The Warrior and the Marquette Tribune report today that the Marquette University Honors Program is sponsoring a performance of the Vagina Monologues on campus this spring.
Last year this blog led the charge in opposition to a performance on campus. We intend to do so again this year.
This year our case will be harder because the Honors Program is sponsoring the Monologues as an “educational” program. This adds a veneer of respectability and forces us to grapple with additional issues of academic freedom. The event is titled “An Academic Conversation on Catholicism, sexuality and human rights with a reading of ‘The Vagina Monologues.”
Yet I think the case can still be made that the Monologues should still be opposed. I offer seven reasons:
1. Clearly just trying to get around last year’s precedent
Last year JUSTICE, a student organization, applied to have the Monologues on campus. It was appealed up the chain to Fr. Andy Thon, Vice President of Student Affairs, who denied the application, saying it was “distractive” from the issue of violence against women.
This year the Monologues are being presented by the Honors Program. Clearly the gambit here (and a successful one, apparently) is to do it on the South side of Wisconsin Avenue to bring it under the umbrella of Academic Freedom. If Dan Maguire has the academic freedom to say and do what he does supporting abortion and gay marriage, then certainly there is the academic freedom to present the Monologues in an educational context, or so the argument will go.
Clearly this is the rational the University administration is taking. “‘It is part of the programming of an academic unit with extensive faculty development and only one piece of a larger academic discussion about issues of violence against women,’ [University spokeswoman Brigid O'Brien Miller] said.”
But I believe the agenda and motivation here is ideological, not educational. The Honors Program is run by Dr. Anthony Peressini. Up until recently, it was co-directed by Dr. Peressini and Dr. Heather Hathaway, an English professor who is now an associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (full disclosure: I was in the Honors Program and have a great deal of respect for Drs. Peressini and Hathaway). As reported in The Warrior, at the October 2006 conference “Jesuit and Feminist Education,” Dr. Hathaway gave a presentation entitled “The Vagina Monologues” during a panel on “Voicing Feminist Issues on Jesuit Campuses: When Academic Freedom and Jesuit Culture Collide.” Moreover, Dr. Peressini indicated to the Tribune that it was Honors Program students who brought forward the idea to him, which likely means that the same students in JUSTICE who tried for it last year decided to try a different tact this year. Their ideological motive remained the same, only the packaging changed.
Even if that were not true, there is a very solid position to be taken that argues about exactly what “academic freedom” means at a Catholic, Jesuit institution, and whether or not a presentation of the Monologues or a professor whose research interest is the moral defense of abortion fit within a proper understanding of “academic freedom.”
2. This is not the normal purview of the Honors Program
The Honors Program is primarily a certain kind of curriculum that emphasizes liberal arts education. Students take special sections of core courses and a series of four HP seminars. In my four years in the Honors Program, I cannot think of one example of an event like the proposed symposium.
If this were being sponsored by the English Department or Theatre Department, the argument would be different. But in this particular situation the fact that the HP does not usually sponsor these sorts of things simply reinforced my argument 1 above.
3. Just because something is educational …
The Administration’s key line is that the presentation is going to be academic and educational. The Tribune reported: “‘Last year, we talked of the difference of an academic exercise and a performance of the play,’ Wake said in an e-mail.”
Still, just because something is academic or educational does not make it appropriate. Suppose we all get together at the Weasler Auditorium. A professor could give a talk about Catholic approaches to human sexuality, John Paul’s Theology of the Body, and related topics. Then we could watch a male and female prostitute undress and have sex for a half hour on the stage. We could break for a minute to clean up the stage, grab some watered down lemonade from AMU catering, and then listen to a four-professor panel on marriage and human sexuality, including an orthodox Catholic theologian.
Such an event would still be inappropriate! Taking something that would not be appropriate and sandwiching it between a few professors including a Catholic does not make the thing in the middle appropriate. It would be educational to watch two people have sex – we could learn about the various parts of the human body and how they fit together – but just because something is educational does not grant cart blanche to present it on this college campus!
