The Good Body - Eve Ensler

The Good Body
by Eve Ensler


P r e f a c e
In the midst of a war in Iraq, in a time of escalating global terrorism, when civil liberties are disappearing as fast as the ozone layer, when one out of three women in the world will be beaten or raped in her lifetime, why write a play about my stomach?

Maybe because my stomach is one thing I feel I have control over, or maybe because I have hoped that my stomach is something I could get control over. Maybe because I see how my stomach has come to occupy my attention, I see how other women's stomachs or butts or thighs or hair or skin have come to occupy their attention, so that we have very little left for the war in Iraq-or much else, for that matter. When a group of ethnically diverse, economically disadvantaged women in the United States was recently asked about the one thing they would change in their lives if they could, the majority of these women said they would lose weight. Maybe I identify with these women because I have bought into the idea that if my stomach were flat, then I would be good, and I would be safe. I would be protected. I would be accepted, admired, important, loved. Maybe because for most of my life I have felt wrong, dirty, guilty, and bad, and my stomach is the carrier, the pouch for all that self-hatred. Maybe because my stomach has become the repository for my sorrow, my childhood scars, my unfulfilled ambition, my unexpressed rage. Like a toxic dump, it is where the explosive trajectories collide-the Judeo- Christian imperative to be good; the patriarchal mandate that women be quiet, be less; the consumer-state imperative to be better, which is based on the assumption that you are born wrong and bad, and that being better always involves spending money, lots of money. Maybe because, as the world rapidly divides into fundamentalist camps, reductive sound bites, and polarizing platitudes, an exploration of my stomach and the life therein has the potential to shatter these dangerous constraints.

This journey has been different from the one I undertook in The Vagina Monologues. I was worried about vaginas when I began that play. I was worried about the shame associated with vaginas and I was worried about what was happening to vaginas, in the dark. As I talked about vaginas and to vaginas, I became even more worried about the onslaught of violence done to women and their vaginas around the world.

There was, of course, the great celebration of vaginas as well. Pleasure, discovery, sex, moans, power. I suppose I had this fantasy that after finally coming home into my vagina, I could relax, get on with life. This was not the case. The deadly self-hatred simply moved into another part of my body.

The Good Body began with me and my particular obsession with my “imperfect” stomach. I have charted this self-hatred, recorded it, tried to follow it back to its source. Here, unlike the women in The Vagina Monologues, I am my own victim, my own perpetrator. Of course, the tools of my selfvictimization have been made readily available. The pattern of the perfect body has been programmed into me since birth. But whatever the cultural influences and pressures, my preoccupation with my flab, my constant dieting, exercising, worrying, is selfimposed. I pick up the magazines. I buy into the ideal. I believe that blond, flat girls have the secret. What is far more frightening than narcissism is the zeal for self-mutilation that is spreading, infecting the world.

I have been to more than forty countries in the last six years. I have seen the rampant and insidious poisoning: skin-lightening creams sell as fast as tooth paste in Africa and Asia; the mothers of eight-year-olds in America remove their daughters' ribs so they will not have to worry about dieting; five-year-olds in Manhattan do strict asanas so they won't embarrass their parents in public by being chubby; girls vomit and starve themselves in China and Fiji and everywhere; Korean women remove Asia from their eyelids … the list goes on and on.

I have been in a dialogue with my stomach for the past three years. I have entered my belly-the dark wet underworld-to get at the secrets there. I have talked with women in surgical centers in Beverly Hills; on the sensual beaches of Rio de Janeiro; in the gyms of Mumbai, New York, Moscow; in the hectic and crowded beauty salons of Istanbul, South Africa, and Rome. Except for a rare few, the women I met loathed at least one part of their body. There was almost always one part that they longed to change, that they had a medicine cabinet full of products devoted to transforming or hiding or reducing or straightening or lightening. Just about every woman believed that if she could just get that part right, everything else would work out. Of course, it is an endless heartbreaking campaign.

Some of the monologues in The Good Body are based on well-known women like Helen Gurley Brown and Isabella Rossellini. Those monologues, which grew out of a series of conversations with each of these fascinating women, are not recorded interviews, but interpretations of the lives they offered me. Some of the other characters are based on real lives, real stories. Many are invented.

