The "V-Word"
Ah yes. It's that time again. When Andi and Alex (this time with Matt and friends in tow) run off to The Vagina Monologues, and I come back to spew my little feminist manifestos.
Here's the thing. The show was great. I'll always love it because it will always be relevant. Case in point: Grover Cleveland High School, last Thursday. The student run newspaper, Le Sabre, ran a front page article that featured an anatomically correct diagram of a vagina that had been take from a biology textbook, with the headline reading "Happy Vagina Day!" The issue's focus was Eve Ensler's play and continuing violence against women.
Three guesses as to what happened. Anyone?
Righto. The paper was confiscated from every classroom. It was deemed inappropriate, it might cause a disturbance that would take away from the learning process. Principal Bob Marks said that he found it "tasteless." Quite a few parents called and complained; only one asked why the paper was being taken away. Some teachers hid the paper and then showed it to their classes after the administrators had left. One female teacher, however, (and this is an exact quote from The Daily Sundial) stated that the word 'vagina' is on par with "The N-Word" and is "obscene in any context."
I'm going to write that out, one more time, just for the sake of emphasis.
THIS WOMAN SAID THAT THE WORD VAGINA IS "OBSCENE IN ANY CONTEXT."
Students responded by coming to school the next day wearing homemade shirts that said "My Vagina is Obscene". They were sent home after refusing to turn the shirts inside out.
That same day, the school held an assembly so the students could have an open forum to discuss what had happened. There was a fifteen second silence after a teacher asked if the diagram or the story had offended anyone. Finally, one girl got up and said that while it was not offensive to her, she could see someone else having a problem with it. Another girl stated that she had learned more about her vagina from the picture than from her health class.
......Really, there's nothing I can add to this. Any kind of commentary would take away from the sheer outrageousness of this situation. So, in closing.....fuck these people, fuck the parents who got offended, and fuck this kind of censorship. The vagina is not something dirty and ugly that should be stuffed under the mattress when neighbors come over. The vagina is not something that has to be whispered. And my vagina is not obscene.