped or abused and the attempt to make them the story of everywoman, trivialising the experience of the survivors by putting their histories on equal footing with the minor hurts suffered by other fictitious characters.
More important than vaginas are the women who have them, and Ensler’s play leaves us adrift on a high of anti-violence righteousness to do the work of claiming our bodies and our sexuality unguided.
Screw that, yo. Go buy some sale chocolate and a vibrator.