This play is my prayer, my attempt to analyze the mechanisms of our imprisonment, to break free so that we may spend more time running the world than running away from it; so that we may be consumed by the sorrow of the world rather than consuming to avoid that sorrow and suffering. This play is an expression of my hope, my desire, that we will all refuse to be Barbie, that we will say no to the loss of the particular, whether it be to a voluptuous woman in a silk sari, or a woman with defining lines of character in her face, or a distinguishing nose, or olivetoned skin, or wild curly hair.

I am stepping off the capitalist treadmill. I am going to take a deep breath and find a way to survive not being flat or perfect. I am inviting you to join me, to stop trying to be anything, anyone other than who you are. I was moved by women in Africa who lived close to the earth and didn't understand what it meant to not love their body. I was lifted by older women in India who celebrated their roundness. I was inspired by Marion Woodman, a great Jungian analyst, who gave me confidence to trust what I know. She has said that “instead of transcending ourselves, we must move into ourselves.” Tell the image makers and magazine sellers and the plastic surgeons that you are not afraid. That what you fear the most is the death of imagination and originality and metaphor and passion. Then be bold and LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP FIXING IT. It was never broken.

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

This was posted in part in response to a PM I wrote to Arthur this morning about how crappy I felt. Parts of it are excerpted here:

“Add to that the fact that I feel just incredibly ugly and old today and feel guilty about caring about that sort of thing when Ken is so sick and other important things are happening.

“Ok, so I'm going to try to think positively and

“oh, it's not really working, lol.

“It's so pervasive, this message: you are not pretty or sexy enough, and men only want this perfect body. In fact, no matter how ugly or old the man, he will only ever want that perfect body. So all the rest of you are FUCKED. Give it up, you old piece of shit. If you're lucky, we may deign to fuck you, but we'll be thinking about that porn we were looking at last night.”

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Arthur and Liz – Great stuff. I don't have time to respond that much at the moment, but of course the body-image problem has been with me since adolescence and I have never known a woman who was free of it! (Well, perhaps with the exception of this one nearly-80 year old nun I know, whose very presence is like sunlight …)

This is a question I grapple with sometimes: If I can see the beauty in so many other “imperfect” women out there, why can't I see it in myself? I recall a sad new year's eve I spent drinking with a close girlfriend of mine. We were both in our twenties, and she was overweight, with a birthmark scar on her face, but also a truly beautiful young woman, inside and out – arresting eyes, wicked sense of humor, amazing flair with clothing and jewelry, radiantly generous spirit, and downright cute–really striking in her own unique way, at least from my point of view. We got drunk that night and she fell into some serious sobbing blues, admitting to me that she hated herself because she was “ugly!” My telling her that she was wrong didn't help much. I told her what I thought was beautiful about her, and all she could think was: “She's just saying these things to make me feel better.” She could not believe that I (or any of the boyfriends she'd had) really believed she was beautiful.

If we can see the beauty in the wide variety of shapes and sizes and ages our female friends come in, why is it so hard to see it in ourselves? (This is mostly a rhetorical question …)

More later –

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

I'd love to see more discussion on this important topic which affects so many women I know and love.  How can an integral approach inform and illuminate this issue?  And, what the hell ever happened to the promised Eve Ensler dialog on Integral Naked?  Her “appearance on Integral Naked” has been “soon to be announced” for quite a while now, and I've been really looking forward to it.

This is an issue I've thought about a lot at various times; it seems like all the women I've loved and been close to have had this kind of issue, and it feels frustrating and sad to say to someone, “You are so beautiful” and see that they aren't really taking that input to heart, that it's bouncing right off their shield of culturally induced self-loathing, feelings of inadequacy, or what have you.

I think of a friend of mine, a very beautiful woman who could not see herself as beautiful; when she was growing up her mother used to say to her things like, “You're so ugly!  You'd better do well in school, because it's obvious that you'll never get by on your looks.”  Even without that kind of brutal negativity, there's no shortage of media images showing what women should look like, and in various ways giving the message “you're inadequate.”  Even women who more-or-less fit the “ideal” often are very self-critical. 

