Review of 'The Vagina Monologues' by Eve Ensler

Towards the start of 2018, I set myself a book bucket list of all the things I wanted to read this year. It's been a while since I read a play, and I kind of miss it, so The Vagina Monologues took pride of place as the only play on the list. I've heard amazing things about it, which made me worried that I'd be let down when I read it, but this was so far from the truth. 

The Vagina Monologues is one of the most thought-provoking things I've read all year. It made me reconsider my own body, the political landscape that my body fits in, and why we should celebrate all women's bodies. It brought things that I always knew deep down out into the open where I could really consider them. For instance: body hair and its politicisation. I know body hair is politicised, I know that women used to be happy to have body hair everywhere until razor companies started targeting us to double their profits (a true story). But, I'd forgotten how much stigma comes with any kind of body hair: pubes and you're dirty, armpit hair and you're a raging feminazi, no hair and you're no longer a virgin. And we never stop to think about the weird insistence on going back to this hairless childlike state, and why it's so appealing. 

This is just one of the topics that the book covers. It also looks at domestic abuse, sexual abuse, childbirth, masturbation, sex, etc, from a whole range of different perspectives. My one warning for this book is that if you're a victim of sexual assault, the monologues in this book may be triggering. 

I'm so grateful I read this, as it completely opened my eyes to a whole range of things. There was an incredible foreword by Gloria Steinem in my copy, which absolutely made the book ten times better and helped to explain the fundamental theories behind the monologues, and give them a bit more substance.

This book could be quite triggering, as previously mentioned, but I really do thing it's a very important thing for all genders to give a go, to understand the politics and depth of meaning behind the mighty vagina.

Have you read it? What did you think?

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