College students often hear “The Vagina Monologues” for the first time at a pivotal moment in their lives.

When they first experience the play, they’ve just moved away from home and begun to think about who they want to be or about their own sexuality, said Eileen Schell, an associate professor of writing and rhetoric.

“The performance itself is a kind of feminist community that happens,” Schell said. “It’s a cast of women that are meeting together and working together. It’s pretty remarkable.”

Since its debut in 1996, “The Vagina Monologues” has been performed in more than 140 communities, including Syracuse University. Eve Ensler, who created the monologues, will speak on Wednesday night in Hendricks Chapel as the second speaker of the University Lecture series.

Ensler, a playwright and activist, will present her lecture “In the Body of Justice” at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks. In 1996, Ensler first performed “The Vagina Monologues,” a play featuring monologues from multiple perspectives on feminism, love, rape, sexuality, menstruation and the vagina itself.

Ensler is also known for creating V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. One of V-Day’s most recent campaigns is One Billion Rising, which calls on 1 billion people to stand up against violence and oppression against women, according to the official website. The number also refers to the United Nations statistic that one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused by an intimate partner in the course of her lifetime. The SU community has also hosted events as part of this campaign.

SU students who have performed in an on-campus production of the play said although it is nearly 20 years old, the play and the V-Day movement present issues that are still relevant.

Many people do not understand why “The Vagina Monologues” is important, said Amy Quichiz, a sophomore women’s and gender studies major, who performed in an on-campus production of “The Vagina Monologues” last year. The monologues open doors for people to talk and ask questions about their vaginas.

“People don’t talk about having a vagina and what it comes with,” Quichiz said. “I feel like people think that it comes with a manuscript of how to have a vagina and how to act when you have a vagina.”

“The Vagina Monologues” has stories of women embracing their sexuality and who they are as women, but they are also a starting point for talking about violence against women, said Tatyana Laird, co-president of Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment. SASSE is the student organization that produces the performance of “The Vagina Monologues.”

The play can be used as a platform to talk about sexual assault and harassment, Laird said. People can state facts and statistics about all types of violence against women, but the stories add more to the movement.

“Because those stories are included in ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ they have a bigger impact on One Billion Rising and V-Day, because it’s humanizing,” she said. “It’s giving a story to the fact that already exists.”

Although “The Vagina Monologues” presents issues SU students can relate to, the monologues show their age and can be outdated in some cases, said Delaney Kuric, a sophomore illustration major who performed in the monologues at SU last year. For example, one monologue features a trans woman talking about how her vagina makes her a woman after she got reconstructive surgery.

“I still thought the show was great, but I would love if we could adapt it and make it more sensitive,” she said.

Still, previous performers in SU’s “Vagina Monologues” are interested in what Ensler will talk about on Wednesday. Kuric said she has questions about the poem she performed in last year’s monologues. Quichiz and Laird both said they want to know more of what Ensler is doing with her campaigns for ending violence against women.

“She just sounds like an amazing person and anything she does would be amazing, because I’m just so happy that she’s coming here,” Quichiz said.

Published on October 15, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Ellen: ekmeyers@syr.edu | @ellenkmeyers