"There. I've said it."

Discuss:

For Ensler, language is important? Why? What does it matter what we call body parts? What is the importance of language in defining sexuality, bodies, etc.? Why do you think she asks those questions about what vaginas would wear, etc? What is she trying to do with that?

Language and word choice are not only important but essential to the tone, the message, and the purpose behind Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues.  However, as these collective essays reveal, the combination of letters that make up a word are of no matter until that word is given meaning and until we become unwilling to say it.

During my first semester at Southern Connecticut State University, I took an anthropology class entitled “Language and Culture;” it was, essentially, linguistic anthropology.  One of the foundational questions in this class, and of the entire discipline, was whether or not language shaped our world view, or vice-versa, whether or not our worldview determined the words we used.  In simpler language: do we see the world in a particular way because of the words we have to describe what we see, or are the words we develop born out of how we see the world?

This question is truly one of the “chicken-and-egg” variety; there is no clear cut answer, and strong cases can be made for each side.  In reality, the two are not mutually exclusive.  In considering this question, however, there was one insight that I kept returning to: the debate is not about the words themselves, but their connotations and their cultural, socially constructed meanings.

The word ‘vagina’ most certainly has social meaning. 

While Ensler does talk about the strange sound of the word itself—at one point, she writes “Let’s just start with the word ‘vagina.’ It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument…” (5)—the reality is that, no matter what anatomical name had been assigned to this particular aspect of the female body, it would carry the same taboo associations that the word ‘vagina’ does today.  In her introduction to the tenth anniversary version of the book, Ensler talks about a group of Comfort Women, “chanting ‘PUKI’ (…which means ‘vagina’ in Tagalog) with their fists rasied. Most had never said the word in their entire lives” (xv).   This line, even though not part of a monologue, demonstrates that language, the specific word, is not the culprit; the problem is the societal implications of saying the word, which acknowledges aspects of being female that have been suppressed and skewed by years of patriarchal society.

Another example: the monologue The Flood tells the story of a Jewish woman from Queens who, after one experience as a young woman, shut herself off to any possibility of a sexual life.  This woman, who Ensler interviewed when she was at least 65 years old, could barely stand to tell this story, to talk about her vagina, her sexuality, her identity as a woman.

Through these anecdotes and many others, especially those that unearth the tragedy that so many women have lived, Ensler is presenting her readers and audiences with a solution: say the word. “Vagina.” Take it back. “Vagina.” Say it until you no longer cringe. “Vagina.”  Whether or not the word or the societal perspective came first, saying the word is not about saying the six letters strung together.  It is about women becoming comfortable with and empowered by their sexuality.  When Ensler says the word, it inspires more women to do so.  And the more women that do, the more conversations that take place, and higher the level of awareness, the greater the degree of change in the world.

And so, when she asks what a vagina would wear or what a vagina would say, she is simply allowing women other ways to express themselves.  Because, when it comes down to it, the conversation that Ensler has started is not just about the word “vagina” but about all of the words that come after it.