What do others think of all this?

arthur


Stuart Davis
Surfaces

Tracing lines of blue
where skin lets light through
Over miles of muscle
through the woven puzzle
Onto ribs that rise and fall
there's an ear against the wall

Chorus:
Surfaces
play with light
catch the eye
lines and curves
everyone is perfect
Surfaces
a world adorned
beauty comes in infinite forms
Perfect surfaces

Out the hollow of your heel
up the ladder in your spine
to the cliffs around your eyes
I dive into the brine

Chorus

Shadow on a human figure
makes a bone look bigger

Chorus

Shadow on a human figure
makes a bone look bigger

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Thanks for the push, my agentically endowed Arthur!

We've been talking about this issue for awhile. It's a huge thing, and I haven't been able to frame it in my mind well enough to start a dialog or give it direction yet. I don't suppose it's necessary, really. It'll go where it wants to go.

Great picture, by the way. What is it called and who is the artist?

FYI, it wasn't my mother who said those things, in case anyone's wondering. I got more of a man-hating rejection of femininity in general than a rejection of me in particular. Still, I grew up not being able to fully express my femininity or like it very much. We've all got variations on a theme.

There are so many ideas here it's hard to start. I think of my daughter and how stunningly beautful she is (yes I have outside confirmation of this) and even she is infected with this not-good-enough disease. I have tried very hard to innoculate her as best I can. I talk about how media images are way too thin(she's naturally slender), how it doesn't matter what someone looks like, etc. She'll make a comment like “So-and-so is fat” or has a lazy eye, or whatever, and I always ask her, “Does that make a difference in how you treat that person?” and she always replies, a bit indignantly, “Of course not!” But I know that repitition is the way to get something into a child's head, and I repeat myself endlessly where this cultural beauty standard comes in. It's the only way to counteract it. She knows that I won't tolerate bullying or rudeness or judging someone on their perceived looks or how much money or toys they have.

I've also had at least two private conversations with zaadsters on this topic, a man and a woman. They both indicated that they would like to participate in a discussion about this. It's an issue that's running under the surface of everything here at zaadz.

This cultural imperative for women to fit a certain ideal actually interferes with women's development of their psychosexual line. There is such a narrow definition of what is acceptable that we're blasted from all sides if we step out of line. You have to be perfect, but neither too prim nor too threateningly sexy. Guys have to want you, but women shouldn't be envious of you. Even your pubic hair is a political statement.

One of the issues that brought this to my mind is the “photos” section of people's profiles. One after another of the women';s profiles contain evidence of our need to be recognized sexually. So many women here post pictures of themselves nude or in provocative poses. I found myself triggered by that, so I have been delving deeply into it and what my feelings are, my motivations, and what if anything I should do about that.

On the one hand, it's so great that women can express themselves and shine as beautiful manifestations of the divine. Some of these pictures are really transcendant. On the other, most of them are followed by creepy comments, including, no shit, “hubba hubba.”
All of these people are obviously intelligent thoughtful human beings, as I've read their profiles, male and female.

So:

Is it the men who need to grow up and stop with the leering? Or do the women want this attention? Yeah, they sure do. All of us want sexual attention. But how would it play out in a true second-tier fashion, without the creepiness? Or is that simply my own anti-sex programming and projection? Ae we playing out a MySpace style pre-conventional sexuality, or this trans-conventional, David Deida-esque and healthy?

Add to that the prohibiton against a woman aging and retaining her sexuality in this culture, and you've got a real mess on your hands. There are a lot of experienced, intelligent, sexy middle-aged women on this forum, and we're all dealing with a society that is against us in myriad ways. How does one respond consciously to such things?

Okay, well, I've asked too many questions in one post as usual. I told you I was having difficulty with this idea. It looms so damn large. I would like it if everyone felt free to express an opinion on this, because I'm truly looking for input and not simply reinforcement. I just don't know what to think about this.

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Funny you should pose these questions. I've been thinking about them. It seems to me that the world is inherently imbalanced and nothing is ever going to change that. That said, it's tragic that older women find it necessary to doll themselves up and younger women can never look beautiful enough. The crones are no more awake to the goddess within than young things. What shall we say about men? Jerks.

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

“Funny you should pose these questions. I've been thinking about them. It seems to me that the world is inherently imbalanced and nothing is ever going to change that. That said, it's tragic that older women find it necessary to doll themselves up and younger women can never look beautiful enough. The crones are no more awake to the goddess within than young things. What shall we say about men? Jerks.”

