Yes yes...like every happy homo gal before me, I was a women's studies major (though to be fair, I also double majored in biology...thats the practical asian in me acting up). Not only was I a women's studies major with a pretty good GPA but I was also very much a part of the activist community on campus. So the reason why I'm a bad women's studies student? I'd never seen the Vagina Monologues...until tonight. Horrible isn't it?
Well here are my reasons. The tender age of 14 was when I first encountered this non-fiction book turned play. At the time it was empowering and groundbreaking for me, after all I was only 14, with my first intro to women's studies course still 5 years away! The frequent use of vagina was to be honest, also just damn thrilling to me. Well after a few courses, a foray in the radical women of color activism world and a fear of Eve Ensler, the desire to see this much applauded play just never manifested in me. I found the work to be important, true, but similar to the liberalistic "band aides" that are utilized to just cover up societal problems and not solve them. Though it is great to hear a woman be proud of her bits there are many more aspects to sexism that the show fails to cover and indeed by doing so is implicit in perpetuating them. Also I thought it was rather annoying to see one of the actresses in the show actually state that she "wasn't a feminist or anything....just saying.." in her bio.
So yeah...i'm no longer impressed by the Vagina Monologues and Eve Ensler still scares the crap out of me (the woman has a weird snaggle grin!) and if that makes me a bad women's studies student, then so be it!
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