Tag Archives: Eve Ensler

A New Kind of Vagina Monologue

Laurie and Debbie say:

You will lose your heart to the girl who stars in this ad for menstrual supplies. Or possibly to the woman who wrote the ad.

If you watch most commercial television, you’ll come away with the belief that a tampon is somehow connected either to running in slow motion green fields or pouring blue liquid through an oddly shaped container. (What a relief to learn that our red menstrual blood wasn’t weird.) Despite the great work of Eve Ensler, “vagina” is still a dirty word in way too many contexts. Just over a year ago, Michigan Representative Lisa Brown was subjected to a 24-hour gag order for using the word during a legislative session.

The creative forces behind the ad are clearly conscious that they are skirmishing in the verbal front of the war against women’s bodies. They are consciously using language that a substantial percentage of Americans would prefer never to hear, and they are using it not just shamelessly but delightedly. Most menstrual products ads tiptoe carefully around the sensibilities of (mostly) men who, if they can’t pretend that menstruation doesn’t exist, can only bear to have it hinted at. This ad makes your delicate sensibilities your problem.

What does this ad do that’s radical?

  • Uses not only the word “vagina,” but also “vadge.” Bonus: “tampon,” “period”
  • Puts this language into the mouth of a fearless, charming young girl
  • Refuses to sidestep any truth about menstruation
  • Portrays menstruation as both fun and powerful
  • Actually demonstrates (with a doll) menstrual fluid coming out of a girl’s body
  • Laughs at itself

    • Plus, what could be wrong with a menstrual products company that times itself to your cycle and your preference, and sends you candy? As the girl in the video says, “How could a Camp Gyno compete with that?”

    One Billion Rising: February 14, 2013

    Laurie and Debbie say:

    ONE IN THREE WOMEN ON THE PLANET WILL BE RAPED OR BEATEN IN HER LIFETIME.

    ONE BILLION WOMEN VIOLATED IS AN ATROCITY

    ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION

    One billion women are rising tomorrow, all over the world.

    On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 14 February 2013, we are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.

    What does ONE BILLION look like? On 14 February 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION.

    ONE BILLION RISING IS:

    A global strike
    An invitation to dance
    A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
    An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
    A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given
    A new time and a new way of being

    V-Day (linked above) is a 15-year-old global movement to end violence against women. The movement was started by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues.

    This year, the V-Day folks are pulling out all the stops, organizing globally. Will we see one billion women rising in the streets? Or one billion people? Probably not, but we’re going to see a lot of people! There’s already livestream video from Manila on the site.

    Looking at the map on the One Billion Rising site, and clicking around the world map, we find events in:

    El Paso (La Palma Islas Canarias), Quebec, Sinaloa, Poitiers (Vienne), Boduthakurufuaanu Magu, Male’ (Henveiru), New South Wales, and literally hundreds more. (If you’re curious–we were–Henveiru is in the Maldive Islands.)

    In our own Bay Area, there are 79 events, including flash mobs, performances, rituals, fundraisers, and more.

    What will it take–really–to end violence against women? It will take belief in the possibility, willingness to organize, passion, commitment, and millions of people. And One Billion Rising is harnessing all of these things.

    Here are some excerpts from Ensler’s poem/essay “Over It.” Read the whole thing.

    Over It

    I am over rape.

    I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

    I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame

    I am over people calling it freedom of speech and justifying it as a joke.

    I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don’t have a sense of humor, and women don’t have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don’t think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

    I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

    I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

    I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

    I am over a woman being gang raped and murdered on a bus in Delhi or gang raped and videoed in Steubenville Ohio. …

    No women, no future, duh.