V-Week Climaxes With The Vagina Monologues

As I write, I am concluding the most mentally and emotionally exhausting week of my entire life.

This week was Connecticut College’s first V-week, a week celebrating women: our struggles, our magic and our battles fought – our triumphs.

The week began with the entire cast of The Vagina Monologues. Sixty-four young women and I shared tears and found insurmountable motivation as we watched Eve Ensler’s newest documentary on the state of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Why Congo? According to playwright Ensler, “Congo is the most dangerous place on the planet to be a woman or a girl.”

Since 1996, sexual violence in the eastern DRC has been used as a method of torture and humiliation. Countless Congolese women have been raped, ostracized, abandoned and left for dead in the pursuit of natural resources.

We watched – bleary-eyed – as dozens of women testified against the men who had committed the most atrocious acts imaginable.

In this moment, the cast of The Vagina Monologues found our purpose, found our pursuit.

Despite the racial, demographic and socioeconomic differences that often tear us apart, we found empathy. We found incredible solidarity with these women and their struggles; we found ourselves in their suffering and we were called to action.

The week continued with Vinnie Angel’s talk on “the men in menstruation.”

Angel identifies as a feminist and environmentalist, and started his work in women’s advocacy doing something simple: passing out tampon cases. Angel was inspired by a close friend’s story: a man raped her.

Angel then realized how little he actually knew about the mysteries surrounding women and started from the basics. He asked his female friends the difference between a tampon and a pad, and continued from there.

He went on to design tampon cases that he handed out to women in New York City for free for five years.

Although Angel never chose to identify with a particular cause, he identifies with men who are often intimidated and confused by “women’s issues.” Today, he attempts to “upend ignorant, sexists, racist and globally suicidal behavior by encouraging a larger and more inclusive dialog without chaffing or repelling the consumer.”

In short, he aspires to approach women’s issues from a male perspective in an amenable fashion.

The following evening, ten inquisitive and interested men and women joined me at a roundtable discussion on domestic violence in New London, Conn. A representative from the Women’s Center of Southeastern Connecticut and the Sexual Assault Crisis Center of Eastern Connecticut discussed the local impact of domestic violence and sexual assault, and provided astounding statistics and testimonials on the sheer number of women affected by domestic violence in Connecticut.

For a state with the allegedly highest standard of living in the United States, our public schools and personal morals have not and do not include the lesson of healthy relationships. This lesson is one that must be espoused in this community – this community, meaning New London and our community at Connecticut College.

The testimonials on violence against women at our seemingly harmless small liberal arts college are also deplorable. This needs to change, and this article and our show are a call to create that change.

Finally, this past Friday and Saturday we climaxed with our production of The Vagina Monologues. If you have not seen the show, it is something you must see if you exist in our world. Our world.

Have you ever actually thought about how inextricably tied women’s issues are to our world? The environment? Fertility? Resources? The future of this planet?

My world: my cast of 65 shared the stories of women who have had both good experiences and bad experiences; who have experienced rape and degradation; who have hope and who defeat the odds. These women are strong and powerful and brave.

Not everyone can reclaim “cunt” the same way as Devon Butler.

Not everyone can talk about pubic hair, vibrators, floods, domestic violence, respectful men, violent men, lesbians, moaning or vaginas the same way as The Vagina Monologues does.

And undoubtedly, no one can say, “in Westchester, they call it a pookie,” like I can.

And certainly, very few women can discuss and portray sexual slavery in the DRC the way the brave and courageous women of our cast did.

As I reflect on this experience with these women, I cannot forget one line of the spotlight monologue that so deeply resonated: “I am 17. He took me when I was 15. He raped me every day three times a day. He gave me diseases and made me pregnant. If you turn this boat back, I will throw myself into the lake. I will drown myself. I’ll be okay dead as long as I never have to see him again. I will take his baby with me. And the Captain will put one hand on your shoulder and you will see a light in his eyes that you will identify as pity and he will not turn back.”

The moment the audience realizes that our heroine, Marta, will never see her soldier, her captor, the man who raped her three times a day for two years ever again, she starts to love her baby and becomes a mother. She learns of his death and believes “God did something good,” and then, “at that moment milk will pour into your breasts and you will love your baby.”

And the final lesson of the monologues, Rule 8: No one can take anything from you if you do not give it to them. And that rule, rule 8, is what has exhausted my mind and my heart so much this week; I refuse to falter, and I refuse to wait for my happiness.

On the contrary, I have given myself entirely to this cause and have found myself and have found over 60 young women whom I can identify with, cry with, laugh with, and be a woman with.

My heart is so tired from these emotions, my eyes are so tired from crying, but my body is ready to fight this battle until the end!