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SCENE
| february 17, 2004| Send features
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Not
Your Mother’s Feminist
As today’s feminists struggle
with stigmas associated with the term, one alumna sheds some light
on the issue with The Vagina Monologues
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| The Shorthorn: |
| Performers from The Vagina Monologues
spread their legs as part of a scene where a
woman describes how men physically abuse women. |
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By Caren
M. Penland
The Shorthorn Staff
Alumna Vanessa Mercado manages a hotel.
The job pays her bills, but she’s still working toward her
dream of becoming a director.
At work, she has noticed that being a woman in charge makes a big
difference as far as perception goes — she’s often not
treated as a respectable authority figure.
“I’ve noticed that businessmen will look at me as if
I don’t really matter,” she said. “They’ll
ask for another manager, and I know they’re thinking ‘Can
I talk to a man?’ ”
She said such instances are nothing new, nothing unusual. Women
like herself have come to accept that they will be treated as inferior
despite progress that women’s movements have made in recent
decades. It’s subtle, she said, but still prevalent no matter
what people think.
Mercado considers herself a feminist — not a bra-burning,
man-hating activist, but someone who believes that women still have
a long path to travel and many stands to take before they become
equal with men.
And she’s taking her stand.
The former student is co-producing and directing the university’s
first showing of The Vagina Monologues, a play about women’s
self-discovery of sexuality and violence against women, written
by Eve Ensler in 1997. The play will run next Monday and Tuesday
in the Rosebud Theatre. Ninety percent of proceeds will benefit
The Women’s Shelter of Arlington and 10 percent will go toward
V-Day’s Spotlight on Missing and Murdered Women in Juarez,
Mexico.
The play is based on interviews with over 200 women about their
sexual experiences and memories and aims to give voice to women’s
fantasies and fears. It also explores issues of violence, sexual
self-discovery and vulnerability.
When Ensler performed her piece in cities and small towns around
the world, hundreds of women approached her with their own stories
of rape, incest, domestic battery and genital mutilation. She and
other women founded V-Day, a non-profit organization in New York
seeking to end violence against women around the world, according
to the group’s Web site. The group proclaimed Valentine’s
Day as V-Day until all women no longer fear violence or the threat
thereof, then V-Day will be known as Victory Over Violence Day.
Mercado said she and some university students chose to produce the
play because they want to help the organization achieve its goals
and bring to light still-existing gender inequality issues.
But while the choice to produce was easy, the group has faced many
challenges in coming up with the money to put on the show. She said
many businesses wouldn’t give money because of the play’s
title and subject matter.
“People associate the word vagina with something dirty and
vulgar, but that’s the point of the play — to get away
from that association,” she said. “Most businesses had
never heard of it, didn’t know what it’s about. The
word vagina turned them off. But a vagina is not something dirty
and vulgar, it’s something beautiful and natural. I can’t
understand what their problem is.”
She said even the businesses that chose to give them money have
firmly stated that they don’t want their businesses’
names on any of the production’s materials. Even businesswomen
were reluctant, she said.
Mercado believes it’s more than just the word vagina; that
such problems stem from negative stereotyping of feminism and women’s
literature in general. Men and women alike refuse to classify themselves
as feminists and frequently discount such literature because of
stereotypes spawned from ’60s women’s movements, she
said.
Sociology professor Susan Hekman said feminism in its simplest terms
is the belief that women have been historically discriminated against
and subordinated to men and that such practices should be eradicated
socially, politically and economically. Given that definition, she
said, most people would realize they are actually feminists.
Dr. Hekman, who studies feminism theory, said that definition has
not changed since the 1960s, but the focus of feminists has shifted
in what they tackle. The movement in the ’60s fought to change
laws that targeted and discriminated against women and to bring
light to issues through demonstrations and protests, both of which
were successful, she said.
“A lot of young women who consider themselves feminists feel
that a lot of the basic work has been done,” she said. “Their
job now is to lead the life of a feminist refusing to tolerate any
discrimination in any arena. They focus on issues of diversity in
class, sexuality and race amongst women.”
English professor Laurin Porter said her students try to do just
that but don’t realize that makes them feminists.
Dr. Porter said she recently asked her class to pull out a piece
of paper and a pencil and draw a picture of a feminist.
She said most students drew angry women with masculine qualities.
When she asked if anyone drew a man, no one raised their hand.
She said her students are not aware of the history of the women’s
movement and have no concept of how far women have come in recent
decades and must still travel to be on an equal playing field with
men.
“Many of my students think feminism is a dead issue, that
women can vote and pursue a career so the issue is fought and won,”
she said. “They don’t understand what all the shouting
is for. But there are still issues of political, social and economical
discrepancies between men and women, and that’s a problem.”
Issues, such as the myth that women must confirm to a patriarchal
concept of beauty, must still be overcome, she said. Also, there
is the perception that an assertive women who speaks up in meetings
and provides information is dominating and aggressive, she said.
“Those are just a couple of examples, but they are important
ones,” she said, “because they demonstrate that both
men and women buy into socially constructed ideas that are not beneficial
to either gender.”
A feminist can be a woman who wears makeup and feminine clothes
and loves her boyfriend. A feminist does not have to be a woman
on a war-path to yield power over men. She can stay at home and
be a housewife, if that’s her choice. A feminist can also
be a man who simply believes that women have a right to the same
things he has, Porter said.
The modern feminist, however, does not fit the mold many have created
for him or her, she said.
Alex Silva is a feminist, though he didn’t want to admit to
it at first.
But after hearing the definition, he quickly agreed that he is,
indeed, a feminist.
The theatre production sophomore is the stage manager for The Vagina
Monologue. He said he had never thought about modern-day discrimination
against women until he started working on the play.
And it was weird, at first, to be the only male member of the crew,
he said.
“But the monologues have been enlightening,” he said.
“I can’t really understand what these women have gone
through because I’m a man, of course. But it has definitely
given me a different perspective, and I think a lot of guys would
be surprised if they saw it.”
He said it has made him take a closer look at the world around him
— that he never saw discrimination against women before, but
it obviously still happens.
Porter said that the monologues’ existence proves that issues
of violence against women are still prominent in today’s society.
The play, she said, is an example of modern feminists exploring
issues of self-awareness as sexual beings, of discovering that not
every woman’s story is the same.
“The modern feminist listens to other women to hear their
story,” she said. “Mothers should teach their daughters
and their sons to be feminists so understanding can be reached and
violence can end. There are horrifying statistics out there of rape
and domestic abuse.”
Mercado said if the production does nothing more than make people
aware of women’s issues, then it did its job.
“The modern feminist’s job is to do something risky
like The Vagina Monologues to get people to think,” she said.
“UTA is kind of a conservative campus. There are other schools
in the area that have been putting this on for years. And if you
say ‘vagina’ on those campuses there’s not so
much shock as there is if you do it here. That’s our goal
— to take away the shock.”
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