V-Day raises awareness of women's issues |
| Posted by Administrator on Feb 11 2009 at 2:57 PM |
Photo by Laura Schemper
Elizabeth Doxator-Morenberg, a theater and women's gender studies major, introduces the next performance during the first night of two productions of "The Vagina Monologues."
By Megan Wenz
Antelope Staff
Who needs a handgun when you have a semiautomatic? That was one provocative question posed to viewers at the fifth annual "The Vagina Monologues" held at the Fine Arts recital hall on Thursday and Friday.
According to one eye opening "vagina happy fact," and to answer the previously stated question, women have the advantage in the bedroom. Part of the audience squirmed, everyone roared including the actors on the stage when this fact was revealed.
An adaptation of Eve Ensler's play, originally performed on Broadway and made into an HBO special, was presented to audiences as part of the V-Day (Global Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls) campaign. Since 1998, the "The Vagina Monologues" has raised awareness of violence against women, the reason for the V-Day campaign.
The play is a compilation of experiences that over 200 women have told Eve Ensler since 1996. Ensler turned their stories into the monologues and created a play that has since been performed by A-list movie stars, like Oprah and Jane Fonda, and rock stars like Melissa Etheridge.
Some are funny experiences while others are more serious and tell of the abuse to women. Each monologue is a true-life story from one of the women Ensler interviewed over the years.
V-Day is a worldwide campaign that has raised money to help get Ensler's message about violence against women to the public so women can live in a safe world. "The Vagina Monologues" is performed annually at over 300 college campuses, UNK being one of the few.
Demaris Grant, the director for UNK's "The Vagina Monologues," said groups have performed the play at UNK for five years.
"This is my first year as the director, but I have performed the monologues before," she said.
Each year, new monologues are added to make the show unique to all viewers. This year's cast of ten UNK students and faculty members recited one or more of the monologues, although this year the cast cooperated to bring "The Women Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy" to life.
Sophomore Madeline Mawby, a nursing major from Kearney said, "I came tonight for a class, but I really liked it. My favorite was 'My Angry Vagina' because it was funny. I also liked that some of the monologues touched on big issues that affect women everywhere."
Each year Ensler spotlights a particular problem concerning violence against women and girls, and new material was incorporated into the production at UNK. The abuse of the women in The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was examined through a monologue about one young girl from the country where sexual violence including rape and torture against women and girls is part of daily struggles.
After five years at UNK, the V-Day celebration carries on. With the help of the UNK student body, more money was raised to help educate the world about violence against women.
