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We’ve Reached Peak Feminism
Mount Holyoke College is an all-women’s school in Massachusetts; a combination of factors that guarantees it puts on an annual performance of The Vagina Monologues. Guaranteed until this year, that is. Have feminists finally realized that the play is virulently anti-male, and that femininity can be celebrated without trashing masculinity? Of course not you hopeless optimist. It seems the problem with the play is that it isn’t inclusive of transgendered students.
“At its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman…Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive,” the email, obtained by Campus Reform, said.
Some ideas are so absurd that one must possess a college education to believe them. Mount Holyoke College believes that gender – an inherently biological distinction – cannot be determined via biology.
As always, my libertarian instincts lead me down the path of not caring what you call yourself, and what you do with your life, provided you don’t violate the rights of others. They do not however leave me inclined to participating in mass denials of reality. And yet, on the opposing side of this dispute sits a play that represents all that is wrong with modern feminism. How does one pick a winner to root for in this conflict?
If you have never seen the Vagina Monologues, know that I envy you. You can re-create the experience by sitting around with some friends and saying the word vagina (and less polite synonyms) several hundred times out loud as everyone giggles like first graders who’ve just heard a dirty word on television. Viewing it leaves you with an evening wasted, and short several IQ points which have been shaved off of your brain as if by a piece of low grade sandpaper.
As much as I would love to dedicate a thousand words to picking apart Eve Ensler’s magnus opus, Christina Hoff Sommers has already written the definitive critique. Sommers is particularly bothered by the cavalcade of “brutes, sadists, child-molesters, genital mutilators, gang rapists and vile little boys” that represent the male gender in the monologues. There is a lone exception: Bob.
Bob. Rarest of heroes, redeemer of his gender. So I guess Ensler’s message is this: It’s only MOST men who are brutal, cruel, insensitive, aggressive and stupid–but, every so often, if you’re really really lucky, you may come across a boring, humorless, unattractive man who likes to stare at vaginas for hours on end.
I will only add a recommendation to Ms. Ensler that in future versions, when searching for a metaphor for a woman’s lady parts, avoid the Grand Canyon.
With all that I have written above in mind, you can be confident that when I woke up this morning, there was no moment where I thought “I should defend the Vagina Monologues today.” A swift kick to the groin, and contracting tuberculosis, were both significantly higher priorities. It is an irredeemable and vacuous production, but I am a pragmatist, and we must at all times choose the lesser of two stupids.
Students of Mount Holyoke College had mixed feelings about the decision to pull out.
“I love how people who have never been able to discuss or embrace their vaj-wahs aren’t going to find an avenue here, either, since female-validating talk about vaginas is now forbidden. That’s so misogynistic under the guise of ‘progress,’” one student wrote.
“But we can’t present a show that is blatantly transphobic and treats race and homosexuality questionably, when one of the conditions of getting the rights to the show is that you can’t critique it or alter it,” another student said.
To be clear, the supposed transphobia of the play rest entirely on the fact that it fails to include women who don’t have “vaj wahs”. A more tautological observation you will never see. All celebrations are exclusionary, as their very nature is to elevate something of a distinct quality for praise.
Even in the absence of any transgendered women, The Vagina Monologues is exclusionary to men. Both mother’s day and father’s day fail to offer praise to those who have never raised a child. Veteran’s day celebrates the efforts and courage of veterans, to the exclusion of non-veterans. These are not interesting facts.
Eve Enlser thinks that lady parts are awesome. On this, we have an accord. She has chosen to celebrate their greatness with a terrible, terrible play. Have the critical thinking skills of the modern university student truly deteriorated to a point where they can believe it hateful to single out a trait, accomplishment, or talent for praise?
Not quite. To understand how a college student can so fervently believe that failing to praise the transgendered is hateful, while actively bashing men is perfectly acceptable behavior, one must always bear in mind the hierarchy of victimhood. Rather than treating all people as equals and judging others by their actions, the left prefers to treat people differently based on traits such as race, gender, and religion.
Jon Gabriel’s oppression index is as succinct a guide you will find.
The more underrepresented an identity group is, the more important it is to handle them with kid gloves. And for the moment, the transgendered are society’s victim du jour. When seen through this warped lens, it becomes clear how so many people could find the male bashing of the Vagina Monologues acceptable, while its failure to celebrate trans-women so abhorrent. The two are judged on different scales.
Women without vagina’s (which is coincidently my band’s name) are free to revel in their lack lady parts. Or better yet, they can praise achievement, rather than trying to draw their self-worth from the conditions of their birth. Mount Holyoke College should cancel their annual production of the Vagina Monologues because it is awful, not because it dares to celebrate a quality that only some people have.