You've really captured the spirit of fatalistic despair in this post :) but it appears to me that things do keep changing and evolving - and in many ways we're better off than we were before, even in these areas.  Our dissatisfaction with the way things are spurs us on to make things better; hence, for example, Liz's attempts to give better messages to her daughter.

arthur

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Not fatalistic despair. Insane ecstacy. Check it out.

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“Great picture, by the way. What is it called and who is the artist?”

BALDUNG GRIEN, Hans

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Liz,

You raise some good issues.   I'd like to continue the discussion on some points.

Is it the men who need to grow up and stop with the leering?

Zaadz is a social networking site for spiritually minded individuals.  It is not an Integral networking site.  There will be those who are operating at different levels of development as well as less developed lines of development.  So I expect there will be those who write things that I do not agree with.   However, I think it would be dangerous to try to hold everyone to the expectation that they would always behave at 2nd tier.   That's not what most members signed up for. 

But how would it play out in a true second-tier fashion, without the creepiness?

I don't think we can exclude the creepiness.  It's in the mix.  Those of us who attempt to employ the AQAL model must include all the levels that are present.  
 
However…..

That doesn't mean we can't hold others accountable at all.  We can attempt to cultivate awareness in others and educate them on more positive and respectful manners of expression.   I made a comment on one of those women's picture challenging the men to find better ways of communication that weren't so creepy feeling and provided a link to David Deida's site  for some alternatives. 

I felt I needed to say something there because they were being disrespectful and respect and dignity cut across levels.  This isn't My Space, and I felt people should step up here at Zaadz and not make comments which don't respect and support the other members.  Because if they were truly individuals who were interested in love, service, spirit, and empowerment of others, they wouldn't be making comments like that.  That's something the other members can enforce because it's in line with the Zaadz mission statement.



As for the provocative photos, desire for attention, and leering… People will play that game until they get tired of playing that game.  Using Deida's 3 stages (psycho-sexual line of development), macho men will attempt to dominate submissive women, balanced men and women will create safe relationships, or the masculine divine will lovingly ravish the feminine divine.   Who we resonate to play with depends on what level we are at .  It's up to us to decide whether we want to play other  people's games or our own. 

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Thank you! for the original post and the dialog.

I too struggle with so many aspects of what I call a lack of awareness of our power as divine beings.  Are we so conditioned by the planet's consciousness that we cannot see our power?  Everyday my teenage daughter struggles between her desire to see her true beauty and the weight of the cultural acceptance of beauty.  Most days I can model (ha) a healthy self image but I too have the days when my stomach is the ugly monster and my mind is the fire it breathes. 

What can we do?  Is it enough to honor ourselves and our friends?  Do we honor the Victoria Secret models?  The more I hate them and the message the more the message will fight against me.  I say rejoice in their airbrushed, photoshopped bodies!  See them as the goddess yet see beyond it.  Ha who the fuck am I kidding, I despise Paris Hilton too.   How can I transcend and include shallow, stupid and narcissistic? 

Being one of those “middle aged' women here I would like to not compete, I don't even know if compete is the right word, maybe its be a part of…. the include if not yet the transcend with all of the young yoginis but alas gravity has not been kind to me and I sag and dimple.  How can I stand with them, with Me and see their beauty and not compare?  To whom do I compare and where is that stupid measuring stick so I can snap that sucker in half!

My heart is moving toward seeing the power of the young in their capacity to hold their sexuality/femininity with a much strong sense.  If that means they are more willing to flaunt their tushies then that's what it means.  And as for men… maybe this is the way we gain more power back, if men cannot see past the power play of cleavage maybe the deserve to lose the power they have abused.

ok, I guess I am done for now….. thanks for letting me rant!

Gina

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Thanks so much for posting, Gina. I am running off to a weekend retreat with Arthur, and will come back and write some more on this. Didn't want your post to go unacknowledged.

See everyone Monday!

Liz

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how was your retreat, liz and arthur? I'm so intrigued!

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“how was your retreat, liz and arthur? I'm so intrigued!”

See the post(s) in the Daily Yak.  :)

r.thor@so_damn_tired.zzz

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sounds like you all had a lot of fun : ) :)

that's great!

