Miranda Young ’16 was a cast member of this year’s production of As Told by Vaginas. This article was written for Professor Blanche Boyd’s Narrative Non-fiction class, and is her reflection on being a part of the show and her hopes for next year’s production.
“Just think, the girl who wrote this is sitting out there, watching you perform her monologue. You need to do this right. For her. For all of them.”
My cast mates and I were narrating a story of violent rape. A girl my age had sat down with two other women and told her story. Her story followed two timelines. The two women had collaborated to write a monologue, and submitted her story to this year’s production of “As Told By Vaginas.”
This woman’s vagina narrated a tragic story of uneven power dynamics and violent forms of patriarchy. She had been molested by her cousin and violently raped in a hostel while studying abroad. The brutality of violent oppression she faced was lucid and graphic. Her words hit the gut like a swift sucker punch. Nausea was inevitable as words like “helpless” and “attacked” and “covered in blood” passed through our lips as we read off the trembling script. Her’s was a cathartic narrative. It was a confession and a contemplation. It was a narrative that was to be whispered like a ghost story to wide fearful eyes. It was an important monologue.
As the seven of us stood backstage, awaiting our performance, no sounds were to be heard but soft breaths and nervous feet-shuffling. I’m not sure what the other girls were thinking, but I wanted her narrative to matter. I was entirely emotional without any rationale. I was taken over by this guttural state of fear, anger, and something else that I can’t really put into words.
That week, I had passed the rehearsals struggling to feel that I was not at the periphery of something that I thought I understood. I hadn’t felt at home with this particular feminist collective. The cast seemed to bond over a version of heteronormative white feminism that left me with the feeling that something was missing.
In all transparency, I had been one of the women vehemently advocating for the revolution that overthrew the regime of the Vagina Monologues. There were a number of political issues surrounding lack of representation of certain marginalized groups in the Vagina Monologues. We felt as though it was time to say thank you to Eve, but we needed to try to create a space for women on campus to reveal their own demons and share their stories of oppression. It seemed like the political move at the time. It made logical and ethical sense.
Yet I sat through those rehearsals, and through the excitable calls for girl power, something felt wrong. The monologues that were written portrayed a message of feminism. But it felt like the wrong message. The realization came quickly. We had torn down an old regime and put a significantly less radical puppet regime in its place. Not only had we removed the sharp bite of the criticism of racial difference, class mobility and violence against the trans community, but we couldn’t even see that those were missing. Because these were our monologues.
My stomach dropped. I realized that I was a part was essentially a reiteration of the views I had been fighting against. I walked home alone that night before the show and thought about the individuals that would be sitting in the audience, feeling once again unwelcome and suffocated by the hand of mainstream feminism.
The end of the monologue “Young Love” was upon us, and we walked in a slow line onto the stage. As we began the narrative, we were able to observe the transition of emotions on the audience’s faces. We watched fear, shock, nausea and mourning. With each word I felt a guttural fury overtake me and it swallowed me up entirely. It suddenly became so apparent that it was insane I hadn’t seen it before. It mattered that this monologue came from one of us. It mattered that this woman was our peer. While I would never understand the precise experience that this woman had dealt with, I felt an attachment to her from my very core. The rage burned from my depths and spread throughout my form that I could feel this electric current running to the tips of my fingers.
We need the monologues to be written by our community. This was a given. It felt right. It is right.
I feel no need to take back the political criticism. There was something missing in the show that took place this year, but I believe that the function of As Told By Vaginas is not only important but necessary. The fact that our women are writing these monologues creates a space for empathy, and empathy is an absolute imperative of activism.
We find ourselves encountering a young show, with potential for growth. The show was undoubtedly successful, but there’s also no doubt that it requires contemplation. Emphasis on inclusion should be at the forefront when considering the content in next year’s show, as well as how we go about encouraging new voices. Because we are no longer under the thumb of The Vagina Monologues, we have the freedom to allow the show to evolve to an all-inclusive form of activism. In the future, perhaps monologues discussing class identity, racial identity and trans identity will be entered. These will only serve to further better the show, as these identities are all incredibly important to the experience of womanhood.
I’m not really sure what the clear answer is. I’m walking home the night before the show in a state of total dissatisfaction, and I’m also the person on the stage who stood in solidarity with my cast sisters, the women who submitted the monologues and the women who could not.
I’d like to formally thank the woman who shared her story for the monologue “The Past Seven Years.” Her strength is the reason why I am a feminist. •
