Vagina Warriors
Last night I went to see the production of The Vagina Monologues, and it got me thinking (which I presume is its intention). However, before I go into specifics, I want to make a few disclaimers. First of all, this post is not directed against either the author of The Vagina Monologues, nor the performers or organizers of the event at Salisbury University. In fact, I know alot of people who were involved, and I find myself in agreement with the discussions at the SAGE meetings (Student Activists for Gender Equality, the organizers of the V-Day performance). Another important qualification to this post, and I can't stress this enough, is that this is not intended as an apology for the poor white male. I think that people who go around claiming that the tables have recently turned, and that white men have it worse now, have a few screws loose. I'm pretty certain that this post won't come off sounding that way, but I just wanted to dispell any possibility that I be associated with these people.
As indicated by the title, The Vagina Monologues are a series of monologues about vaginas - a word that is seemingly on the tip of everybody's tongue. However, it's just as much about the vagina's other, namely, the phallus. I mean two things by this - first in the sense that it's trying to counter the societal currents which have marginalized the vagina in favor of the phallus, but also I'm referring to the moments when the play explicitly mentions men or the phallus. The only times the phallus is ever mentioned in the monologues is in the context of rape, aggression and violence, and child molestation. Now, I'm not criticizing the monologues for including stories of rape, violence towards women, and child molestation - on the contrary, these are very important women's issues, and any work purporting to be about vaginas would be incomplete without mentioning them. I do think though that the fact that the monologues rarely, if ever, mentioned men in a positive light might be off-putting to alot of men. I walked away not just feeling ashamed at the fact that alot of men are bastards (which they are), but also somewhat uncomfortable. It wasn't enough to prevent me from enjoying the show, but it's not difficult for me to imagine it being that way for others.
Viewing problems such as domestic violence, rape, and child abuse through the somewhat myopic view of gender wars runs a large risk of missing other aspects of these problems (which, again, I'm not accusing anyone specifically of doing - this is a very general rant). Granted, I believe that men are slightly more aggressive and violent naturally than women, but a large part of it is societal. Someone on metafilter referred me to an article in Colonize This! (a collection of essays about oppression). The thesis was basically that as the role of the Hispanic male as breadwinner was destroyed by low-paying jobs, and as the status of Hispanics decreased as the result of prejudice, there was an increase in the amount of domestic abuse reports by Hispanic females. As the aforementioned person on metafilter put it, "When a person feels that they have no control over their own lives, due to economic or sociological factors, they see the strong hand of the dominant classes, and try to emulate it, in the hopes of gaining some kind of control. In this case, a heavy-handed control over the domestic situation." Additionally, I think that in America (and elsewhere) men still feel pressure to be the provider for their families, despite the increase in the number of women in the workforce. Alot of men aren't very well equiped to handle with the shame of being unable to provide for their families. When the great depression hit, many men deserted their families and became bums, unable to handle this shame. Still others killed themselves. Some oppressed groups in the US and elsewhere deal with this by creating an extreme form of machismo, which may or may not include beating one's wife, or attempting to regain a feeling of power with rape or child abuse. Understanding these factors goes a long way towards developing an effective solution against domestic violence and rape. There are also other societal factors involved. Fundamentalist Islamic society has a bad track record for women's rights, and condones spousal abuse. In addition to the aforementioned reasons, I think that it's important to understand why, so that we can better attempt to solev this problem.I know this might not be necessary to say, but I am not making an apology for rape and domestic abuse, I find them reprehensible. This is simply a partial explanation.
One of the ways society has managed to deal with surplus aggression is to sublimate it. What I mean is that societies have developed mechanisms for converting aggression into other activities which are at best productive, at worst harmless. Competition, in the business world, in video games, or in sports, is an example of sublimation of (typically male) aggression. Martial arts and exercise are other examples. The military, on the other hand, I think is an example which is neither productive nor harmless. Reading the stories about the atrocities of the Tiger Force, the nickname of an elite 45-man unit of the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, turned my stomach. I don't think it's very surprising that rape is so common in the boyzone that is war.
The Vagina Monologues aside, the opposition and symbolism of vagina/phallus have a rich history. I think the first symbols that come to mind are the terribly mistaken ideas of Freud. Mostly everyone's familiar with the Freudian priviliging of the phallus, and the corresponding marginalization of women in Freud's works. Freud's ideas about women were rooted in a society where there was an enormous prejudice against the capabilities of women. He saw women as ultimately restricted by their biology, leading him to focus on the inherent limitations of women. Thus he focused on the role of childbearing, and developed the idea that women's sexuality was an aborted development, thrown off course by the discovery that they didn't have penises, and were thus inferior. Women, he reasoned, would see the penis and immediately realize the superiority of the phallus, a presence, over the vagina, an absence. In his later work Freud would concede that he didn't understand women, which he said were largely "a dark continent."1 The most famous disciple of psychoanalysis in the mid-to-late twentieth century, Freud's views, it's important to note, were a product of society at the time, and were rarely disputed at first because most people agreed with them, women included. The fact that we find so many of Freud's ideas as absurd or offensive illustrates how far we have come as a society.
Luce Irigiray, the post-structuralist feminist, was part of a movement to turn the order of the vagina/phallus opposition around. Irigiray associated the phallus with domination, oppression, the singular, and the vagina with liberation, freedom, and multiplicity. Hearing the performers and organizers of the Vagina Monologues at SU name the students and teachers awarded the title "vagina warriors," I couldn't help but associate this with Irigiray's ideas. The problem I have with Irigiray is that she abandons one set of privileged terms for another. I'm sure that the other members of SAGE agree with me when I say that Irigiray's model is flawed because it doesn't seem to preach gender equality, but the reversal of the current hierarchy of oppression. While some might argue that it's necessary to do this before equality can be achieved, I think that it's an ineffective strategy for gathering support and sympathy from all parts of society - a necessary precursor for progress.