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Getting back to the topic of  The Good Body, I bought Liz a copy but she hasn't read it yet.  I read it on the way here - it' s a very quick read - and found it quite fascinating, and very sad - all the ways women struggle with body images, and how that plays out for different people.  There was some really cool, inspiring stuff in there as well.  I especially loved the chapter with the African woman Leah.

Eve
   Leah, do you like your body?

Leah
   Do I like my body?  Do I like my body?  I love my body.  God made this body.  God gave me this body.  My fingers, look at my fingers.  I love my fingernails, little crescent moons.  They lead right up to my arms - so strong - they carry things along.  And my legs, my legs are long.  Masai people, we are tall, I get there fast, my legs can wrap around a man and hold him there.  My breasts…My breasts, well look at them, they're mine, my breasts so long and -

Eve
   (Interrupting) Leah, wait, I dont' know how to do this.  I don't know how to be in my body, I can't get past my stomach.

Leah
   What's wrong with it?

Eve
   It's round.  It used to be flat.

Leah
   It's your stomach.  It's meant to be obvious.  It's meant to be seen.

   Eve, look at that tree?  Do you see that tree?

   Now look at that tree.  (Points to another tree)  Do you like that tree?  Do you hate that tree 'cause it doesn't look like that tree?

   Do you say that tree isn't pretty 'cause it doesn't look like that tree?  You're a tree.  I'm a tree.  You've got to love your body Eve.  You've got to love your tree.  Love your tree.

~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

My rant continues:

Why does it have to be a battle?  Why can't it be a dance?  Am I the willow dancing with the breeze or the oak standing firm ( or not so firm as the case may be).

My battle at the moment is with perception.  Do I succum to the pressure of the yoga booty ballet?  Or do I sit quietly and honor my tree?  Who's views are influencing my actions?  Do I eat well for me and not well when I feel too much or not enough?  Do I care for my self with the attention and quality I deserve?  What if the answer is YES I DO….. and yet I still do not hold the same value as the perception of external influence.  Is my need for approval, acceptance, community, greater than my commitment to myself?  I think what I mean by that is where is my influcence coming from?  The external influence of a woman's projections and perceptions are so clouded and distorted…… or is this just me?

This shit is deep inside my cultural and sociological being.  I may live beyond some of this in my day to day expression but there is rarely a day go by I don't go on auto pilot with some random thought form about myself that has Nothing to do with who I really am and everything to do with being a Barbie girl in a Barbie world.

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Wow, Gina, well said. No, you're not alone at all. This seems almost universal to me, this conditioning that's so deep, it's almost impossible to to bring it into the light of day and look at it. Our perspectives are so deeply ingrained, there seems to be no witnessing it at all.

It's nearly impossible for me to even write about it, there's so little I can really grasp.

Liz

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

slightly off-topic, or maybe not. -adastra

CROSS RIVER, N.Y. – A Westchester, N.Y., public high school has suspended three 16-year-old girls for saying the word “vagina” during a reading from “The Vagina Monologues.” John Jay High School Principal Richard Leprine said the girls were punished because they disobeyed orders not to say the word “vagina”.

No, don't worry, I don't intend to become some kind of expert re the treatment of reproductive organs in American literature or in American schools. I have actually been contemplating an article about the beauties of being an ex-super power for a while. But a couple of weeks ago “scrotum”, now “vagina”. What's next?

When a friend sent me this piece last night, I winced - as probably all of you do. Makes you wonder. Particularly on International Women's Day!!

We learn that for Mr Leprine, uttering the word “vagina” in public has to be avoided at all costs and punished - although I'd be curious to learn what exactly the play “The Vagina Monologues” was called instead at the John Jay High School in Westchester if “vagina” was not to be mentioned. “Elastic Muscular Tube Monologues”?

Mr Leprine's own explanation for his move can be found on John Jay High School's homepage.

His letter on the homepage is full of my pet phrases - whenever any scandal relating to any part of the body which might be used during sexual intercourse occurs in America, everybody's favorites are expressions like “the sensitivities of the community”, “young children may be in attendance”, “younger siblings, often elementary age, attend these types of events”, “not to present specified material” - I guess he means vagina - “because of the composition of the audience”. Here we go again. Protecting the innocence of America's children.

Being inquisitive by nature, I've been trying to probe deeper into the true reasons for this extraordinary action and figure out why Mr Leprine and his “sensitive community” - see above - seem to harbor an aversion to the word “vagina”, sorry, “specified material”, as he calls it in his letter.

