Concordiensis

Issue date: 2/22/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Ian Clemente The performance by the cast of The Vagina Monologues (above) helped to raise money, and awareness about violence against women.

The Saturday matinee performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues in Old Chapel marked the conclusion to this year's V-Day campaign to raise awareness about, and end violence against, women around the world. V-Day is celebrated annually on Valentine's Day through performances of both The Vagina Monologues and other educational movements. In total, the fundraising and event itself raised over $2,500, 90 percent of which will benefit the Battered Women's Shelter of Schenectady. The remaining 10 percent of the profits will be outsourced to V-Day's Spotlight Campaign of 2007, which this year draws attention to Women in Conflict Zones.

Each year, the Spotlight Campaign focuses on educating audiences about a different area of the reality of worldwide violence against women and girls. The end of the play highlighted the often overlooked and unglamorous, but critical, roles of women in war zones, and why they are in need of help. In conflict zones, women inevitably fall victim to a grossly higher number of violent crimes. As the play's program elaborates, "armed conflict means escalated military, sexual and domestic violence, lack of security…vulnerability to sex traffickers and coerced prostitution even by the peacekeepers themselves." Assaults on women seem endlessly diverse in form, and yet, as the rubble settles, women are left with the work of rebuilding communities and lives. And so, The Vagina Monologues encourages one to ask, "Where has peace gone?" As domestic, international, and interethnic peace are inextricably linked, the cast of the Monologues urges its audience to "stand up for an end to violence."

Students, professors, staff, and parents gathered in support of V-Day on Saturday afternoon. The play brings to the forefront the pervasiveness of the issues of female sexuality and violence. As cast member Ariel Sincoff-Yedid, '09, stated, "What it does is give breath to the female experience…[the play] shows such a different side of being female, a more personal side."

The Vagina Monologues has grown tremendously since its initial performances; as Ensler produced and reproduced it for audiences across the world, hundreds of women told her their stories. The play spoke to these women in some profound way that allowed them to transcend their reservations. In all the varying accounts of glory, humiliation and terror, Ensler found that it was remarkably liberating for women to talk about how the mere fact of their having vaginas had shaped their lives.

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