Vagina Monologues celebrates women, raises funds
Lexi Achterhof, left, Jasmine Stefansky, middle, and Felicia McCrary, right, work on a skit called the Vagina Workshop at the Vagina Monologue put on by SAPA April 25 in Anspach Hall.
If your vagina could talk, what would it say?
This was a question the performers of the Vagina Monologues addressed in a night of celebrating women, and shedding light on heavier topics like rape and sexual assault.
“It is important to have this at Central Michigan University to shed light and awareness that rape, sexual assault and discrimination against vaginas and females still happens,” said Plymouth senior Kerry MacDonald, who performed in some of the monologues and helped direct and produce the show.
Vagina Monologues was created by Eve Ensler in 1996. Ensler interviewed hundreds of women from all walks of life about their vaginas, which was turned into the series of monologues performed around the country. All funds raised this year were donated to Sexual Aggression Peer Advocates, CMU's 24-hour crisis hotline for victims of sexual violence. Throughout all three shows, the monologues raised about $900 for SAPA.
In recent years, Students Advocating Gender Equality have hosted the event. When SAGE didn’t host the event this year, a group of women, with some SAGE members, took the initiative to perform the Vagina Monologues themselves.
“It was basically a coalition of females and we were like ‘Hey, we want to talk about our vaginas,’” MacDonald said.
Some of the monologues were based on one woman’s story while others were based on multiple stories with the same theme. Subjects of the monologues ranged from periods and pubic hair to reclaiming the word ‘cunt.’ Performances were filled with no-filter moments and telling stories about real women and their vaginas.
While most of the monologues drew laughs from the audience, some completely changed the mood. This was the cast's opportunity to yell "happy fact." During this moment, a cast member came out from the crowd to deliver a more uplifting fact about vaginas.
“There are some light hearted pieces but then there are some heavy-hitting things that need to be touched on as well, even though it is a harder topic to discuss, it is absolutely necessary and critical to do so,” MacDonald said.
Frasier freshman Mackenzie Eddy, who attended the show on Saturday, said she liked the range of topics the monologues covered.
"I liked that it went through topics no one really talks about," she said.
