1 in 5 women in this room will be sexually assaulted before graduating college. This is not just a statistic. This a reality, and it is our reality: a tragedy of absurd and sadly preventable proportions.
“Rape culture” can be defined as a culture in which sexual violence is common, in which prevalent attitudes and practices perpetuate victim-blaming, sexual objectification, and the trivialization of rape.
How does rape culture manifest itself in America, today? Let’s take some examples from recent pop cultural memory.
Elected Congressman, Todd Akin, off-handedly used the term “legitimate rape ” in a public, televised response to a reporter — a casual phrase inherently questioning the legitimacy of a victim’s experience of sexual violence. HBO airs its 9th episode of the supposedly progressive series GIRLS, depicting a shocking non-consensual sex scene between "romantic hero" Adam and his newest fling, Natalia. There is no mention of the event, save Adam’s anger at the potential of losing his partner. HBO issues no statement.
In addition to infiltrating our media, we hear it in everyday casual conversation. Common reactions to sexual violence implicitly blame victims instead of rapists.
How many times have you heard your peers respond, “She shouldn’t have gotten so drunk,” or, “What was she doing out alone?” It is terrifying that these reactions are more common than, for example, “_____ shouldn’t have raped her.”
How does rape culture manifest itself in America, today? Let’s take some examples from recent pop cultural memory.
Elected Congressman, Todd Akin, off-handedly used the term “legitimate rape ” in a public, televised response to a reporter — a casual phrase inherently questioning the legitimacy of a victim’s experience of sexual violence. HBO airs its 9th episode of the supposedly progressive series GIRLS, depicting a shocking non-consensual sex scene between "romantic hero" Adam and his newest fling, Natalia. There is no mention of the event, save Adam’s anger at the potential of losing his partner. HBO issues no statement.
In addition to infiltrating our media, we hear it in everyday casual conversation. Common reactions to sexual violence implicitly blame victims instead of rapists.
How many times have you heard your peers respond, “She shouldn’t have gotten so drunk,” or, “What was she doing out alone?” It is terrifying that these reactions are more common than, for example, “_____ shouldn’t have raped her.”
These pervasive societal attitudes have produced our current glaring example of rape culture: the Steubenville Ohio spectacle. Despite witness accounts, community members initially doubted the 16-year-old gang rape victim until photographic evidence surfaced through social media. And even after the rapists were convicted, Americans across the country defended them. The following are actual responses to the Steubenville trial, gathered from Twitter.
source: Nelson, Lauren. Rant Against the Random.
This is rape culture: a culture in which victims are guilty until proven innocent, crimes are trivialized, and a pervasive violation of the basic human right to safety is largely ignored.
As a means to combat this, feminist activist Eve Ensler launched VDAY fifteen years ago. According to its mission statement, VDAY is “global movement of grassroots activists dedicated to to stop violence against women and girls.” Every year, in February, March, and April, local volunteers and college students around the world produce Eve Ensler’s award-winning Vagina Monologues, donating the proceeds to local anti-violence charities. According to Ensler, the ultimate goal of VDAY is to “create a dialogue and shatter taboos around sexual violence against women and girls.”
It was under this premise that I participated in VDAY 2013 by attending Columbia’s production of The Vagina Monologues. I expected to experience an art piece that reached out to a mixed audience with a positive and unifying message. Instead, I saw examples like this (0:00 – 0:17):
"This monologue is based on an in interview with a woman who had a good experience with a man."
(Laughter)
How does that joke make you feel?
I
can tell you how that joke made me feel, even as a female audience
member strongly invested in the cause: defensive, uncomfortable, even
alienated. An entire room supposedly united by anti-violence was instead laughing at the potential to experience anything beyond abuse in a heterosexual relationship. To say nothing of the male friend I decided to attend the
production with. It made me regret bringing him in the first place to a
production that would mock his efforts to be a good person, let alone a man who wanted help end rape culture.
At the root of its script, The Vagina Monologues fails to communicate its message of anti-violence to the group that supposedly needs to change most — men. As a result, the greater VDAY movement fails to maximize its potential to affect social change by producing a play across the globe that alienates such a significant portion of the population from its cause.