4. This is still “distractive” from the issue of sexual violence
The best way to talk about sexual violence against women is to talk about it in a symposium that does not include the Vagina Monologues. The Monologues are a charged topic and their presentation distracts from the real issue. If there were a symposium on sexual violence against women, and it included Dr. Friman talking about international sex trafficking (an issue to which my presidential candidate of preference, Sam Brownback, has paid great attention), I might attend. But this is not that. This is asking what can we do to put together a package academic enough to make a reading of the Monologues acceptable. Rather than finding unity as a campus in standing against sexual violence against women, we are distracted and divided over the appropriateness of the Monologues.
Doubtless members of the faculty and student body who pushed for and supported this performance knew this to be the case. I think that undermines their argument that this really truly is about women’s empowerment and violence against women. If that were the true and ultimate goal, then they would have picked something else that would have drawn together campus rather than splitting it apart. By pushing the Monologues specifically, I think gives further evidence of my arguments 1 and 7.
5. Bishop D’Arcy did not distinguish
During the debate over the Monologues last year, we turned to the statements of several bishops of the American Catholic Church for guidance. One was Bishop John M. D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.
Last year, the Department of Film, Television and Theatre and the Department of English sponsored a performance of the Monologues at the University of Notre Dame. Even though it was a pair of academic units sponsoring the presentation, Bishop D’Arcy still made the case that the performance shouldn’t go forward:
Pope John Paul II has made clear that a Catholic university “guarantees its members academic freedom so long as the rights of the individual person and the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.â€
— “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.â€
Here, Pope John Paul II, a longtime professor in a Catholic university, explains that freedom must always be linked to the truth and the common good. The same principles apply to artistic freedom. As a university professor, the future pope presented a series of lectures on human love and sexuality in which he reflected how artistic freedom must always be linked to the whole truth about human love and sexuality. …
The play, which is being sponsored, does not portray the whole truth about human sexuality; and by this separation, it violates the truth about the body, the truth about the gift of sexuality, the truth about love, and the truth about man and woman.
6. The University’s Dotrinal Citation is Arguable
From today’s Tribune:
According to Miller, this program is consistent with Decree 14 of the Documents of the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus: Jesuits and the Situation of Women in Church and Civil Society.
Miller said the statement calls “all Jesuits to listen carefully and courageously to the experience of women.” The statement also invites “all Jesuits, as individuals and through their institutions, to align themselves in solidarity with women” and to give “specific attention to the phenomenon of violence against women.”
First off, I think it is GREAT that the University is choosing to attempt to defend its decision based upon a particular Catholic teaching document. That the conversation is a debate between teaching documents and their logical implications is awesome. This particular document is making its second showing at Marquette – it was part of the Gender Equity Task Force report a few years back.
Second, if the University were serious about using this as a rationale for the performance of the play, then last year’s proposal should have met the criterion.
Third, listening to the voices of women, being in solidarity with them, and paying attention to violence against women are not mutually exlusive with, indeed are in many ways hindered by, the performance of the Monologues. There are many ways our campus community could come together to listen to women and learn about their experiences without the Monologues, for instance the “True Life” series at Schroeder Hall. Moreover, as we noted above, the Monologues, in their shockingly crude and offensive language, distract from serious discussion about the topic of violence against women. Some Monologues seem to present the opposite image, for instance when “In one scene, a 24-year-old woman gets a 13-year-old girl drunk and has her way with her. Afterward, the girl says, ‘if it was rape, it was a good rape. I’ll never need to rely on a man.’”
