Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Mount Holyoke College Cancels Annual Performance of "The Vagina Monologues" Over Concerns That Only Those With a Vagina Can Perform

Since "fairness" is the order of the day on "progressive" campuses, some hyper-PC students have decided that it's soooo unfair that having a vagina is a pre-requisite for reciting a monologue:
Since the 1990s, students from Mount Holyoke College, an all-women's school in Massachusetts, have staged an annual production of The Vagina Monologues. Not this year. The college is retiring the ritual over concerns that the play—penned by Eve Ensler in 1996 as a way to "celebrate the vagina" and women's sexuality—is not inclusive enough.  
In a school-wide email from Mount Holyoke's student-theater board, relayed by Campus Reform, student Erin Murphy explained that "at its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman ... Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive." 
"Inherently reductionist" it is in that it reduces a chick to her lady part--and a yappy, whiny one at that. But "exclusive"? Well, I did once suggest rather cheekily that Ensler's play should appear on a double bill with Puppetry of the Penis, but I'm pretty sure that's not the sort of "diversity" and "inclusiveness" Ms. Murphy is seeking.

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