An Inclusive Litany

3/24/01

Joan Anderman, reviewing The Vagina Monologues for the Boston Globe, March 24, 2001:
[T]here's nothing in Eve Ensler's one-woman show that would even remotely offend men. Surprise them, perhaps. Amuse them, for sure. Teach them something huge and unforgettable—well, it's hard to imagine anyone, male or female, who didn't walk out of the theater feeling a little smarter and a lot bolder.

Take, for instance, Ensler's paean to a certain crude slang for female genitalia. Equal parts avant-garde art and stand-up comedy, the performance inspired a cross-gender, cross-generational chant to reclaim the word. It won't soon be forgotten.

"The woman on the other side of me was, like, my grandmother's age, and she was screaming," enthused 30-year-old Peter Parisi of Milton. "I loved that part!"

As it turns out, the experience was a positive one, almost across the board, for the testosterone set, and often in ways they never imagined.

"I expected to be a voyeur," said 39-year-old Derek Younger of Boston, who attended by himself. "I expected to be a fly on the wall that maybe shouldn't be there. But I got inside, and it turned out to one of the most fun, fascinating, multifaceted things I've seen in a long time. It helps you understand women, but it makes you think more about you, too. It's a really important lesson, that you have to understand your body." ...

Only a couple of brave souls confessed to feeling embarrassed.

Jonathan Williams, 29, of Somerville, had no idea what he was about to see before he and his girlfriend walked in. "It was embarrassing, but in a good way," he said. "You know, the kind of embarrassment you know you ought to get over eventually. The stuff about the clitoris was really interesting."

Mark Disler of Melrose, who's 32, found the language a bit shocking, but enlightening. "I learned, I don't know... different ways of... explaining... the organ, I guess. The different... yeah. I understand women a little bit better now." ...

Awareness comes in many forms, as Ensler would surely agree, and sometimes when you least expect it. Parisi—who attended with six female friends—found the show fascinating but says he learned the most from the reaction of the women around him.

"I realized that this is something we really don't talk about a lot. And that I guess it was important for this to happen," he said.

Little did Parisi know that he had another lesson coming—one he recounted with the gleaming countenance of one who has just solved a great mystery. "At one point, I got up to go to the bathroom and was told that the men's room had been turned into a women's room," he said. "I had to wait in a long line for a single stall. And I thought 'Oh, god! This is what being a woman is like!' "

Letter to the editor, April 8:

When I opened the Globe on March 24, I was at first thrilled to see an article about Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." But within minutes I was raging....

Why did the Globe feel it must report that this theater event is not male-bashing? Why must we, especially women, always have to make sure that men are comfortable—usually at the expense of our own experience and needs?

Why are women so hungry for what the performance inspires—a celebration of sisterhood? Why is women's empowerment so threatening to men that the Globe can print an article about the male experience?

Is it because the publisher and editor and owners are all men? ...

In a world where the penis is the destroyer/weapon and the vagina the creator/lifeforce, was this performance the first or only opportunity for those "men who dared" to imagine a life honoring women and embracing the concepts of feminism?

—Kirsten A. Martin Cambridge

Here's an unrelated letter from the same day:
In the absence of any meaningful statement from my own government, I would like to sincerely and personally apologize to the people of China for my country's latest aggression and ineptitude.

In addition, under the Nuremberg principles, which make a citizen responsible for the acts of his or her nation, I would like to apologize on behalf of the 24 crew members of the American EP-3 spy plane responsible for killing the pilot of your aircraft; on behalf of President Bush, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretaries of Defense and State, and every other architect of US military arrogance; and finally, on behalf of each and every American citizen who is unable or unwilling to take responsibility for American mischief in the world.

—Wesley Blixt South Deerfield