Vagina Monologues Essay

• Length:  1200-1500 words (4-5 pages).  (There is no penalty for going over this length, but a much shorter essay may result in a failing grade.)

• 1000-word draft due February 19.  Please deposit your draft in the SOCS drop box.

• Final essay due March 1.  (Note that the due dates originally given on the Calendar have changed.)

• Before you start:  review these evaluation criteria.  Look especially at the technical requirements.

• Other possibly  useful stuff:  whammo conclusions    guidelines for using "I"     voice     academic integrity

The purpose of this assignment is to practice applying theoretical concepts by reflecting on The Vagina Monologues through the lens of feminist theory.  I'll suggest several possible approaches below; the main requirement is that you focus closely on one of the monologues, using concepts you draw from one of the assigned readings (but not the reading you wrote about for the first essay).  You may also use your Adopt-A-Book as a source (and earn up to 3 extra credit points) if you find effective ways of incorporating its concepts or its examples to enrich your analysis.  You may also include material from the Vday website if you find it useful.

Approach

The Vagina Monologues is many things:  a literary work, a local TCNJ performance, a product of feminist social research, a consciousness raising event, a fundraiser for organizations that benefit women, an international feminist movement based in the United States.  Which of these aspects of the Monologues you emphasize in your essay is your choice.

In Section I of The Feminist Theory Reader, the editors have called our attention to four defining themes that inform feminist theories and feminist movements: 

• gender
• women's experiences
• the personal is political
• difference

Your analysis, supported by the theoretical text you choose, should focus on one of these themes.  You can use one of the following questions as your starting point (or devise your own question):

1. How does The Vagina Monologues represent gender?  Is there an essence that connects all women, according to the VM?  Or are the Monologues anti-essentialist?  What do they show us about how gender is constructed?  What relationship do they represent between gender and having a vagina (or not)?
2. How do The Vagina Monologues treat women's lived experiences?  That is:  if Eve Ensler has helped to break a longstanding silence about vaginas, what new knowledge comes forward from this breaking of silences?  What are the implications of this knowledge?  If this knowledge became completely legitimate and central to what we all understand as truth, what would that change, and how would it change things? 
3. What is political about the individual stories collected in The Vagina Monologues?  In what ways do the Monologues point to the larger systemic frameworks that are at work in women's stories about their vaginas?
4. How effectively does The Vagina Monologues represent differences among women as their identities intersect with race, sexuality, class, religion, nation?  In what ways do the Monologues show us differences within a woman's identity--disruptions, contradictions, fragmentations, or change in a woman's sense of who she is?

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