These are my hypotheses so far:

1. Mr Leprine himself has no “specified material”, as far as we know, so this is pure vagina envy. As a consequence, he can't bear to be reminded of the fact.
2. Mr Leprine and members of his sensitive community once attended a therapeutic session where under hypnosis they relived their own birth experience. This was very painful and traumatic; Baby Leprine and baby members of his sensitive community were probably stuck in the vaginal part of the birth canal for a while. For the rest, see 1).
3. Mr Leprine's birth and the births of members of his sensitive community were the result of a Caesarean. Vaginal delivery envy was the result. Again, see 1).
4. Mr Leprine and members of his sensitive community are unhappy with their lives, and since their mothers' “specified material” played an important role in their creation on at least one, but probably on two occasions, they all hold the female vagina personally responsible for their plight.
5. Mr Leprine and members of his sensitive community think that any mention of “vagina” would make innocent children curious about what a vagina is, where it is located and what you can do with it. They might even try to find it and investigate its possible usages. In that case, Westchester must be one of these rare islands which have to TV, no internet, no movie theaters, no libraries and no newspapers. Amazing that they ever heard about Eve Ensler's play.
6. John Jay High School students and even their younger siblings have heard about vaginas after all but are unaware of the side-effects of exploring it. Mentioning the word in a play might thus trigger rampant sex, Mr Leprine and members of his sensitive community fear. One wonders about the quality of Biology teaching at this august institution.
7. Mr Leprine and members of his sensitive community consider female reproductive organs to be “dirty”. Any reproductive organs are “dirty”, come to think of it. And mentioning them is “dirty”. Young children might be arrested in their mental development if they heard the word and they would surely suffer severe traumas which might accompany them for the rest of their lives. As adults, they might sue Mr Leprine for millions of dollars because the word “vagina” destroyed their chances to live happy and balanced lives.

If you have any further suggestions, I'd be curious to her about them.

Generally, I will never be able to understand why anybody of any age must not hear words like “vagina”. Why kindergarten children learn all other parts of a human body but not about the existence of the female vagina. After all, that was part of their journey into the world! What is supposed to happen if they heard it??

To avoid further embarrassments and scandals, all like-minded “sensitive communities” in America would be well-advised to propagate in-vitro-fertilization plus Caesarean deliveries. At least for the time being. Until science can create humans without the any interference of all kinds of “specified material”. Check visions of reproduction without unsuitable and dirty body contact in Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World” - absolutely suitable to hear about for all ages.

I hope Eve Ensler is having a ball.

Brigitte Schöen is an Austrian conference interpreter and occasional writer. She lives in Vienna, Austria. email:b.schoen@chello.at">b.schoen@chello.at

Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

96 days of inactivity…OK, I'm getting a warm washcloth and making Eve Ensler's Good Body (or at least this thread) un-sticky.  Looks like the conversation has died down a little anyway, although I think it's an important topic - so feel free to keep it going if you're so inclined.

I'll leave y'all with a link to the Eve Ensler Wikipedia page.

spiral out,
arthur

p.s. I'm still waiting for the “coming soon” Eve Ensler dialog on Integral Naked.  Sheesh.

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Still waiting for that Eve Ensler dialog on IN…meanwhile…

from http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/18/7130/

Perhaps you’ve heard the recent controversy over Jane Fonda using the “c- word” on the “Today” show. But the real story is the one behind the scenes. Knowing I would be interviewing both Jane Fonda and playwright Eve Ensler at an event later that evening, I was watching the “Today” show in real time when Meredith Vieira was interviewing Ensler and Fonda on Valentine’s Day about the 10 year anniversary of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Ensler’s award-winning play “The Vagina Monologues”. When talking about all the “A-list celebrities” that have been attracted to helping V-Day, Vierra posed a somewhat quizzical question to Fonda: “You at first were not a big fan of the play. So what turned you around?” Jane was a little taken back, and went on to correct her with the factual story. “Well, it wasn’t that I wasn’t a big fan - I hadn’t seen the play - I live in Georgia, OK?” she explained. “I was asked to do a monologue called “C–t”. And I said, I don’t think so, I have enough problems.” She went on to talk about finally going to New York and seeing the play, which she credited with changing her life, and the impact of her many years traveling all around the world with Eve on behalf of V-Day, performing the play and meeting with and helping violence survivors.