7. The Monologues are a Litmus Test
Let’s all be honest – the Vagina Monologues receive disproportionate attention on Catholic college campuses because of the media attention paid to performances in the past. Liberal students or faculty push for performances knowing that the Cardinal Newman Society and conservatives will inevitably object. Fr. David O’Connell, C.M., President of the Catholic University of America, was right on when he said “…[I]t has become a symbol each year of the desire of some folks to push Catholic campuses over the edge of good and decent judgment.†Certainly the ongoing battle at the University of Notre Dame, where the back-and-forth has garnered the greatest popular media attention, shows the degree to which the Monologues are a proxy for a bigger battle.
Character is revealed in the crucible of difficult moments and tough choices. For better or for worse, the Vagina Monologues have become a litmus test – which does a Catholic University place higher on the scale of values: its Catholic identity or academic freedom/political correctness.
This is a topic we will return to many times in the coming days, and I plan to extrapolate on several of these points. But for the moment, suffice it to say that it appears Marquette has chosen the latter option, and that is unfortunate.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/.....020808.asp
“V-Day has now replaced Valentine’s Day on more than 500 college campuses (including Catholic ones). The high point of the day is a performance of Ensler’s raunchy play, which consists of various women talking in graphic, and I mean graphic, terms about their intimate anatomy. The play is poisonously anti-male. Its only romantic scene, if you can call it that, takes place when a 24-year-old woman seduces a young girl (in the original version she was 13 years old, but in a more recent version is played as a 16-year-old.) The woman invites the girl into her car, takes her to her house, plies her with vodka, and seduces her. What might seem like a scene from a public-service kidnapping-prevention video shown to schoolchildren becomes, in Ensler’s play “a kind of heaven.—
[...] Fighting Like Warriors and Thinking Right. Systematically Debunking Liberal Rhetoric. « The Monologues are BACK! [...]
I think we all want to know one thing: How long did it take you to write that?
Dan-
Every one of your points is misguided.
1) re: Shift is ideological, not educational
The motivations of the students involved are irrelevant. The university is the entity allowing the symposium, and HP is in charge of making sure it is presented in an educational, rather than ideological manner. You express a great deal of respect for the HP directors, so what is the problem? If you think HP is incapable of being ideologically unbiased, then make that case.
2) re: VM is not HP material
Recount the Professor of the Month lectures given at Straz Hall our first year. That was essentially the same type of event – an academic providing a public lecture with discussion following. I also recall an HP forum in 2004 regarding diversity and the Golden Eagles/Warriors issue. HP has done these kinds of programs in the past – this one may be bigger than the others, but the ultimate aim of fostering intellectual discussion in a public atmosphere remains unchanged. (One of those professorial lectures was delivered by Dr. Ashmore, and the topic was the Israel/Palestine conflict. You probably know Dr. Ashmore’s perspective, yet I don’t recall any protests back then.)
3) re: Prostitutes having sex
This example is ridiculous. I think reasonable people can differentiate between a monologue that talks about sex and an act of illegal voyeurism.
4) re: VM distracts from issue of sexual violence
VM may contain scenes of sexual violence – thus the symposium allows an appropriate format in which those scenes can be discussed and the greater issue of sexual violence dissected. It is my understanding that this will be achieved by consulting “experts†from the university on the topic, such as professors who have experience with rape and crisis counseling, groups that have done peer education regarding sexual assault and violence, and university support personnel who focus on the issue.
Your Dr. Friman example – I’m glad you would attend such a talk, but the same cannot be said of the majority of your peers. During sexual violence awareness week last fall, a number of speakers and events on campus sought to foster dialogue about violence against women, yet these events were sparsely attended. Even when a survivor of sexual assault who was stuffed in a garbage can and locked away for two days came to address students, only a few could turn out. Thus, it becomes necessary to integrate these events in such a way that as many students as possible will have their interest piqued and come to learn more. The VM is not distractive at all.
5) re: The Pope
The PJPII comment you quote does not prohibit presentation of VM. The format that is being presented appropriately allows for qualified Catholic speakers to expose the VM for its alleged “untruth†and directly refute the “un-Catholic†messages within the play.
