The Vagina Monologues

Tonight was the first performance of the Vagina Monologues at St. Olaf this year. I went to see them for the first time last year, and loved it.

Again, this time, I loved it! It was uplifting and moving and fantastic. I have never known how to answer the question: What would your vagina wear? This year, maybe because of the weather, I think I finally know what my vagina would wear. A snuggie. While drinking a mug of chai latte during a thunderstorm. Of course, it could also wear sweatpants if it wanted.

In any case, this year the Vagina Monologues is bringing attention to the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where thousands of women and girls are victims of sexual violence and rape, a very effective and dehumanizing weapon to use against an ethnic group. It's been used in hundreds of wars and conflicts, but most people today don't realize it still exists in the world. The Congolese monologue was incredibly moving, and listed rules that a 17 year old Congolese girl made after being held as a sex slave for 2 years, being raped three times a day, and giving birth to her captors child, and finally escaping.

The Vagina Monologues make me proud to have a vagina and to be a feminist. While my transgenderism makes me reluctant to identify myself as having a vagina and being a feminist, those are two things I cannot part with. Having a vagina and being a feminist does not make one a woman, it seems.