Fourteen
ladies, one room and “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler... something
important had to happen!!!
“V-Talk!
The Vagina Monologues workshop” took place at Duffy’s Bar in Leicester on the 5th
of October 2013. It was part of Everybody’s Reading festival. The coordinator
of this event – Magda Korytkowska – said: “I read The Vagina Monologues a few
months ago and this play made a huge impact on me. First of all, I could
experience other women thoughts and it let me experience a community, a culture of femininity. But what is more important it
opened my eyes on the excellent way of raising awareness about violence against
women: the V-Day movement. This global movement, which uses art, music, dance and theatre to stand up against brutality as well as sexual and emotional abuse,
really makes a difference. I wanted to be part of the V-Day so I decided to
organise the V-Talk! workshop.”
The participants of the workshop hadn’t met
ever before but the ice was broken very quickly. Ladies attended because they
were curious, intrigued by the title, interested… They had found the issues we
were going to discuss interesting, deep and sometimes funny. And they had
noticed that people were shocked when the word “vagina” was used openly: “(… ) whether
I was learning to talk, to spell, or to take care of my own body, I was told
the name of each of its amazing parts – except in one unmentionable area. This
left me unprotected against (…) the popular belief that men, whether as lovers
or physicians, knew more about women’s bodies that women did”. So… we all decided
to use this word even more!
There was
an introduction to “The Vagina Monologues” play. Only a few of the ladies have
seen it on stage before so we looked into the fragments of the play thoroughly. We
watched the beginning of the play and listened to Eve’s story – how “the Vagina”
found her and “pulled” her, how the interviews with women – random chats at the
beginning – didn’t let her go back. We started to talk… and we couldn’t stop!
As Eve said: “I decided to talk to women about their vaginas (…) They were a
little shy. But once they got going, you couldn’t stop them. Women secretly
love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited, mainly because no one has
ever asked them before .” So we shared a few stories – funny stories, charming
stories, bitter stories and strange stories.
We also found the answers to the
questions:
1. If your Vagina could talk, what
would it say in two words?”
Stop prying, be gentle, please don’t hurt me, don’t
be scared, I’m not scary, let’s be friends, Hello! Peek-a-boo, Smile! Welcome
Home...
2. If your Vagina got dressed, what
would it wear?
Glitter, lipstick, a feather boa, silk, dungarees, flares, red
beret, jewelery, a cute little pink belt…
3. What does a vagina smell like?
Perfume, moist, smell of sunshine – the summer warm night, a woman, a bit sweet
and a bit sour…
Duffy’s Bar
prepared the special V-Day Lunch Menu which we enjoyed together followed by
Magda’s scrummy cake J
In the
afternoon we went out to explore the city doing the market research. We split
out into teams which visited a bookshop, a newsagents, shop displays and The
New Walk Museum. We shared our thoughts within the group when we came back and
we discussed if we were happy or not with the images of women we saw. Then we worked
with Magda’s collages, created from women magazine clippings, further discussing
the publicly built image of us.
The last
part of the workshop was entirely focused on the V-Day movement which creates an
umbrella opened above local organizations providing help for the sufferers of domestic violence, sexual and emotional abuse. We agreed that we are going to
join the V-Day movement by organizing the V-Day Leicester. The first meeting, a
work-out session to make it happen, is planned on Wednesday the 5th
of October, 8pm, Duffy’s Bar. Leicester is really going to “Raise, Release,Dance and Demand justice”!
More pictures are available on FACEBOOK V-Day Leicester :)
