The Vagina Monologues

Khadija

Delighted to see a review of an excellent play here. Welcome to Chowk!

S

I had seen Vagina Monologues in the states... I never imagined they would come to Pakistan but they did... and Ayesha Alam, Nadia Jameel, Mira Hashmi (Faiz`s grand
daughter) and others were AWESOME...

It is time the brave women of Pakistan shunned the oppressive hold of their captors... the men of this country, and became more confident about themselves, and their sexuality. This is exactly what those four amazing women did on stage...

I think it was a great idea for this show to have happened when Pakistan is also celebrating the year of Fatima Jinnah, that indomitable woman, who took on a Dictator for the cause of democracy and according to recent revelations was brutally murdered for it...

Perhaps now we should dedicate this century to Pakistani Women, because I have a lot of faith that they would be our saviors as Pakistan rises to new heights and glories...

Pakistani aurtein Zindabad!


-Manto

For those of you who saw `Rock star and the mullahs` on PBS... Please sign this petition of support ...

http://www.petitiononline.com/sa4l786/

Thankyou

-Manto

I thought liberation of women in Pakistan had to do with building girl`s schools in villages. Getting poor young women out of the influence of panchayats and such. And motivating rich women to use the opportunities they have been given to get to influential positions.

How exactly does the Vagina Monologues fit into that? Doesn`t the audience, and the women presenting it, and the text of the play itself, belong to a group, that is already powerful in our society. What is gained by making them more powerful, when most women in Pakistan cannot even get the opportunity to read Urdu, much less, understand something like the Vagina Monlogues.

I ask this, seriously, as someone who will be participating in a project for girl students in Pakistan. Should I send my hard earned money to poor city girls, who cannot afford furthur education? Or should I buy tickets for them to see the Vagina Monologues?

Pakistan needs the liberation of its poor, specially its poor women. Not its rich, nor rich women. There is nothing wrong with things like the Monologues. But poor(er) societies need to solve their basic problems first, before getting to things like V Monologues. Otherwise they are putting the cart before the horse, i.e. liberating the already liberated. This is better than doing nothing. But perhaps, not the best way to reach women`s lib in our society.

Then again, as someone who believes men should never do the talking for the women, about how they want to be liberated, I will ask the girls who may be about to get a free education, what they consider more important - the V Monologues or the chance to study how to cure vaginal diseases at a Medical College. Our organization (nor Pakistan in general) doesn`t have the resources to provide them with both.

Any attempt at art by women in Pakistan should be appreciated. But I will have to disagree with notion of presenting the Vagina Monlogues as some sort of, ``criteria of liberation`` for Pakistani women. I don`t think it empowers women. It only does so superficially. And that too, only women who are already empowered.

Then again, maybe, I am missing the point.

``Moved almost to tears, I realized that putting something like this “out there” was not something that was too advanced for our still young, though just a little jaded, women’s movement. In fact it was not advanced for any women’s movement anywhere in the world. It was, on the contrary, very essential to any conversation about women’s rights because in the final analysis women’s rights are not about political equality......``

Khadija, let me complete that sentence for you in pakistan, `` it is not about political equality, it is about the right for women to be treated as humans, the right to live``.

Khadija I am happy to know that as an elite of pakistan, you have tears..even to shed it while watching a play.

Here is a news for you, have you heard of honor killings, have you heard of saima salwar and her killings, do you know that no one was prosecuted, do you know that the first act of the mushy was to assure the killer that he will not be prosecuted......did you hear of that story, did you shed a tear for saima...

Tears for vagina monologues...you have set new lows in disgusting writing from pak women.

I am enraged by title and general tone of attitude. I have not cared to read article. This open invitations for troubles. Now you know why people Love MMA and not so called NGO crowds.
Up to know men were shameless now women are becoming very bad , immoral and charactrerless. The writer should be ashamed of this writing article.

It has all become liberal and god damn people are doing whatever they want.
We are becoming soft ininrerational help. This is reason young and old Pathans are destroying eyes by enjoying ponography in dim lit, unventilasted areas. This liberal should be shipped to arabis where wahabi ruler will chopp of heads for for this problems.

Romair,

Revolutions sometimes are started by the few and then it permeates through the society. The V-monologue performance was an exclusive one to limited people, but it is important in that it has set a trend..

The question is not just of women`s lib, and women`s empowerment, but of the freedom of expression... how can you not celebrate that important ideal which is so often suppressed in a country like ours? The first myth is that women who are rich are already empowered.. that is not always true... and don`t rich women have the right to be liberated as well...

Your organization should send money for girls` schools, and leave things like V-monologue to the art-minded crowd at NCA .... ok? They are doing a good job... just don`t try to hinder them in anyway ok?

-Manto

Ref jay #6

Tsk, tsk, tsk, Brother Jay.

You really should know better than to jump on the author for writing about equality for women.