6) re: University’s doctrinal citation
This point is essentially the same as #4 – VM distracts from sexual violence. That is not the case.
7) re: Attention to VM
Will the symposium get a high degree of attention because it contains a performance of VM? Yes. Is it because of liberal students, as you allege? No. The past history, as well as campus media (this blog included), play a large role in ratcheting up the supposed “controversyâ€. Nevertheless, this is ultimately beneficial because it will cause more people to come to the event and learn about the issue of sexual violence and how it relates to women, human rights, and the Catholic faith.
Your case for censorship is unsound. You and your anti-VM ilk should revel in the opportunity to attend such a symposium with your Cathechisms in tow. It provides an unprecedented opportunity for learning about sexual violence with the issues of human rights and Catholic principles at the center of the discussion.
Greg, your response is thoughtful as always.
1) I do think motivation is important here. The students are trying to press the envelope, see if what they couldn’t get last year as JUSTICE they could get this year as HP. And I think the professors’ remarks at the Fairfield conference on feminism do show an ideological element at play on their end too.
Consider a hypothetical: If the College Democrats invited Barak Obama to speak on campus, my understanding of current policy is that he would be asked not to talk about abortion or other issues where he disagreed with Catholic teaching. Yet if the Department of Political Science invited him to be the keynote speaker of a conference on abortion, he could spend an hour laying out his case for abortion as long as the faculty panel that followed that discussion included a token Catholic.
In other words, this is about whether the University Administration has any self-respect and integrity to insist on its right to lay down the law and say some things simply cannot be done here, or if instead it will acknowledge that whatever students want that they cannot get as student groups they simply need find a sympathetic professor to do it as an “academic” event.
2) I think one can distinguish between the professor of the month events and this particular five-hour multi-part forum. Moreover, I don’t recall whether the HP proper or HP Student Association sponsored these.
3) This example is not ridiculous. If you truly believe that anything goes under the title of “academic freedom,” then you must defend the public sex scene. If you don’t believe the public sex scene is acceptable, then you admit there are limits to academic freedom. Then the question is where to draw that line, and I believe a good case can be made it should be on this side of the performance of the Monologues.
4) Essentially your argument is that the VM have shock value, that their shocking and extreme nature makes them a subject of controversy, that this controversy draws people to the reading, and once their butts are in the seats we can tell them about violence against women. But recognize the cost you pay for getting them in the seats: you expose a large number of students to a shocking, extreme, obscene, offensive, vulgar, swear-word-filled play that many believe demeans and objectifies women.
5) The JPII quote sets the “confines” for academic freedom, namely truth and the common good. Bishop D’Arcy argues that this play presents a false image of female sexuality and does not contribute to the common good and edification of our community. Thus, it is outside the bounds of academic freedom and its performance cannot be defended on the basis of academic freedom. Yet the academic freedom argument is the one the Administration is making.
6) My point is not only that it is “distractive,” but that the issue of sexual violence against women can be talked about in other ways that fulfill the General Congregation’s call for listening without using an obscene means to the worthy end.
7) I make two points – one, see my 4 that getting students to attend a presentation about sexual violence is not worth the price of exposing them all to the obscenity and false teaching of the Monologues, and two, I do believe this is a stunt by liberals to force the Administration to pick between political correctness/academic freedom and Catholic identity.
If Catholic principles were at the center of the discussion, maybe the organizers would have recruited a Catholic theologian or someone with an orthodox Catholic reputation to the panel. But they can’t and won’t be able to get an orthodox Catholic on the panel, I will bet, because no orthodox Catholic would endorse the performance on campus by participating in the symposium.
The university is cited it’s own Jesuit doctrines as justification for hosting the Vagina Monologues … that’s just precious.
I don’t understand why the Jesuits don’t just break off from Catholicism and become just a regular Protestant organization. If you’re going to declare yourself the sole arbitrator of truth beholden to no one, especially the Pope, have the balls to go all out!