The interview had actually seemed to proceed without any further ado, until about 10 minutes later after the segment, when they suddenly cut from a local news segment back to Vieira, who said somewhat sheepishly, “We were talking about ‘The Vagina Monologues’ and Jane Fonda inadvertently said a word from the play that you don’t say on television. It was a slip and obviously she apologizes, and so do we. We would do nothing to offend the audience. So please accept that apology.” However, that certainly didn’t settle it - the clip and story spread like wildfire over the Internet, in the news and entertainment headlines, on the blogs, on shows like “Access Hollywood”, “Extra” and “The O’Reilly Factor”, even becoming the focus of David Letterman’s Top Ten List about her using the “c-word” (”Jane Fonda Excuses”). At a star-studded event to celebrate V-Day’s ten year anniversary a few hours later, Fonda responded to the entertainment show “Extra” about the incident (which they called her “live ‘c-word’ fiasco”): “I didn’t mean to offend anybody - I just didn’t even think about it. What’s the big deal?” On “Access Hollywood”, asked again about the incident, she had to keep apologizing. “I’m sorry it’s been a controversy.” She also had fellow V-Day supporters coming to her defense. Said Brooke Shields, “Again - bleep me out. I just don’t think c–t is a controversial word. I find it frightening and sad that there was an outrage - gasp - that Jane Fonda said it….it is just a word.” Added Glenn Close, “I can say ‘vagina’ now - out loud! Let’s test TV - I can also say “c–t”,’ she laughed, knowing it would later be bleeped when the segment aired, which it was.

It was in fact Glenn Close who brought down the house when she personally performed that specific monologue, “Reclaiming C–t” at the star-studded benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues at Madison Square Garden in 2001. It was a short piece in which Close repeatedly said the word again and again, getting louder and louder. “I call it c–t. I’ve reclaimed it. I really like it. C–t. Just listen to it: c–t!” Close dropped to her knees, raising her arm and shouting in triumph. That monologue is just one of many, varied and empowering monologues, serious and joyful, humorous and sad, based on Eve’s interviews with 200 women about their vaginas (at the same Madison Square Garden event, Jane Fonda performed “I Was There in the Room”, a moving monologue Ensler wrote to describe the experience of witnessing the birth of her grandchild.)

It feels strangely ironic and weirdly coincidental that the 10 year anniversary of V-Day would be marked with an outcry over a word used for ‘vagina’ (which unfortunately just so happened to be one of 7 words that the FCC has listed as offensive). When Eve first started performing the play Off Broadway in 1996, the word “vagina” was rarely used except in a medical context and very much taboo, so its use in the title and play itself was scandalous. Today, much thanks to The Vagina Monologues, the word “vagina” is now used quite commonly and openly, in headlines, on talk shows, on entertainment programs, even inspiring other cute nicknames like “va-jay-jay.” Yet while the play freed women to use the word and talk openly about their bodies, it also sparked something else, even more far-reaching. When women would come up to Ensler after the play night after night and reveal their own personal stories of surviving varied forms of violence, Ensler decided she had to do something about it, launching V-Day, staging thousands of benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues around the world, including a run on Broadway, featuring numerous guest celebrities. V-Day has since raised over 50 million dollars for local anti-violence groups in over 120 countries.

It may have been the “c-word” that got all the attention, but on that same “Today” show, Ensler debuted a new “f-word”, which went largely unnoticed. “After ten years, I can fundamentally say that there is a global pattern which I am now calling “femicide” that is systemically undermining, undoing and desecrating women”. Vieira revealed that her colleague Ann Curry was “finding that out in Africa, the worst cases of rape in the world right now.” Ensler agreed. “I was in the Congo in November and it is an incredible example - 200,000 women raped over the past ten years…. And yet it is still accepted because it is so intricate and so a part of our everyday life.” Fonda then spoke proudly about V-Day’s programs to help address the problem there, including “building a whole village so that 100 women can stay and heal. And then become leaders.”

