Vagina Oratory

Amanda at Pandagon writes a masterful piece about the latest attempt to censor the Vagina Monologues.

She notes:

Dust-ups occur over meaning

Specifically:

When he says that young people were exposed to this passage, is he mad that 14-year-olds learned that women have vaginas? Or is he mad that teenage girls are exposed to the idea that there’s something wrong with a world where women don’t feel free to walk down the street without getting randomly punished for having vaginas? I have my suspicions.

Apparently the high school in question does not have biology or health classes. This aside, I think there is something fundamentally frightening to any authority figure at play here. The subordinates (in this case, students), were up on a stage saying the word vagina and declaring their freedom. The specific “problem” phrase bears repeating:

My short skirt is a liberation
flag in the women’s army
I declare these streets, any streets
my vagina’s country.

Appearing on a stage lends authority. During an open-mic event (or any theatrical event), the audience willingly lends authority to the actors on stage. When taken in the context of school assemblies, classroom setup, and events studied in history class (famous speeches and the like), a person speaking to a group, especially from a stage, demands attention and respect. It is the same social expectation that makes the process of giving the speech so nerve-racking. The speaker occupies a very real rhetorical space where authority, responsibility reign and cause and effect become palpable.

I think many administrators or school authority figures would feel uncomfortable with students reading the Ballot or the Bullet. What makes this especially worrisome for the principal is he tried to restrict their speech, and they bravely pushed ahead anyway. They didn’t use just any speech either. They chose a work that affirmed their inherent rights to act and be free. That is what made the principle burn so. Not only was his power undermined, but it was made crystal clear that he had abused that power. He had no right to hide behind that old canard of “won’t someone please think of the children?!”. (The children in this case were freshmen in high school). The students wanted to engage in political speech, and neither the content nor the use of the word vagina provide a reasonable excuse for attempting to suppress that speech.

Amanda is dead on here: This is about meaning. However the frightful scream of “insubordination” is, in this case, not just a cover. People don’t like being undermined especially when they are in the wrong.