I watched ‘The Vagina Monologues’ on stage in one of Mumbai’s theatres around five years ago while studying at the TISS Mumbai campus. At the time, I saw that individuals who wished to join me to attend the performance had trouble pronouncing the term ‘vagina’. During that period, I was also assigned to undertake fieldwork at Stree Mukti Sanghatana in Mumbai, where I worked on issues such as violence against women, their freedom, and sexuality. As a result, I became more concerned and conscious of the problem. However, I anticipate that people (even some fellow female friends) are not comfortable uttering ‘vagina’ because it’s a taboo subject as speaking about women’s vaginas and sexuality in public is not normalized in society, whereas violating women’s dignity and sexuality is easily normalized in our so-called progressive society. This is how our world operates underneath a double standard that is both patriarchal and sexist towards women.

Surprisingly, recently a more confident me found the original text, ‘The Vagina Monologues’ by Eve Ensler (published by Virago Press in 2018), at one of Edinburgh’s feminist bookshops, and my first thought is that wherever I go, the subject follows me, implying that the woman within me always find a cause that resonates with her and wants to stand up to violence against women or simply wants to liberate herself and other women like her as liberation is vital for women. Likewise, in the context of India, freedom from Brahmanism and Brahmanical patriarchy is significant for women. I, therefore, decided to get a hard copy, look into it, and discover every single idea behind the play that was given a standing ovation in Mumbai’s theatre performance.

Before delving deeply into the text, let me first briefly introduce the internationally bestselling author V, formerly known as Eve Ensler who is the award-winning American playwright, performer and founder of V-Day, One Billion Rising, and co-founder of the City of Joy. Ensler has spent decades working to end anti-female violence across the world. Because she has a history of abuse; having been assaulted by her father, Arthur Ensler when she was five. It seems obvious to me that Eve’s early experience with physical and sexual assault inspired her to fight violence against women globally and served as the inspiration for “The Vagina Monologues” which was motivated by interviews she conducted with a diverse group of over two hundred women, from the suburbs of Queens, New York, to the distant villages of Africa about women and their vaginas. Since its 1996 New York premiere, it has been performed all around the world. The goal of the monologues has been to use humour to lighten the situation and help people face uncomfortable facts that have been buried in society, behind feelings of guilt, fear, and shame. Nevertheless, I discovered the play as a striking inquiry into violence against women, women empowerment, and female sexuality.

An incisive work on women’s empowerment, “The Vagina Monologue” honours women’s sexuality in all its complexity, mystery, and power. The text is witty, irreverent, empathetic, and wise. It gives voice to the deepest desires, fears, and angry pleasures of real women while advocating for a future generation of women in which all women are secure, equal, free, and fully alive in both their bodies and minds, internally and externally. It consists of many monologues read by female self-identifiers in which they explore what it means to be a woman and what having a vagina means. This book addressed diverse subjects such as self-identity, sex, love, relationships, birth, and womanhood, while some of the monologues are horrifying topics including rape, violence and discrimination against women and girls and female genital mutilation. However, by giving voice to these experiences, “The Vagina Monologues” shines a light on the pervasive and systemic nature of violence against women, and calls for an end to it. Thus, it’s an incredibly moving, thought-provoking, piece of work that portrays the women in the monologues both at their best and worst. For many, the topic of the vagina is a taboo subject but for the Vagina Monologues, it is the one subject that matters as Ensler opines ‘vagina matters.’

Through this book, we learn how to appreciate the core of our bodies—the woman—that we cover up with a shame-faced mumble. It’s a celebration of women, a celebration of the vagina, but more than that, it serves as a sobering reminder of woman place in society, whether they live in the seemingly free developed country like United States of America or in yet to developed countries like Haiti, the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, India, and some parts of Europe, where women are murdered, discriminated, killed, and silenced forever because of the fear that is ingrained in them from birth as the second sex.

The book highlights how women refer to their vagina by a variety of names, one is never simply called ‘vagina’ since the term is “an invisible word—a word that stirs up anxiety, awkwardness, contempt, and disgust” (p. xl). Therefore, this book is crucial for all, especially for women because it makes us confront our uneasiness with a term that ought to be part of our everyday language but isn’t. Why does that one organ cause such shame? Even when it’s a part of women’s biological/universal creation. Ensler points out, “vagina is not a pornographic word; it’s a medical word, a term for a body part, like ‘elbow’, ‘hand’, or ‘rib’” (p. xxii). Saying the simple word “vagina” out loud gives women authority over themselves and their bodies. Why do we women, mute our body’s natural processes when we are unable to even give them a suitable name? We are effectively stifling our identities and voices, and by doing so, we support and encourage those who want to stifle our influence. Thus, Ensler writes, “They tried to stop us from even saying the names of some of the most precious parts of our bodies…If something isn’t named, it is not seen, and it doesn’t exist….We—every sort and type of woman, every single one of us, and our vaginas—will never be silenced again” (p. xvi).

Moreover, within the book, I found numerous monologues which are relevant and significant still today. I discovered one of the most memorable monologues was ‘The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could,’ in which a woman describes her rape and how she overcame the pain to achieve empowerment. This speech is both painful and uplifting, demonstrating the persistence of the human spirit. Another monologue that I found inspiring was ‘I Was There in the Room,’ in which a woman describes her childbirth experience. This monologue is both amusing and sweet, and it provides insight into the remarkable attachment that can develop between a mother and an infant.

Moreover, in one of the spotlight monologues based on interviews with Indigenous women on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Ensler writes (p. 121),

“I didn’t want to have sex with him. He was drunk…I tried to pretend I was asleep. He elbowed me, jerked me, and pulled me up…My husband beat the shit out of me….I tried to get my son….‘That’s not your son,’ he said”.

The preceding expressions demonstrate how patriarchy functions around women’s lives and it depicts a woman’s vulnerable position in an abusive relationship, domestic violence, a lack of power and agency, and multiple forms of oppression that women suffer in their everyday lives. However, it later discusses how women survive, overcome violence, and find a path towards freedom and empowerment.

Therefore, The Vagina Monologues, is a masterpiece on gender justice, women’s empowerment and their sexual liberation, and a guide to end violence against women. It will heal generations of women and stand up for their freedom of expression and right to live violence-free lives. Ensler hoped that by telling these powerful stories of women’s suffering, this phenomenal text would forever cherish, honour, love and protect women. It is an inspiration for all women who believe in liberty, equality, and freedom, as well as a gender-just society for everyone.

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Shivani Waldekar is an independent researcher who writes on caste, gender, livelihoods, feminism, love, and intersectionality. She received her Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai, and her Masters by Research (MScR) from the University of Edinburgh, UK.