When “The Vagina Monologues” came out in 1998, it created a sensation akin to what happened when women began to seek higher education degrees.
Men and women protested, saying that Eve Ensler’s one-woman play and subsequent book were immoral, vulgar and generally flew in the face of common decency.
These protesters had issue with Ensler’s no-holds-barred examination of female sexuality and anatomy, as well as her strong language and her treatment of childhood sexual abuse.
They boycotted her shows, burned her books, and even attended showings for the sole purpose of heckling her.
But just like higher education, “The Vagina Monologues” has freed millions of women from physical and emotional prisons and continues to do so every day across the world.
If there’s one thing that can be said about Ensler and her book it’s that she is not looking at the subject through rose colored glasses.
“Let’s just start with the word ‘vagina.’ It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument. Doesn’t matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say,” Ensler wrote in the play.
Of course, Ensler suggests other things to call what so many refer to as “down there” that range from the ridiculous to the sublime.
It’s with that subtle humor and incredible power that Ensler gets across the message of her book: that vagina is not only a word that should be said, it’s a word that needs to be said.
She says that this misunderstanding of women’s bodies, this inherent disgust of vaginas is what leads to sexual abuse and low self-esteem in women.
Her message is simple.
The more people know about their bodies, the more they can love themselves and protect themselves against those who would seek to do harm to them.
Ensler also emphasizes something that, sadly, is still rampant in the public consciousness.
She maintains and shows, through heartbreaking interviews, that rape and sexual violence doesn’t happen because a woman dresses in a certain outfit or because she acts a certain way.
Many people who believe women are “asking for it” would do well to read this book and the Pulitzer Prize winning article written by Geneva Overholser in 1991 where she not only named the rape victim, but helped show America what rape is: a crime about hate and anger, not sex.
“The Vagina Monologies,” with its unabashed feminist standpoint shocks many women and men, especially those who come from what Gloria Stienem called “the ‘down there’ generation.”
And why shouldn’t it? Ensler is not wearing kid gloves, I doubt she evens owns a pair.
She attacks sexual violence against women by exposing the reader to the sheer horror of it.
She makes women curious about their own vaginas by sharing the hilarious stories of middle aged women who learn the biological names of their reproductive system for the first time.
Ensler is not speaking just to grandmothers, or teenagers, or thirty somethings.
She is speaking to everyone, men and women alike, who have until now been living in a world where women’s bodies aren’t discussed; and worse yet, where women’s bodies aren’t understood.
If the first Eve picked the fruit from the tree, this Eve has gone and chopped the damn thing down.
In doing so, she has written a book that will infuriate, educate, enlighten, anger, and confuse: in a word, a masterpiece.
