Women's History Month

          Why are programs, such as Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and Lunafest, moving?  Is it because they show strong, independent women offering consciousness-raising and gender-defying subjectivities?  Is it because women share real stories outside the male gaze – exploring, re-evaluating and reshaping the unspoken and the familiar?  Perhaps it’s because these skits/films compel us to deliberate on how gender defines women’s treatment, drawing on the emotional and empathetic.  My answer is a resounding ‘Yes, to all of these’! These Women’s History Month programs spoke to the power that our culture wields over women, and how their lives are shaped and oftentimes disturbed by it. 
          I have to admit being unsure, perhaps even suspicious, of what I would encounter by attending The Vagina Monologues.  Unlike the other Women’s History Month events shown on our WGS assignment on Canvas, there were no details about the author or her work.  Not knowing, I presumed it would take a documentary approach, like “Miss Representation,” which revealed through a quantitative approach (e.g., only 16% of writers, directors and cinematographers are women while 97% of telecomm and advertising firms are headed by men) how the lack of women’s representation in key fields like politics, advertising, and the mass media industry, reinforces America’s patriarchy whereby men, who dominate these don’t challenge the hegemonic masculinity, but instead replicate in media what they know.  I thought that documentary and interview style of “Miss Representation” was what I would encounter when attending The Vagina Monologues.  Instead I was treated to varied vignettes and storytelling: poignant and humored, jolting and thoughtful.
          Instead of a discourse on how women are underrepresented, Eve Ensler’s monologues take the approach of sharing women’s stories.  I immediately thought of Linda Jin Kim’s doctoral thesis “Feminism without Feminists” (2010), where he revealed how the television series Sex and the City utilized female subjectivity  and confessional discourse, popular in women’s magazines and talk shows, to “privilege issues important to women” (8).  Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues evinced the power of storytelling – with revealing sketches ranging from the angry vagina to a provocative vignette of the word ‘cunt.’ These individual recitals unified into one program and validated Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum's contention that, "Performance of one kind or another is always integral to protest" (Code Pink).
          My favorite monologue was one that explored the standards by which women’s bodies are monitored and disciplined.  The discussion centered on the need to shave pubic hair.  The monologist spoke of not wanting to shave it; yet, she did and regretted it.  Her husband’s insistence reminded me Jane Caputi's discussion of objectification in her article “Pornography of Everyday Life” in which the author defined it as “to use them as a tool for their own purposes, to act as if they are a thing that you own…” (Dines 377). Given this, wasn't the woman in this monologue treated as an object – regardless of stating valid objections for not shaving, her husband insisted she was 'dirty'? More so, changing her body to fit her husband’s need to ‘remove the clutter’ spoke to women existing in the male-judging gaze.  This topic was explored in Rosalind Gill’s article “SuperSexualize Me! Advertising and the Midriffs” whereby the author asserted that midriff advertising encourages the male gaze by creating “representations of idealized beauty” (Dines 286).  Caputi, Gill and the monologue were in-synch, speaking to the disempowerment of women at the hands of following the “slim, toned, hairless body” (Dines 282). 
                The Vagina Monologues departed from discourse offered in our earlier course readings in that it was not a perspective of how male superiority and dominance subjugate women through acts of verbal condemnation. For instance, author David Nylund talked about how Tony Rome’s radio program reinforced social inequality, homophobia, and sexism thereby promoting misogyny, violence, and heterosexual dominance” (Dines 230) referring to women as ‘skanks’ and ‘tramps.’ Also in Dines’ text, author Tricia Rose emphasized in “There Are Bitches and Hoes” how rappers, like Snoop Dogg, utilize demeaning phrases which fundamentally exploit women, such as ‘bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks’ (Dine 387).  Clearly, these words not only incite and offend, they assert hegemonic masculinity.  However, rap musicians and talk radio hosts do not have a monopoly on words that instigate.  The Vagina Monologues used its share of evocative wording to shock us.  One monologue was fraught with the word cunt.  Another spoke of the angry vagina and the mother f***ing instruments that affront it.  Overall, while The Vagina Monologues digressed in format and attitude, each was provocative in its own unique use of media space, creating a powerful experience. 
          To be acceptably feminine, women must conform to conventional gender practices.  However, Lady Parts, a Lunafest film, entertained with an unconventional job – a woman running an auto repair business.  I thought about how this deviated from Helene Gurly Brown’s image of a woman’s success as published in her 1962 book, Sex and the Single Girl.  In it Brown targeted the growing demographic of single, working women, encouraging them to improve their social status through relationships with men – specifically by exchanging sexual favors for commodities they wanted.  Brown advocated sexual liberation for women, removing the earlier stigma of premarital sex, as a tool to advance their standing with suitable men.   In “Inventing the Cosmo Girl: Class Identity and Girl-Style American Dreams” author Laurie Ouellette contended that when Brown took over as editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, which offered advice to “girls with jobs” on how to reflect upper-class style, use products to enhance their attractiveness, and entice men with sex more successfully to improve their social status (Dines 260).  Nothing could be further from the approach taken by Mae de la Calzada, the entrepreneur and owner of Lady Parts Automotive, a repair shop in California designed by a woman for women.  Mae spoke in the film about her “inspiration, duty, pull” to help single moms.   Her objective is to “help people find a way to make things happen for themselves.” Wow!  That is the ultimate message of personal empowerment, and the dipolar opposite to Helen Gurly Brown’s message to women that women need to use their sexuality to attract a man and use his resources.  This was my favorite Lunafest film.
          The Women’s History Month presentations demonstrated the interconnection among the objectification of women, the impact of their marginalization in society, and physical violence; underscoring that "masculinity and femininity are social constructs that work together to produce a gender system that is fused with inequity, hierarchy, and violence" (Dines 367).  Vagina Monologues and Lunafest celebrated and criticized how our culture contributes to women’s identities, and by doing so, compel us to pay attention to messaging that each of us must play a part to change.  The Vagina Monologues and Lunafest are programs that emphasized a sharing of experiences, reinforcing the need to contribute to a highly-interactive society that incorporates the broad and interesting spectrum of personal choice and self-expression.

                                                               WORKS CITED

Dines, Gail and Jean Humez.  Gender, Race, and Class in Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Pulications, 2014. Print.

Kim, Linda Jin. “Feminism Without Feminists: Gender, Race, and Popular Culture.” UMI Number: 3426140.  UMI Dissertation Publishing. August 2010. Web. 3 April 2015.
Kutz-Flamenbaum, Rachel. "Code Pink, Raging Grannies, and the Missile Dick Chicks: Feminist Performance Activism in the Contemporary Anti-War Movement." NWSA Journal.  
             Volume 19, Number 1, March 2006, ISSN: 1040-0656.  Canvas.  4 April 2015.

Miss Representation.  Dir. Jennifer Siebel Newsom.  Virgil Films, 2012.  Film.