The most visible anti-violence movement on the planet cannot afford to undermine itself. Thus, today, I will be using Martin Luther King as a means to constructively criticize The Vagina Monologues.
At the root of its script, The Vagina Monologues fails to communicate its message of anti-violence to the group that supposedly needs to change most — men. As a result, the greater VDAY movement fails to maximize its potential to affect social change by producing a play across the globe that alienates such a significant portion of the population from its cause.
The most visible anti-violence movement on the planet cannot afford to undermine itself. Thus, today, I will be using Martin Luther King as a means to constructively criticize The Vagina Monologues.
Although their specific motivations differ, Martin Luther King Jr.’s form of activism provides significant insight into what Eve Ensler’s lacks. Both writers intend to inspire social change. Both address an audience that includes people who oppress their cause, either as apathetic bystanders or as perpetrators. The difference is that Martin Luther King succeeds in effective persuasion by consistently demonstrating respect for his audience. This game-changing difference boils down to inclusion versus alienation.
I would like to look at MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as the standard of effective, inclusive communication. In comparison with this standard, I will then show you why men will repeatedly walk away from VDAY alienated rather than inspired, and discuss how Eve Ensler could have strengthened her work. I wish to conclude by reframing the rape culture conversation in a way that will move towards ending this civil rights tragedy rather than perpetuating an “us” versus “them” mentality.
I would like to look at MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as the standard of effective, inclusive communication. In comparison with this standard, I will then show you why men will repeatedly walk away from VDAY alienated rather than inspired, and discuss how Eve Ensler could have strengthened her work. I wish to conclude by reframing the rape culture conversation in a way that will move towards ending this civil rights tragedy rather than perpetuating an “us” versus “them” mentality.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” on August 17th, 1963, after he and other civil rights activists had been jailed for participating in a nonviolent demonstration. His audience had directly harmed his cause: specifically, it is comprised of eight white clergymen who publicly castigated King’s (then imprisoned) movement.
Scribbling on newspaper scraps in a jail cell, after being imprisoned for a right protected by the First Amendment, King had more than enough reason to be infuriated. But his tone is not angry; instead, he is firm, inclusive, and respectful. In this remarkable voice, King effectively persuades his audience using three powerful tools of inclusion: (1) the establishment of a common cause; (2) the recognition of each man as an autonomous individual; and (3) embracement into the civil rights movement to come.
Scribbling on newspaper scraps in a jail cell, after being imprisoned for a right protected by the First Amendment, King had more than enough reason to be infuriated. But his tone is not angry; instead, he is firm, inclusive, and respectful. In this remarkable voice, King effectively persuades his audience using three powerful tools of inclusion: (1) the establishment of a common cause; (2) the recognition of each man as an autonomous individual; and (3) embracement into the civil rights movement to come.
First, King establishes the civil rights movement as a common cause between himself and his readers. He begins by identifying a virtue that all men can recognize: justice. He writes: “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Then, rather than forcing his reader to accept an autonomous black identity, King unites himself and his reader under a common identity by changing his pronoun:
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
King’s usage of “we” and invocation of destiny imply a shared vision of America that stands for freedom.
He then explains how a threat to freedom for one American threatens his own reader’s liberty. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. ”
By linking their shared American identity to a virtue they can all accept — justice, King has invited his audience to feel ownership over the civil rights cause, as something that they both can, and must, work for.
The second important way in which Martin Luther King demonstrates respect for his audience is by recognizing them as autonomous individuals rather than members of an oppressive group. A page after he unites his oppressors under a common cause, King discusses the wrongs of the past. It would be easy for him to take this time to condemn the eight white ministers for harming his quest for civil rights. But he does not; instead, he respectfully grants his audience a choice.
Then, rather than forcing his reader to accept an autonomous black identity, King unites himself and his reader under a common identity by changing his pronoun:
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
King’s usage of “we” and invocation of destiny imply a shared vision of America that stands for freedom.
He then explains how a threat to freedom for one American threatens his own reader’s liberty. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. ”
By linking their shared American identity to a virtue they can all accept — justice, King has invited his audience to feel ownership over the civil rights cause, as something that they both can, and must, work for.