BTW – NEWSFLASH TO MARQUETTE – NO SERIOUS CATHOLIC GROUP IN THE UNIVERSE CONSIDERS JESUIT ORGANIZATIONAL STATUTUES LEGITIMATE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE.
[...] Second, I think there is a line that is being missed by our current discussion between academic and awareness. Is this symposium an academic discussion of the statistics and personal stories of sexual violence, or is it about student awareness of sexual violence on campus and in society? (See Greg’s comment on my earlier post). [...]
The Vagina Monologues are narratives. They aren’t promoting anything. And they certainly weren’t written by a woman who wasn’t interested in women’s health.
A similar thing happened to Jim Webb. Were some of the select and out of context narratives odd? Sure. But because someone can think up a narrative, or a movie–we have a lot of writers of horror films who are anti-murder and torture. I hardly think that’s odd.
It’s widely accepted in mental health fields–psychiatry to medical sociology–that to recover from trauma, it’s important to talk about the event and your feelings about it. The more you do that, the better you feel. What are those? They’re narratives.
Y’all are stuck on one skit–which is a shocking one, no doubt, but it’s shocking to stir discussion. Doubtless many opponents have done the same thing about other topics–certainly they have about the Monologues.
The Vagina Monologues are sure right on topic about violence against women.
–>
My guess right now that none of you have seen them performed. Even if you’ve read them. It’s no good. WHY? Because as well all know plays aren’t meant to be read, they’re meant to be watched. Shakespeare didn’t publish any of his works.
–>
Genital mutilation, heterosexual rape, sexual repression. These are all issues dealt with in the Monologues.
The cunt skit (another that’s often cited) is about taking back a word that by social convention is a vulgar word for vagina, and it’s also used as an insult. Like saying you’re gay or a retard.
Last, the Monologues are serious and deal with serious issues. But there is no lack of humor. I’ve had to hold myself in my chair everytime I’ve seen them.
Is humor appropriate you may ask? I point no further than political cartoons.
[...] Apparently, this program is also being allowed as an academic event as being consistent with a Decree in the Documents of the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus: Jesuits and the Situation of Women in Church and Civil Society, which calls “all Jesuits to listen carefully and courageously to the experience of women.” The website Gop3.com was successful last year in leading the charge in denying the Monologue performance on campus. They intend to do so again and give 7 reasons why it should be banned as an academic assembly. [...]
Here is a useful litmus test for the Catholic university administrator, who may be contemplating sponsoring the Vagina Monologues:
Is this presentation of the character that you would ask our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, to observe and learn something from? Would you ask Jesus to take a seat in the front row, so that he could learn something He didn’t know about the lives of women?
If your answer is “No”, that should be the answer you give the Vagina Monologues.
Regarding Logan’s point about “taking back” cunt and claiming it as a source of power…
I consider myself a feminist. However, I don’t understand woman who want to “re”claim cunt and bitch as positive words anymore than blacks who want to reclaim the n word and own in. The problem with this line of thinking is these words were *never* positive words. They are hateful and representative of a history of oppression.
[...] Now that is a strong statement. And he is right that the play has become a symbol – that was my litmus test argument on an earlier post. [...]
Bush goes ballistic about other countries being evil and dangerous, because they have weapons of mass destruction. But, he insists on building up even a more deadly supply of nuclear arms right here in the US. What do you think? What is he doing to us, and what is he doing to the world?
Our country is in debt until forever, we don’t have jobs, and we live in fear. We have invaded a country and been responsible for thousands of deaths.
The more people that the government puts in jails, the safer we are told to think we are. The real terrorists are wherever they are, but they aren’t living in a country with bars on the windows. We are.
[...] good folks at the Cardinal Newman Society (frequent duelers with the Administration) have also hopped on the Fire Maguire movement (LifeSite): Cardinal Newman [...]