Students on campus are talking, and the subject may surprise you.
Last week, women took to the stage at UNB’s Marshall D’Avry Hall to present their version of The Vagina Monologues.
“People have the impression that girls, women, go on stage and talk about their own vaginas, sort of like made to write your own script, which is untrue. The purpose of the vagina monologues is to give women, everyday women, an outlet to talk about taboo subjects you couldn’t really talk about every day,” said vice chair of The University Women’s Centre Stephanie Zapata.
The Vagina Monologues is a collection of interviews with two hundred women written by Eve Ensler in 1996. The women interviewed were asked questions such as, “If you could dress your vagina, what would it wear?”
Roughly 40 people, mostly women, attended the ‘The Vagina Monologues’ on Thursday. It was performed mostly by students and graduates.
Zapata got involved with the project when she moved from Toronto, and a friend brought her to the women’s centre to meet people and make friends. Now she is involved in the monologues in a different way each year.
“I feel like it’s supposed to be a women-only production so every single part that makes the vagina monologues happen, doesn’t matter if they’re directing, doesn’t matter if they’re doing lights or setting up every person involved is a woman which I think is great because it gets them out there.”
Zapata encourages men to support the monologues by donating their time or money.
“It’s so important to have allies, it’s so important to get males involved in it, or we can’t change society’s outlook without having men involved. Men’s participation is encouraged but I feel like when you put the word vagina on it, it’s a little bit more difficult to get the everyday male to step forward,” she said.
Matthew Nightingale, an undergraduate student at UNB, did not attend the performances.
“I doubt I could relate to the content very well,” Nightingale said. “A lot of novels these days have female leads that tend to get more into that side of thinking, in the sense of some things being ‘absolutely forbidden to write about,’ but it’s not something that would naturally appeal to me. I’m certainly not afraid of sex, nor learning about it, but candid experiences tend to be unappealing.”
Zapata said these events are a great way to express yourself.
“It’s supposed to be fun, or moving, and it gives a kind of artistic plain, so though every woman can connect with these ideas that are in the vagina monologues, it’s not like, oh, this is my story so people don’t think I’m weird for saying it. They’re all scripted, every year there’s more spotlight monologues,” she said.
Proceeds from the event went to the Fredericton Youth in Transition House.
