The Vagina Monologues

The UNM production of “The Vagina Monologues” — a series
of performances about vagina-related topics such as masturbation,
pubic hair, menstruation, rape and female genital mutilation
(FGM) — will include men.

Director Rachel Leos said at the rst production meeting she
suggested including a few “manologues.” Including men in the
show, she said, would show that violence against women a ects
men, too.

“The sooner that men realize they can’t really function without
women, the better,” she said. “Sticking up for women’s rights is a
big thing, and I think it’ll really hit a man when he’s got a daughter or a wife, or if something happens to his sister or mother.”

“The Vagina Monologues” is performed throughout the year
as part of the V-Day campaign, which was started by the monologues’ author Eve Ensler in 1998.

V-Day is the global campaign to stop violence against women
and girls. Audri Roybal, member of the V-Girls Action Team, said
V-Day is not a speci c date and can be celebrated year-round.

“V-Day started out focusing on women and people who have
been through struggles and who have taken the initiative in their
own lives and grown from their struggles,” she said.

Since it began, the campaign has branched out with groups
such as the V-Girls Action Team. Roybal said this is a team of girls from across the globe, aged 14 to 21, that visits young girls to hear their problems and help empower them.
“They’re so accepting because they haven’t been tainted by
what society has got for them, so that’s why you have to catch them before they move into society,” she said.

V-Men is another subset of the campaign, a group of male allies
in the ght for women’s rights. Leos said she hopes involving
men in the production will demonstrate that men can show emotion
without violating their masculinity.

Stephen Armijo, a theater major, is performing a “manologue,”
which is what Leos calls the male monologues. Despite the stigma,
Armijo said he feels manlier because of it and was interested in being involved before he knew male parts were available.

“For too long, this has been something that just girls have
been saying. ‘ is is wrong and needs to be stopped,’ and the guys
have always just kind of been on the sideline,” he said. “But it is our place. From my perspective, it would be a travesty to not say something.”

Performer Cari Neill said the relationship between men and
women has improved since the monologues were rst performed,
but she said there is still a long way to go.

“As a man-friend of mine recently said to me, men typically see
women on three levels,” Neill said. “First is the man’s mother, who is above all else. Second is his wife, who is slightly above useless other than for sex. Last are all other women, who are useless other than for sex. Unfortunately, men don’t seem to look at other women and realize that they are mothers also.”

Roybal said she experienced this herself when she met with
high school administrators about the V-Day campaign. A male
administrator, upon learning she was pregnant, asked how she
was going to be involved in the campaign and be a mother at
the same time.

“This was the biggest slap in the face to me, because I went to
high school and worked my ass o to be in student government,
to be a part of V-Day and V-Girls and be involved in my community, and he has the right to say to me that I can’t do it because I’m going to be a mom at the same time?” she said.

Coproducer and Interim Director of the Women’s Resource Center Summer Little looked around the rehearsal space and said she would bet that one of the 30 women in the cast had survived sexual assault.

“One in three women will be beaten or raped in her lifetime,” she said. “That’s huge. One in four college women get raped while they’re in school. That’s in the U.S. So these issues are real in our lives. People are still so moved by it because it speaks truth to the range of women’s experiences.”

Just as some monologues deal with global women’s issues, one of the “manologues” addresses violence against women in the Middle East. Jose Castro, who is performing this “manologue,” said he hopes someone will hear this performance and be inspired to change or help someone else change.

“I am of Middle Eastern descent, and I see their practices of how to treat a woman as being flawed,” he said. “I wanted to try and spark a change in the mind of people that are practicing these terrible acts. It is a flawed culture in respect to the treatment of women, and it should change.”

Despite stubborn societal norms, Roybal said the movement is growing. “Now is when we find our strength because we find strength in numbers, and our numbers are growing. But first, we have to find strength in the rejection,” she said.

“If Eve had listened to everybody who said, ‘You can’t say vagina,’ she probably would never have made it out of Brooklyn.”

The Vagina Monologues
By Eve Ensler

Theatre X
in Popejoy Hall basement
Saturday, 7 p.m.
Sunday, 2 p.m.
Students $8
General admission $12
women.unm.edu
vday.org