The second important way in which Martin Luther King demonstrates respect for his audience is by recognizing them as autonomous individuals rather than members of an oppressive group. A page after he unites his oppressors under a common cause, King discusses the wrongs of the past. It would be easy for him to take this time to condemn the eight white ministers for harming his quest for civil rights. But he does not; instead, he respectfully grants his audience a choice.
“It is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but… groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.” (55)
According to King, evil comes from groups, not individuals. And he is right to make this distinction; ideologies don’t make decisions; individuals do. By freeing them of their surrounding ideologies, he grants his audience the chance to do the right thing. This demonstrates confidence in their human dignity: these men are good by nature, and if they are shown the right way, they will choose it.
According to King, evil comes from groups, not individuals. And he is right to make this distinction; ideologies don’t make decisions; individuals do. By freeing them of their surrounding ideologies, he grants his audience the chance to do the right thing. This demonstrates confidence in their human dignity: these men are good by nature, and if they are shown the right way, they will choose it.
Which brings me to my third point: Martin Luther King includes his audience in the future of the civil rights cause. King invites them into the movement striving for the rights of all Americans. Take, for example, the following excerpt:
"Was not Jesus an extremist for love: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.' And Abraham Lincoln: 'This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.' And Thomas Jefferson: 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .'"
"Was not Jesus an extremist for love: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.' And Abraham Lincoln: 'This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.' And Thomas Jefferson: 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .'"
Watch MLK transition into a “we” that allows his oppressors to be included in the legacy of Jesus, Jefferson and Lincoln. He continues,
“So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”
After establishing a common cause, and respecting his reader as an autonomous individual, King invites his reader as an equal to join him in the fight for freedom. This is the ultimate demonstration of respect, no easy task when you are addressing someone who wants to see you jailed for a right protected by the first amendment.
Why is it so important that Martin Luther King Jr. consistently expresses respect for, and includes, his oppressors? For one, it demonstrates a penetrating understanding of human nature. Criticism doesn’t work as a tool of persuasion for a reason. People are afraid of their own guilt; it makes them uncomfortable and extremely defensive. You and I have seen this many times before. If you merely point out misdeeds, your audience will be guarded and deflective, less willing to accept blame. Moreover, they will strive to justify their wrong doings rather than looking at their actions objectively. Respect is necessary to open an audience’s eyes to the possibility of change. This is exactly the respect that Eve Ensler fails to extend to her audience in The Vagina Monologues.
The Vagina Monologues is collection of accounts of the female experience written in 1996, based on a series of 200 interviews Ensler conducted with women about their views on sex, relationships, and violence. It is wholly possible to write a play about women which is equally accessible to both genders. However, The Vagina Monologues lacks the three gestures of inclusion that are so crucial to King’s success in “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” Thus, the fundamental flaw of The Vagina Monologues is not in its subject matter or its anti-violent message, but rather, in its execution.
First, The VM does not establish a common cause among its audience. Before the play even begins, the audience is polarized according to gender. It is clear by the time that one receives his or her program that The Vagina Monologues will tell the stories of women, relayed by a cast of women, under a movement spearheaded by a single woman. The title itself evokes the feminine sex organ, an image that could not be more exclusively female. Within the opening lines of the play, it becomes quite clear who the intended audience is as well.
“I bet you’re worried. We were worried… We were worried about our own vaginas. They needed a context of other vaginas — a community, a culture.” (1)
Who is this we? Ensler’s audience does not include people without vaginas of their own to worry about. From the first few lines, The Vagina Monologues excludes anyone who does not share the female experience. Although Ensler, like King, has the option of uniting her audience under a common cause, she does not. In fact, she has made it clear that her cause is not common to all. Sexual violence becomes something that only women can understand, alienating male audience members from even feeling qualified to empathize.
