Eve Ensler
Paperback | Pages: 185 pages Rating: 3.88 | 27572 Users | 1967 Reviews
Particularize Books In Favor Of The Vagina Monologues
| Original Title: | The Vagina Monologues |
| ISBN: | 1860499260 (ISBN13: 9781860499265) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Narration Supposing Books The Vagina Monologues
My vagina is a shell, a round pink tender shell, opening and closing, closing and opening. My vagina is a flower, an eccentric tulip, the center acute and deep, the scent delicate, the petals gentle but sturdy.
No it isn't. It isn't a flower, it isn't a tulip, it isn't a shell or a piece of coral or an exotic orchid. It's a tract of epithelial tissue, just like everyone else's.
Don't get me wrong, vaginas are lovely – I'm a massive fan – but these monologues represent the sort of facile, pseudo-feminist waffle that is actually anti-feminist. First of all, it's questionable that reducing women to their vaginas can really be helpful in the first place; but since that's the premise of the whole thing, I won't go on about it. More to the point though, this is simply the other side of the coin from standard, run-of-the-mill patriarchy: the idea that women are ‘other’ – wild, mysterious, lunar creatures, with baffling anatomies and magical hidden depths that can be reawakened if they would only discover themselves and get comfortable with their own menstrual blood. It's just utter bullshit from start to finish. Or it's not what I believe, anyway: I think women are just normal people, same as men are. Why can't someone write a play about that revolutionary idea.
I do feel bad slagging this off, because the stories in here are clearly meaningful for the people that experienced them, and maybe if you have had a certain kind of upbringing then this might be useful or liberating. I don't want to devalue the positive experiences some people have obviously found here. Particularly when I don't have a vagina myself. But Christ, it's all so po-faced and earnest and humourless. My wife has never seen it staged but she started the book and threw it across the room on page 46. The passage that finally finished her:
My vagina amazed me. I couldn't speak when it came my turn in the workshop. I was speechless. I had awakened to what the woman who ran the workshop called “vaginal wonder.” I just wanted to lie there on my mat, my legs spread, examining my vagina forever.
It was better than the Grand Canyon, ancient and full of grace. It had the innocence and freshness of a proper English garden. It was funny, very funny. It made me laugh. It could hide and seek, open and close. It was a mouth. It was the morning.
(‘Why do Americans have to turn every part of my body into some psycho-sexual epiphany?’ — Hannah.) OK, this book isn't aimed at me. And it's probably not cool to borrow Hannah's reactions to try and make my own review seem more valid. But with all of that said and understood, my own humble opinion for what little it's worth is that this goes for lazy, feel-good ‘community’ spirit at the expense of genuine insight, and I suspect that ultimately it's pointing gender relations in the wrong direction. Maybe it's a generational thing.
Itemize Appertaining To Books The Vagina Monologues
| Title | : | The Vagina Monologues |
| Author | : | Eve Ensler |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 185 pages |
| Published | : | May 3rd 2001 by Virago Press Ltd. (first published 1996) |
| Categories | : | Feminism. Nonfiction. Plays. Drama. Theatre. Womens. Gender. Gender Studies |
Rating Appertaining To Books The Vagina Monologues
Ratings: 3.88 From 27572 Users | 1967 ReviewsArticle Appertaining To Books The Vagina Monologues
I don't really see the need for the stances of overwhelming crassness many of the reviews take against this book here on the GR. Is Ensler's collection of performance pieces the final word on feminist ideology? No, not at all. But is it a sincere work that approaches with humor and gravity the notion that especially men and especially women should view the female body outside of the bullshit male-centric, patriarchal perception that many people seem utterly oblivious to their own culpability inIm coming late to this party, I have to admit. And for my, the defining feminist changes my outlook and gripped book is Atwoods Handmaids Tale. Still, you have to be a complete idiot to not see the power in this play (or performance piece). Considering that womens sexuality is in many ways still owned/controlled by men, this book is still timely. Dont believe that first part. What is the term for an older man who dates a younger woman? No, Im not thinking Sugar Daddy. But what would you call
While I don't necessarily disagree with Ensler's thesis, or the help the project has provided to various women's charities, the whole thing, as a literary or dramatic work, is very problematic. Anything more honest than a fawning critique reveals how shallow the whole thing is; there's hypocrisy, repetitive symbolism and metaphors, a heaping of that empty sort of communal feminism that makes everyone feel good but doesn't actually change anything, and, upon close inspection, evidence of the kind
i think for her target audience (middle america's sorority girls) they're revolutionary. for me personally, i felt like they essentialized women to their genitalia and were problematic in that sense. i've also had to sit through the play 5+ times, so perhaps i'm just burnt out on cunt-love
"the vagina monologues" began ambitiously, as the author, eve ensler, interviewed hundreds of women from all around the globe about their vaginas-- something most of us don't spend much time talking about!-- but i don't think even ensler could ever have predicted the impact it would have on the world. "the vagina monologues" turned into v-day, one of the most important worldwide events, consistently raising awareness and money to work to end violence against women. through all of this, it can be
The book itself is very short and because of that several introductions and a afterwords have been included to pad it out. First there is the extremely long introduction by the author which was partly about how the book was written and partly history and what has happened since the Vagina Monologues was created. Then there is a another extremely long (but much better written and more interesting) introduction by the fabulous Gloria Steinem telling us something of her eccentric, interesting and
It's disturbingly tempting to give this book a high rating just so everyone knows that I'm a feminist (which I am) and that I'm comfortable talking about sex (you mean coitus?). And I think Ensler depends on that tendency. Because here's the thing- VM's politics may be admirable, but as theatre it's really quite bad. Also, Ensler is a self-serving egomaniac. Think about it- she could fund an endowment for female playwrights and premiere a new feminist play every year, but instead she's set up an
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