In conclusion, don't think that I read too much into this, I was just bored and hadn't posted to my site in a while. I'm sure you understand. I understand that alot of it is humorous - I get it. No, really, I didn't really take it that seriously.
Notes
1. This is an interesting statement, which evidently draws comparison between women and the more common "dark continent," Africa. The phrase "the dark continent" was widely used as a term for Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries, and has a context of the undiscovered, the unconquered, the mysterious, as well as the wild. Folklore abounded with stories of fantastic creatures within the perimeter of the dark continent, such as dragons, dinosaurs, and giant one-eyed monsters. [Back]
Frankie finally updated his BLOG, so I thought I would reward him with a comment:
I was also at V-DAY with Frankie and I have to say I agree with a lot of what felt/said, namely the fact that he left feeling slightly uncomfortable.
I am not a rapist. I am not a child molester. I would never raise my hand to a woman. I understand some men do these things and I understand some women need to rally against these evil practices, but this doesn’t mean that I feel comfortable sitting in the audience of The Vagina Monologues.
I feel the line of Gender Equality was crossed and that men were portrayed in a somewhat demeaning light. This is of course to be expected, but part of me can’t help but say, "There has to be a way this can be done without alienating so many good men in the process".
You say "I do think though that the fact that the monologues rarely, if ever, mentioned men in a positive light might be off-putting to alot of men." Strange, because in the production of the Vagina Monologues I have seen, there was a sketch that spoke of vagina/women-loving men that was not negative at all. It boasted men's adoring, sexual love for women and how one woman was affected by this man's intensity. Was this included in your show? Also, I understand your points, and agree that good men should not be alienated from the process. Still, there are some points that you both might consider.
First, the Vagina Monologues is often just about the word Vagina. In my opinion, it seems the word has a stigma of some sorts, as it is rarely used and very avoided in day to day language, all the while I hear the phrase suck my dick/cock several times a day. If a woman ever said something about her vagina walking down the street she would receive some weird and most likely disgusted looks. Just as if a woman mentions menstruation or tampons, men are usually disgusted. It just seems in general the comfort level amongst men and women is much higher when we hear something about a penis, make fun of a penis, or discuss the functions of a penis. Today, hearing a woman sit on stage and speak about vaginas already reduces the comfort level dramatically. I do not know why this is - and Frankie could probably come up with a jillion philosophical references useful in explaining why. Regardless, the use of the word or what the word entails has not reached an equality in comfort level among regular people in our society. The humor in the Vagina Monologues in my opinion is somewhat an attempt to raise the comfort level for everyone.
Secondly, the Vagina Monologues are about understanding. They should not cause a feeling of inferiority to form among the good men which you speak of. The monologues are about reaching out to women and men and allowing them to understand more intimately the experience of being a woman, whether it be the quirks of womanhood, threat of rape, etc.
A good man should walk out of the Vagina Monologues an even better man. Perhaps if all men were forced to watch the Vagina Monologues, there would be more respect for women as equals and an overall acknowledgement of things like rape mean to women. A good man should walk away with a dose of the female experience, and all in all a more developed appreciation for his woman and women in general. If he has at all felt he, as a member of a gender, has been portrayed in a demeaning light, then he has gotten a dose of a reality that women face every day. And this dose of reality makes him understand the female experience within today's world to an even better degree.
Eric, you say "some women need to rally against these evil practices." If anything, a man ashamed by the behavior of his own gender should maybe go volunteer at a woman's shelter once in a while or support a group against female mutilation in the Middle East. Perhaps if these fields were not so female dominated, men would take them more seriously around the world. This involvemnt would also end the alienation of men from the process of liberating women socially, sexually, and politically.
I feel sort of guilty for not having been clear enough. I don't have any problem with the vagina monologues, but more against extremist feminists, who I think give a bad rep for the rest of the movement. A man who isn't as discerning might confuse the vagina monologues with extremist feminism. I think though that it's natural to feel embarrassed for the male species coming out of the vagina monologues, and that it's even a good thing. Maybe if more people felt embarrassed they would act on that embarrassment and do something about problems like domestic abuse, rape, or female circumcision.
Insofar as The Vagina Monologues are trying to break down the taboos around female sexuality, alot of progress has been made in that area. As a result of things like The Vagina Monologues and Sex and the City, the word"vagina," for instance, is much less taboo than it was 5 years ago (in my opinion).
I respect Luce Irigiray for her work like Speculum of the Other Woman (which I was actually reading today) for deconstructing philosophical treatments and historical notions about women. I think the problem with Irigiray though is similar to the problem with Derrida - namely - Derrida and Irigiray by themselves are very interesting and significant theorists, but there are a bunch of people that pick up their works, come up with half-assed readings of them, and then fashion themselves as "radicals" of some sort. Anyone who follows these things knows that deconstruction, whether literary, philosophical, or femininist, has gotten its bad rep mainly from American graduate students and professors (and hence things like the Sokal Text Affair). They are pretty much the straw-men (and women) that my rant is directed against.
The Vagina Monologues is supposed to be provocative, to make people think. I'm glad you came and I'm glad it made you think.
Were you at the SAGE meeting where we talked about including a male perspective in the show? Anyway, SAGE does agree that the show is unbalanced and there was talk about maybe next year trying to incorporate men in the performance somehow. I don't know if that's actually going to happen, especially since I won't even be here!
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