Eight hours after Jane Fonda’s infamous “c-word” incident, I interviewed her at the V-Day gala anniversary event at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Fonda was emotional as she spoke to me about the 10 year anniversary of V-Day. “We are all so proud of everything that V-Day’s done - it’s just totally amazing that a little work of art that she created Off-Broadway has become this global movement that has made such a difference.”

I then asked her about how knowing Eve and V-Day had personally affected her. “Before I saw Eve perform The Vagina Monologues, I could describe myself as a theoretical feminist - I mean, I was doing the right things and making the right movies, but behind the closed doors, in my life I wasn’t living it. And after I saw The Vagina Monologues - I think while I was laughing - it slipped from my head into my body, and I became an embodied feminist. And just spending so much time with Eve and traveling in many parts of the world with her - it’s made me braver, it’s certainly made me understand violence against women a lot more. You know, I have it in my family [Fonda’s mother, who killed herself when she was twelve, had been sexually abused], I have it among my friends - but seeing it in so many different parts of the world has really brought it home to me, how epidemic it is.”

She added, “But then next to that is watching - particularly I think in Jerusalem, when Eve and I visited a home for abused girls, and she asked to meet with six or seven of them, and they were all together for the first time telling their stories. And there were two things - it was the way Eve listened to them. I learned what therapeutic listening is. The way she listened and asked questions, you could tell that it was transforming these girls and then the fact that they were for the first time hearing each other stories showed me the value of breaking the wall of silence, and becoming sisters. It was very powerful. It changed my life.”

She also spoke about the importance of changing the “mindset and mentality” that produces violence. “I think that’s partly the value of the play. I remember when I first saw it there were a number of men in the audience as well. And I think it does change men as well as women - and the movement changes men as well as women. And that’s why I am so excited that men are going to be involved in New Orleans.” Fonda was here referring to V-Day’s must-go-to, two day historic mega anniversary celebration, V to the Tenth, taking place in New Orleans at the New Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome, in which Fonda will appear along with an esteemed list of noted speakers, global activists and stars such as Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek, Sally Field, Glenn Close, Jessica Alba, and Jennifer Hudson (and many others) to raise money and awareness for V-Day and for the women of New Orleans, as well as to reflect on the intersection of many issues that contribute to violence, and to tragedies such as what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Says Fonda of V to the Tenth, “It’s going to be fun, on a lot of levels. And as always in the V-Day events, we’re going to laugh and we’re going to cry and we’re going to create sisterhood and brotherhood and we’re going to help the women of New Orleans. ”

Aside from helping women in the literal gender sense, Fonda sees the valuing of feminine values and attributes as “very connected to the planet. There was a reason that for ancient peoples, God was Sophia. I think the rising of the feminine, within the masculine, the feminization of masculinity, is going to be critical to our survival as a species and as a planet.”

I should probably reveal that I was on the founding committee of V-Day with Eve, so I can truly appreciate the incredible accomplishments of V-Day - and the depth of Jane Fonda’s commitment to V-Day and this issue. I still remember sitting in Eve Ensler’s living room, when V-Day was struggling over financing for the Madison Square Garden event, when Eve announced with such excitement and relief that Jane Fonda had just pledged 1 million dollars. So I felt rightfully defensive about this “c-word” attack on Jane, and also befuddled that this was the “story” that the media chose given the opportunity to cover V-Day’s 10 year anniversary. As Eve Ensler reminded the audience at the event later that evening, “According to the U.N., one of every three women will be beaten, raped or abused in some fashion in their lifetime.” This, in my opinion, should have been what made the news that night, and every night, until as V-Day so boldly aims for, the violence stops. Given it was a Presidential election season, I asked Ensler what we should be demanding of our leaders. She answered, “We should be saying of every candidate that you need to make violence against women a front and center issue. And none of them are doing that.” How can we expect them to, when the media - and the public - would rather obsess about a meaningless and inadvertent use of a slang word?

For more on V-Day and V to the Tenth visit www.vday.org

This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post.

Marianne Schnall is a writer and interviewer, founder of Feminist.com, and co-founder of EcoMall.com.

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

see also Eve Ensler against the war, with special guest “Hanoi” Jane Fonda

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Re: The Good Body - Eve Ensler

Over on the 'plex I started a thread - Whither Eve Ensler? - asking about the dialog with her that's been promised for, oh, about two years now.  If any members of Integral Institute pod who have 'plex mem