Which leads me to the second major way in which the Vagina Monologues fails to honor its mission: it does not give male audience members respect as autonomous individuals. First, there are no male actors. Any monologue mentioning a man is told by a female actor. As a result, the male characters are faceless, often nameless entities that merely blend into a greater characterization of masculinity. There is the nameless man who shaves his wife’s privates against her will. “When my husband was pressing against me, I could feel his spiky sharpness sticking into me, my naked puffy vagina.” (4) The man who humiliates a shy woman for feeling sexually aroused. The man who rapes a ten-year-old child, the father who fails to protect this child. The only man who is depicted in a positive light — "Bob" — earns that distinction solely because “he liked to look at it [a vagina.]” (18)
This overwhelmingly negative depiction of men creates a hierarchy between the genders: one class of transgressors and one class of victims. Although Eve Ensler apparently did, let us not forget - rape victims are not limited to one gender, and perpetrators exist on both sides of the gender divide. In spite of this obvious counterpoint, the piece’s construction purposefully causes men to feel implicated by their sex organs, rather than granting them the opportunity to distinguish themselves as autonomous individuals. In a play in which characters are so often reduced to their genitals, it is no small fact that Ensler reminds us that the clitoris has “twice — twice — twice” as many nerve endings as the penis. (17) Male contributions are less valuable, even unnecessary. Bear in mind that attendance of The Vagina Monologues is voluntary. It is all the worse to treat men who have chosen to show support for the VDAY mission as members of an inevitably offensive gender.
Considering the landscape of the play, it’s hard to imagine how a male audience member could conceive of his role in the ongoing movement to end rape culture. Which brings me to the third way that The Vagina Monologues fails to meet the MLK standard: Ensler offers no clear, constructive role for men in VDAY. Men are excluded from full ownership of the cause and stripped of their autonomy. So how can invested males appropriately show their support? All that they know is that they cannot be women, cannot fully understand the plight of women, and that they cannot behave like the disgusting men depicted in the play. They are reduced to potential perpetrators and muzzled into passivity instead of galvanized into social activism. One has to wonder how VDAY intends to include men, if at all. It is as if Eve Ensler envisions male participants shamed into silence, apologizing for their own genders, whose own stories needn’t be told or understood. And her utter lack of compassion for her male audience has a bitter toll: automatic alienation of 50% of the population, which is an enormous missed opportunity for social change.
These qualms are not new, or unique: The Vagina Monologues has
amassed a large body of scathing literary criticism on both sides of the political spectrum since its 1996 debut. It has been criticized for excluding men, transgenders, even heterosexual women. So why
is this alienating and ineffective play still being performed around the country, as the theatrical
centerpiece of the most visible anti-violence movement to date?
I understand that, to a woman, VDAY provides an unparalleled opportunity to fight back against rape culture. Many of the volunteers who participate in VDAY are emotionally invested because they care about, or are themselves, victims of sexual violence, often at the hands of individual men. They know they are right, and they are angry. But it is is not enough to be right, and it is not enough to be angry. With a biting irony, these women have made the mistake of grouping men together instead of viewing them as agents of change; as a result, the VDAY movement fails to capitalize on an enormous opportunity to advance its cause and end rape culture once and for all.
The future of this movement depends on a vision in which men are seen not as mere allies, but activists themselves.
The future of this movement depends on a vision in which men are seen not as mere allies, but activists themselves.
For rape is not a “women’s rights” issue. Rape culture is an infection that implicates everyone, male and female. The anti-violence presence in America does itself a foul injustice by equating anti-violence to female empowerment. This ideological conflation puts responsibility on women alone to "stand up for themselves" and end rape culture, when the responsibility truly belongs to us all. Rape is not a “women’s rights” issue, but it is a solvable one, if we follow Martin Luther King’s (victorious) example of respect and inclusion.
I hope that this discussion will invite you to reconsider our current Steubenville conversation and the many conversations to come in your lifetime in which you will have the opportunity to protect future victims of rape. All of us, men and women, owe it to the 1 in 4 in this room who will suffer the penalty of our infected culture to fix our own behaviors and correct those surrounding us. But, as Martin Luther King suggested, we need to decide what kind of extremists we will be. This time, our question is not will we be extremists of love or hate. It is, rather: will we be the extremists who can identify the problem, or the extremists who will solve it? Thank you.
