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In her recently published (Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy) analysis of "how power operates in both dominant discourse that degrade vaginas and strategies of feminist resistance that seek to reclaim and celebrate them," Kim Q. Hall uses the statements made by Intersex Society of North America's "V-Day Challenge 2002" project as a point of departure, and argues that it did not go far enough in its critique of the essentialist association between women and vagina that was the whole premise of the play, The Vagina Monologues. Hall characterizes intersex activists' approach as merely "additive," which fails to problematize the dominant view that woman is defined as having a vagina. But as far as we are concerned, Hall is taking intersex activists' statements out of context by making such critiques.
What Ms. Hall does not realize is that intersex activists' critique of "The Vagina Monologues" were made in a specific activist context, with a specific activist goal in mind. Before "V-Day Challenge 2002," several prominent intersex activists have written Eve Ensler, the author of "The Vagina Monologues," to discuss about the play's glorification of cosmetic genital surgeries on intersex children as well as its underlying message that a woman without a vagina is shameful and unacceptable, but to no avail. Because Ensler was obviously not interested in speaking with activists, the "V-Day Challenge" chose to target campus V-Day organizers who were producing "The Vagina Monologues" at their colleges. The message was very carefully crafted to appeal to them.
In that process, Koyama intentionally left out many criticisms that could have been raised about the play, focusing only on its misrepresentation of intersex genital cuttings and the disparity between how the play depicted African genital cuttings vs. those in Western hospitals. The reaction was immediate: many campus V-Day chapters agreed to educate their campus about intersex, and by the second day we received a phone call from the executive director of V-Day asking how they could "work together." The "V-Day Challenge" accomplished something we could not for many years.
Hall seems to think that we should have pointed out that the whole premise for the play was flawed because it was essentialist, but what good could have come out of that? If we had made such fundamental criticisms toward the play, it would have seriously undermined our ability to collaborate with and to influence V-Day organizers. If Hall had devised our strategy, we could not have accomplished anything.
Effective activists do not simply go around blasting everything they disagree to the maximum degree; they carefully devise strategies to change it. Any scholar reading activist statements thus need to recognize the political context in which such statements have been made. The intended goals of V-Day Challenge were to raise the awareness of intersex experiences and winning over V-Day organizers, which it quite successfully accomplished, rather than deconstructing the essentialist association between womanhood and vagina. Scholars need to understand that their theoretically correct goals are not necessarily shared by activists, whose goals are often more concrete and immediate.
We are working on publishing a response to Hall's article in the upcoming issue of Hypatia.
Source:
Hall KQ (2005). "Queerness, Disability and The Vagina Monologues." Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy. 20(1):99-119.
Posted by Emi on Feb 16, 2005