All over the country last month and this month, womens groups and theater groups are performing Eve Ensler’s play "The Vagina Monologues" as part of V-Day campaign, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. 

Not all women are completely enamored of the play.  Amanda Marcotte, she of the recent John Edwards blogging kerfuffle, writes:

A lot of us more sophisticated, citified feminist types act a little disdainful towards “The Vagina Monologues”. “That play is so last decade,” we say to each other. “Nothing against Eve Ensler, but the shine of novelty has faded. We get it already. If I loved my vagina any more, I’d have to buy her a Lexus.”

However, as Amanda herself acknowledges, the message of the play isn’t intended just for "sophisticated, citified feminists" like herself — it is a play that needs to be heard by all women of all types and persuasions, in all communities.  And that’s why she supports it.

The V-Day campaign has been phenomenally successful in spreading the word, and each year, the play finds itself performed in more and more communities.  And, somewhat predictably, some of those communities are not exactly warming up to the show’s concept or, to be frank, language.  Last month, I posted about a community in Florida who had trouble with the show’s title being displayed on a theater marquee.

Via Amanda, we learn about another incident involving a production of the play — this time in John Jay High School in Westchester County, N.Y.:

It seems that three female high school juniors received permission to read part of Eve Ensler’s "The Vagina Monologues" during a public open mic session. But they were told to avoid using the word "vagina," which is mentioned in the excerpt, because young children would be in the audience and it would be taped for local cable TV. (The students have countered that the youngest audience member was in ninth grade.)

After careful consideration, the three students — Megan Reback, Elan Stahl and Hannah Levinson — decided the school’s attempt to censure them was bogus, and performed the piece (called "My Short Skirt") anyway.

The students …divided the piece into thirds and then read the final line of this section together:

My short skirt is a liberation
flag in the women’s army
I declare these streets, any streets
my vagina’s country.

The girls received one-day suspensions.  According to the principal in his press statement, this was not because they used the dreaded v-word, but because they were "insubordinate" for disobeying faculty members who told them not to use that word.

According to local press accounts, the students have no regrets:

The students, all juniors at John Jay High School, stood by their actions, saying everyone should be comfortable with the word and the female sexuality it invokes.

"We had no doubt in our minds that we were willing to be ‘insubordinate’ to do the right thing and get this word out there and we were willing to take whatever consequence," said Hannah Levinson. The press conference was held in Levinson’s living room where all the girls were accompanied by their parents.

"It just doesn’t make sense for an administration to expect me not to talk about my body – it’s mine," added Megan Reback.

At his own press conference, the principal disagreed:

Principal Rich Leprine said the school "recognizes and respects student freedom of expression," but that the freedom is not unfettered, especially when an activity or event is open to the general community.

Amanda isn’t buying that:

But as you can see from the dust-up over the word “vagina”, it’s not about the words themselves, but about the concepts. The fury over “The Vagina Monologues” has never been about some mysterious substance inside the letter V-A-G-I-N-A that causes people to lose their minds. The fury is over the themes of the play and Ensler’s attempt to get to fight back against misogyny. Add this little dust-up to the evidence bin—it’s hardly a happy coincidence for the principle that the theme of female freedom would have be excised alongside the forbidden word. When he says that young people were exposed to this passage, is he mad that 14-year-olds learned that women have vaginas? Or is he mad that teenage girls are exposed to the idea that there’s something wrong with a world where women don’t feel free to walk down the street without getting randomly punished for having vaginas? I have my suspicions.

A video of the three high school students reading "My Short Skirt" is here.