Political science alumna Sarah Wood (right) performed “The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” in 2013. | File Photo/The Cougar
“Vagina” is just not one of those words you hear in an everyday conversation. In modern America’s still relatively prudish culture, it feels like an exercise in self composure to say it repeatedly.
“It’s not a bad word at all,” said Women and Gender Resource Center Director Malkia Hutchinson, who argued for making the word more widely spoken.
To bring together anyone with a vagina and their supporters to speak out against violence against women, Eve Ensler wrote “The Vagina Monologues” 20 years ago.
In response to some claims that “The Vagina Monologues” excludes pre-operational transgender women, Ensler told Time in January, “’The Vagina Monologues’ never intended to be a play about what it means to be a woman. It is, and always has been, a play about what it means to have a vagina.”
However, she didn’t discount or dismiss the experiences of trans women, welcoming their stories just as she embraced those she first wrote about.
In UH’s production of “The Vagina Monologues,” organized by the WGRC, a trans woman’s monologue will be featured, adding a new chapter to Ensler’s collection that creates a safe space for women with and without a vagina to engage in conversation.
Either way, the monologues aren’t going to let even the bravest audience member remain comfortable. Psychology major Jacqueline Taylor, a director of this year’s “The Vagina Monologues” performance, said the monologue is anything but tasteful by societal standards.
Tickets for “The Vagina Monologues,” which will be performed at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Student Center Theater, are $5 in advance and cost $7 at the door. Pre-sale tickets are available today in the SC South lobby.
Proceeds from the performance will benefit Bridge Over Troubled Waters, an organization that supports women, children and men through crises, specifically domestic violence, sexual assault and homelessness.
