Eve Ensler ‘perpetuate[s] inequities’
“The Vagina Monologues” used to be celebrated as a subversive blow against patriarchy, or something. Now it’s just viewed as another invalidation of transgender lives.
The Women’s Resource Center at Eastern Michigan University is pulling the plug on productions, claiming it can’t legally alter the script created by Eve Ensler, MLive reports:
The WRC announced its decision in an email, which came after the center evaluated responses from a survey. Survey respondents opposing the production consistently indicated they were concerned that the play centers on cisgender women, that the play’s version of feminism excludes some women, including trans women, and that overall, “The Vagina Monologue” lacks diversity and inclusion.
The email is rather vague on what’s problematic about the production other than its exclusion of men who identify as women.
MORE: Women’s college dumps ‘Vagina Monologues’ for focusing on vaginas
“The Vagina Monologues” is simply not “in line” with the values of both the center and the Department of Diversity and Community Involvement, which include “celebrating the diverse representations of women on campus” and “supporting and empowering minoritized students and challenging systems and structures that perpetuate inequities.”
The decision was expected following conversations with students and feedback from a “Not all women have vaginas” workshop the prior academic year.
Other colleges have simply created vagina-optional knockoffs to pacify students who considered the original noninclusive, including Fordham, University of California-Berkeley, Middlebury College (Ensler’s alma mater) and trans-accepting women’s college Mount Holyoke.
Plymouth State University in Massachusetts, in contrast, kept the vaginas but hosted the production in a church last year.
MORE: Public university hosts ‘Vagina Monologues’ in a church
MORE: Asterisk indicates Fordham performance is for ‘any vaginas, all vaginas’
IMAGE: Bosom Buddies
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