Vagina Monologues’ may come to campus after eight years

As many may have heard, the Women's and Gender Studies Department will be putting on a production of "The Vagina Monologues" March 19. This is a great opportunity for Gonzaga to engage in great discussions about why this play is so controversial and important.

The monologues, written by Eve Ensler, are based on interviews she did with women of all backgrounds about their experiences with their vaginas. This strikes many as vulgar and unnecessary, but in reality the monologues present numerous issues that affect every women through the powerful tool of narrative.

Auditions were held this week and the cast has just been set.  Already the uproar and controversy has started. Don't get me wrong; I am a HUGE fan of controversy and discussion. However, there has been a rash of defaming and erasing of announcements for the auditions. This is not constructive, and it is disrespectful. 

I have heard a wide range of reasoning for these actions, from the constructive discussion of Gonzaga's mission and the precedent of the Monologues being produced on Catholic campuses (it has already been performed on over 40 Catholic college campuses, many of them now performing it annually) to simple discomfort with the word "vagina."

Newsflash: 50 percent of the population has a vagina. The discomfort with the word "vagina" is in itself a worrisome signal of a greater repression of women, but that is an issue for another opinion piece. This production will start an important dialogue that this campus could really use.

To prevent the performance of the Monologues would be a dark mark on Gonzaga's reputation as a higher education institution. It would not only be preventing a popular fundraiser for sexual assault awareness (all performances of the Monologues must be a fundraiser for the global V-Day Campaign), but it would be a dramatic act of stifling free speech. The monologues are personal narratives and a great way to address many issues that Gonzaga has already been criticized for ignoring.

Eight years ago, a production of "The Vagina Monologues" was prevented from being performed on campus. This has left Gonzaga in a small and not so desirable group of schools to have actively refused the production. Already there are 1,100 collegues in the U.S. that have performed the Monologues, and to actively separate us from those that celebrate discussion and free speech is not a distinction that many Zags would be ready to stand by.

Not only would it make Gonzaga look bad, but also it would speak to a larger unspoken issue of sexism on campus. Not the sexism that only giant penises get drawn in the snow every time it snows, but that there is not enough (if any at all) mainstream discussion of women as women on campus. The vagina plays a large role in many issues that women on Gonzaga's campus face on a daily basis.

We have been made aware this year more than previous years of the prevalent threat of sexual assault, and this is just one of the issues powerfully addressed through the Monologues. We are paying good money to receive our Jesuit college education. I want my development of the whole person, and you should too. If you do not want to challenge yourself and your faith so as to grow as a person, then perhaps a Jesuit institution of higher education was not the right choice.

So let us take our discussion to print, speech and heart. But let us leave the passive aggressive anonymous gestures to the children.

Michaela Graham is a senior at Gonzaga.