vagina, valentine, and victory :)

My senior year of high school, my friend Andrea and I dressed up in red and black for Valentine’s Day—or, I’m pretty sure we referred to it at “Singles Awareness Day.” But, for me at least, Valentine’s Day is not about whether or not one has a significant other. It’s about love—all kinds of love! Not just romantic love. I’m starting a revolution. A love revolution. We can’t fully appreciate love unless we value all of its manifestations. Love is bigger than we’re making it.

The Vagina Monologues 2010

I realized earlier this week, that while autumn may be my favorite season, right now is my favorite time of year. I, along with four other awesome women, are directing Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and our own The SLU Monologues, which began as a response to Ensler’s play being banned on campus. The monologues are put every year around Valentine’s Day—or V-Day. The V-Day campaign, a global movement to end violence against women and girls, began in 1998, inspired by The Vagina Monologues. The “V” stands for vagina, valentine, and victory.

Backstage of the VagMons

The V-Day season also marks my anniversary with feminism, which has guided me to people and ideas that have changed my worldview and perspective on myself drastically. Furthermore, Valentine’s Day marks the day that my baby brother, Tom, came home from the hospital after he was born. And finally, this year, my family will celebrate my mom’s twelfth year of being cancer-free! My birthday and Christmas may be in December, but this is definitely the most wonderful time of the year. Nowadays, I still wear red and black for Valentine's Day, but it's for my costume for the monologues, not a battle cry.

Meaningful Conversation CAN Change the World

             It’s time that we all take a step back and do whatever it is the time for. I find great comfort in wise words, whether they be simple or not. Some of my favorite words come from Ecclesiastes 3:8:

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Right now is the time to breathe and the time to have dialogue. Everyone is so polarized—not just during election season and not just after a massacre. Everyone is constantly polarized.

Today, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s commitment to defending “traditional marriage,” stating:

“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.”

Today, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA presser, declared that “Kindergarten Killers,” an online game, is to blame for the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Oh, also that a database of the mentally ill needs to be created.

On Wednesday, Charlotte Allen wrote that it was because Sandy Hook was so “feminized,” having no adult males, that the shooter was able to take so many lives.

 “But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.”

 I myself swing myself all the way to the other side of the pendulum. I believe that gender is a social construct and that sexuality is on a continuum. I believe that while the culture has to change, access to guns must also be restricted. And I absolutely believe that the female teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School did anything and everything that a male teacher could have done in that same situation.

Poster by Julia Rothman

I, too, contribute to the polarization of our nation. I get cringe at the mention of Todd Akin and I can’t bear to watch more than ten minutes of the NRA press conference. I get upset when someone tells me—even jokingly—to get back in the kitchen. I walk away when conversation turns political and my views are the minority. I don’t always have the energy to be fighting the fight, and that’s what this all is: a fight. We argue, we argue, we argue. Once we have found the way that we believe is right, we close our ears. We need to start having dialogue, rather than debate, to share our own experiences rather than undermining those of others. The argument never ends, never solves any problems; it only creates more.

This is my commitment to listen. This is my commitment to being heard. This is my commitment to dialogue, not debate. To sitting with people and enjoying our differences and our similarities. This is my commitment to never stop learning, to never thinking I know it all. I trust that meaningful conversation can change the world.