The spectrum of acceptable thought on college campuses is narrowing to the point of invisibility. Case in point: “The Vagina Monologues,” once thought of as a cutting-edge expression of feminism, now needs a politically correct makeover. The play has been deemed insensitive by students for the unthinkable crime of believing in science, also known as “equat[ing] being a woman with having a vagina.”
Students have organized annual productions of the play since the late 1990’s, rallying enthusiastically around its feminist message. The Eve Ensler classic even sparked its own charity campaign, the V-Day movement, which coordinates productions of the “Monologues” to raise money for local groups combating violence against women. All this is to say the play has been a staple of modern feminism since the days of Lilith Fair.
But nothing is safe from the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness. At Carleton College in Minnesota, students for three years have replaced “The Vagina Monologues” with “Stripped,” a play written by 2016 graduate Kat George to address concerns varying from “Ensler’s embodied trans exclusive writings to the production’s exploitation of brown, black, and non-western bodies.”
“[‘The Vagina Monologues’] is filtered through a white, upper-class, cisgender lens that leads to problematic portrayals of women of color, and women outside of the U.S.,” according to a description of “Stripped” on Carleton’s website. “Additionally, its emphasis on genitalia problematically equates being a woman with having a vagina, and vice versa. The conflation of gender with anatomy invalidates the lives of transgender people.”
As an “all-gender monologue series that covers subject matter ranging from social justice to menstruation,” Carleton’s “Stripped” seeks to resolve those problems, which have been raised on other campuses in recent years as well.
In an interview with Campus Reform published Monday, George said, “as a low-income, first gen, non-binary, queer, neuro-divergent, afro-latinx person from New York City it feels super rewarding to recreate ‘Stripped’ each year because I am finding out that I am not alone … and that there are people out there who are struggling in similar ways.” (Though how many people actually fall under the less-than-broad category of “low-income, first gen, non-binary, queer, neuro-divergent, afro-latinx” New Yorkers remains unclear.)
The ubiquity of “Vagina Monologues” productions has long been seen as something of a touchstone for radical liberalism on college campuses. The play’s evolution from feminist favorite to problematic and insensitive relic is telling. In academia, yesterday’s radicals are today’s microaggressors.