Published in General
This post is dedicated to the return of DocJay.
I preferred your original title.
I’m pretty sure it can.
Huh. This post really should have been entitled, “We’ve Reached Peak Vagina.”
Has Ricochet suddenly gone PC?
/Heh.
Peak? That’s what that kid thought in Lord of the Flies right up until they did him. Long way to go yet, man.
Hmm, Simon or Piggy?
Don’t disclose insider knowledge!
I cannot believe there are people who can make a statement like that, and yet still have the brain power to dress themselves in the morning. And yet, they must be able to.
Frankly, I’m glad they got rid of the play. I was offended that there was no corresponding “The Penis Monologues” play to make me feel included, much less the male students at Mount Holyoke College. Oh wait . . .
Yer a troublemaker, WC.
I like that.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Have you seen how some of them dress?
I wouldn’t be too hard on the V-monologues. Whatever the derangement of the people putting it on and performing in it…the majority of the people watching it are 18 year olds who see it for the giggles.
I laughed out loud, several times. Frank Soto, you are a wicked, wicked man!
This comment caught my eye as the daughter of a friend made the following observation about her hockey career in the NCAA:
I received a sports scholarship at C****** but the politicos at the university bowed to one transgender complaint that the team was unfairly labeled a ‘womens’ team.
This young lady was incensed and wrote an editorial in the school newspaper:
“I grew up in Canada with three brothers who played in the NCAA; two made it into the NHL. I admired them but was damned proud to get a scholarship as a female in a male-dominated sport. I want to play for a team that simply refers to itself as the “Lady Big Red.”
I somehow believe Pat Summitt would agree.
Not to be critical Frank, but what were you thinking when you went to see that play where a lady part talks? And talks and talks.
He still owes us the “Director’s Cut” version, just hope it hasn’t disappeared down into the Grand Canyon.
Don’t pretend you’ve never lost a bet.
With the exception of the original title, I found every dirty joke was just as funny when cleaned up a bit. Not always the case, but nothing major was excluded.
Peak Feminism, perhaps. Peak Crazy? They’re just getting started.
Frank,
I really am tired of reactionary conservatives like you who have no feeling for the inertially handicapped. For too long the acceleration due to the earth’s gravitational field has remained at 32 feet per second per second. Surely we can do better than that.
The President should immediately, by Executive Order, set the acceleration due to gravity at 24 feet per second per second at the very most. Only then can the inertially handicapped be given the justice they so richly deserve.
I hope you realize just how insensitive you are.
Regards,
Jim
or maybe they’re naked. you know…looking. gazing… :)
Did something editorially unfortunate happen while I was asleep? Because I just woke up and saw this. If that was the original title, it was more apt and made more sense.
I must stop sleeping. Five hours away and I come back to unsound literary judgements.
Mind you, from a strictly literary point of view, the best title for this is not one not suitable for Ricochet, and involves a derogatory epithet in British English. But that would never occur to me, of course.
You don’t play poker, do you Skip? ;-)
Just trying to help out my friend Frank with his freedom of expression.
Frank,
I am disgusted with your obvious prejudice. You see a pig and for some reason immediately you denigrate the pig by insisting it can not fly. Who are you to tell the pigs what they can or can not do. The President’s new proposal, Grant money for the Audubon Society to study the migratory habits of pigs, should be funded immediately if not sooner!
Truly Mr. Soto you have no shame. Can you not understand that pigs have been yearning for flight equality for years. You FASCIST!!!
Someday Frank you will understand.
Regards,
Jim
It was, but we don’t want Peter to faint while browsing his own site. It’s probably for the best.
“We’ve reached peak vaj wah”?
(Please tell me Peter doesn’t know what a “vaj wah” is – I didn’t.)
Not to nitpick…but I will. Assuming you are referring ro Cornell by referencing “lady big red”. Cornell offers no athletic scholarships.
Sure it does, but the Ivies choose to call it an academic scholarship with an enormous financial aid package. My friend’s daughter would never have made it into Cornell with her GPA and SAT/ACT scores; that’s not to say they weren’t impressive and far above average, but they were not perfect which is pretty much the prerequisite for entrance today.
This isn’t news. Everybody knows it and speaks openly about it: Financial Aid Changes Game as Ivy Sports Teams Flourish
Mine would have been even better, but even I would have fainted to see that on Ricochet. Country matters, as Shakespeare would say.
Jeepers! We wouldn’t want that!
Context clues.