The Vagina Monologues is an institution with plenty of problems. The interviews they are based on were recorded in the 1990s, they present a definition of femininity rooted in the possession of a vagina (and by extent exclude trans women), and have drawn plenty of criticism from sex-positive feminists. They feature an increasingly dated form of feminism that demands updating.
The presentation of the Vagina Monologues by Vaginas Against Violence at Carleton overcame these barriers in a night that allowed a diversity of voices to speak. The night began by acknowledging some of the Monologues’ shortcomings, as well as the fact they were being performed on unceded Algonquin land.
The night included monologues and poetry that were original, and this modernized and widened the scope of issues that were touched upon. Performers discussed missing and murdered Indigenous women, trans issues, and a poem was performed as an acknowledgement of Black History Month. This kind of attention is needed in such a narrowly focused set of work as the Vagina Monologues, and Vaginas Against Violence did this well.
