The Vagina Monologues!
I (like to think that I) understand where feminism comes from: the want of an existence of gender equality between men and women. This is completely reasonable to me. In fact, it's always been completely reasonable to me. You must understand that I have one brother and two sisters that gender inequality was never very apparent in my house. My mom cooked. My dad cooked. I baked. My sister played lacrosse, and her and I each played hockey as well. I could go on. The point is that whenever we had interests in anything, those interests were nurtured and we were given opportunities to pursue them regardless of our sex.
Let's jump around a little bit. Maybe I'll organize all of this in editing, or maybe I'll leave my thoughts raw. I'll coin the term 'Sushi Blogging.' After all, doesn't this blog exist so that it's NOT an essay??
So as I am told repeatedly, there exists a great gender inequality in our society and furthermore the world. In comes the feminist movement which stems from many different desires of women I am sure, such as the right to vote, the right to work, etc. Very reasonable!
This brings us to the 60's where the ladies are wishing not to be objectified quite so blatantly in the media. Also very reasonable! AH, but perhaps being objectified in the media is in fact the beginning of 3rd wave feminism where women begin to feel more comfortable with using their sexuality for whatever their purpose may be. Any woman who is objectified in the media made the choice to be seen in that light, and so does any man for that matter.
Where am I going with all of this? (In circles, I digress). Feminism, as I see it, always seems to maintain a similar purpose: gender equality in society. Yet it is overlooked that the world's population is made up of nearly 7 billion different males and females, and never will we see the day that every single one of them is happy about the way things are.
My world, as I see it, is one where men and women are equal in the sense that we are each free to make our own decisions. We choose where we go, what we do, how we do it, how much or how little we are willing to be paid for our efforts of labour, who we emulate, our degree of regard for popular culture, and the extent of which we are agitated by political riff raff.
The Vagina Monologues
Now we can have a quick thought about the aforementioned 'Vagina Monologues' which was written on the basis of testimonials from 200 women (and Kinsey was criticized for misrepresenting the population...?) regarding sex, gender and genitals.
I saw this play a few years ago, and I felt a little ruffled afterward. I felt like I had been completely ambushed by complaints about wrongdoings against women; I felt like the problems were all completely out of my hands, and I felt that it had been suggested that men (me!) were responsible. I don't think that was the purpose of that play though. The play itself is such a huge cultural phenomenon that I cannot believe it would actually have been created to slap the male species in the face. Perhaps it was written to clarify that it's ok for women to talk openly about their sexuality, and that's great because I'm sure there were (and surely still are) many females who needed to hear that.
Prior to the play, I was aware that it was quite alright for anyone to talk about their sexuality in whatever manner they wished, be it privately with whomever they choose or from a soapbox on a busy street corner - it comes down to individual choice. This made me look at the play differently and still I feel that I do not understand. Sometimes, when dealing with such hot-button topics, especially something so incredibly broad as gender (in)equality, its ok to not understand. Thank goodness!
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