You had the wonderful opportunity to point out how in your native Kerala women rule the homes in the Nair community, how property and familial descent have been entirely matrilineal for centuries, and how Marco Polo describes that during as early (or late, depending on your viewpoint) as the days of his visit to the Malabar coast Nair women were free to take on lovers, the sword stuck in the sand in front of the house indicating the woman in the hut was unavailable for social visits.

Perhaps that also explains the primarily benign Islam of Kerala.

``There are structures in this city that celebrate the male form; structures that declare male power. Military structures that shout out their masculinity - that celebrate the phallus. National symbols that kiss the sky in their entire erect splendor. There is no structure for its’ female counterpart. There is no structure that celebrates the vagina or that celebrates women and womanhood. And it saddens me that while these will stay, this one effort at salvaging female space will fade away.``

Yes, there are. A couple of hangars at the Moffett Naval Air Station near Sunnyvale, California.

No, I don`t have a dirty mind. The local newspaper once described them as ``yonic`` in their appearance.

Maybe I should send in a picture!

Jay,

Thanks for proving my point about you. :)


Romair, Ahmed Madani,

Yaar give it a rest... the play is awesome.. the message is really moving.. there is also this poem dedicated to a Bosnian muslim girl... anyway... don`t criticize something before you`ve seen it being performed...

-Manto

i do feel for our compatriot ahmadmadani. i mean here he was fretting about the prospect of his daughters wearing makeup (read his bio) when along comes this. enough to drive anyone into the arms of likes of urstruly. and another thing, what is wrong with having a little haya? why cant stuff like this be done in a less in-your-face kind of way. and instead of looking westward all the time, why cant we look to the east for inspiration once in a while. chinese women for instance were discouraged from having more than one child. can there be a bigger violation of fundamental rights? yet when was the last time anyone came across a chinese feminist? and wait until western media picks on this. nasty things are really going to hit the fan then.

Khadija:

welcome to chowk...the struggle for parity is an uphill journey...the women will need every ounce of luck and help in this endeavour...more later...

ahmedmadani

...from your down to earth interacting here we know a little about you...your views, age, color, height, your daughters, life with wife, your work, your status etc....

...therefore, i wish there was a way you would go to this play and thenwrite us your views...i would really like to read your views on this play...

...you do not appear to be the obstinate kind...if you are reluctant for reasons such as shyness or discomfort i can ask some very dear friends (man or woman) to escort you to the play....

...t

[There is no structure that celebrates the vagina or that celebrates women and womanhood.]

.....muslims have been celeberating both manhood and womanhood from the earliest days of islam. check out the minarets and the domes of a mosque and you would know what i am talking about.....meera ji and n.m.rashid have been singing their praises in their famous poems...... classical urdu poets died expressing newer methods of describing female parts from aankh to abru to hont to pistaan....so don`t be an ingrate ;)

Those of you who condemn my article for its title, (hi ahmedmadani, ``72 inch tall,handsome born, white colored on 11Feb.1948 in Karachi.I keep myself arrtractive by exercizeing and eating good less food. My wife is big disappointment to me. She troubles and I bear trouble like mountain. But one gets chained by children though they feel I am born to serve them``), think twice about my chowk alias. And please read it before banishing me to ``arabis where wahabi ruler will chopp of heads for for this problems``. It`s certainly more meaningful than your favorite ``girl friday``.

and Romair: yes, we should think about getting girls a basic education before we proceed to talk about sex, but the vagina monologues are not about sex. They are about letting women live their lives. Live them without second thoughts - the way men get to live theirs. We need sexual equality if we are to ever successfully educate every girl - urbanite or rural-dweller - in our country. You see, girls are neglected because they are considered inferior - remove the inferior status and you will not need to fight for their right to education. and Jay, as far as my awareness of honor killings goes - im not blind to it - but the fact remains that honor killings are a by-product of the notion that women are sexually inferior to men. A by-product of the notion that its ok for men to take multiple sexual partners but not ok for women to even as much as look at other men. Remove the disparity and you remove the premise of shame on which honor killings are justified.

And one point of clarification - what drove me to tears were women`s stories of rape - of sexual brutality. And it is the vocalization of this rape and brutuality that makes the vagina monologues so relevant- so essential to the emancipation of women anywhere in the world. I speak of fundamentals required to take women and place them in lives where they can live without suppressed hopes and dreams. Where fear does not hang like an ominous, ever-present sword over their heads. The sword being a lot sharper - a lot more menacing in places like ``arabis where wahabi ruler will chopp of heads`` .

Khadija,

A little more analysis is required.

Equality will manifest itself. But apparently it has not.
So (in your opinion) what exactly is `equal` in man and women?...and what is not?

thx,

It is sad that women shamelessly talking in detail about their vaginas in public is considered liberating by some deluded individuals! How?

This is a case of a certain group of people swallowing willingly anything no matter how depraved as long as it comes recommended by the West. It is somehow seen as progress.

These VM have been going on in England for a few years now and now this sickness has spread to Pakistan. What has happened to sharm and hayaa?