Eve Ensler
Whilst staying with a friend about a month ago, I read two of Eve Ensler's books in one long late-night session. (They're short books, hardly more than pamphlets. It didn't involve staying awake all night.)
Both the "Vagina Monologues" and "The Good Body" shocked and appalled me, in that Ensler assumes that all women, or at least most Western women, are disgusted or ashamed of their bodies. As a man, I guess there's no way I can know whether it's true, but speaking to female family and friends, it seems as if Ensler has projected her own American insecurities into the world.
But what surprised me is that she still retains the euphemisms that she rails against, in her book. Speaking as a biologist with an interest in linguistics and precision in literature, I don't understand why her polemic in "The Good Body" is aimed at women's discomfort with their "stomachs". A stomach is a bag, part of the intestines. Why can't she say abdomen, belly, tummy, gut? All of those are more accurate. A stomach is not a belly. And again, in the Monologues she uses the anatomically inaccurate term "vagina" when she means -I guess- pudendum, fanny, pussy, cunt, or any other term for the assemblage of labia and folds that are the entrance to the tunnel of the vagina itself. It's a strange cowardice for a radical feminist. It's as if one always referred to an arsehole (anus) as a rectum or intestine. One of the wonders of English is that the language has two vocabularies: one curt and Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Norse, and the other more wordy, polysyllabic, with the Romance of Norman-French and Latin roots. She opts for the easy, learned-sounding Southern tongues every time, even when it's the wrong choice.
How can she preach comfort and ease with one's body when she is so obviously experiencing & causing discomfort herself, by her choice of words and language? I don't understand.
One shocking passage - not a back one - in one of the books, I cannot remember which, actually celebrated the alcohol-assisted rape or assault of a thirteen-year-old girl by an older woman; describing it as a positive experience. It was contrasted with earlier rapes of the same vulnerable girl by men, but was still a one-night, one-off nasty seduction that was presented as acceptable because it was initiated by a woman. Strange.
:¬I
Both the "Vagina Monologues" and "The Good Body" shocked and appalled me, in that Ensler assumes that all women, or at least most Western women, are disgusted or ashamed of their bodies. As a man, I guess there's no way I can know whether it's true, but speaking to female family and friends, it seems as if Ensler has projected her own American insecurities into the world.
But what surprised me is that she still retains the euphemisms that she rails against, in her book. Speaking as a biologist with an interest in linguistics and precision in literature, I don't understand why her polemic in "The Good Body" is aimed at women's discomfort with their "stomachs". A stomach is a bag, part of the intestines. Why can't she say abdomen, belly, tummy, gut? All of those are more accurate. A stomach is not a belly. And again, in the Monologues she uses the anatomically inaccurate term "vagina" when she means -I guess- pudendum, fanny, pussy, cunt, or any other term for the assemblage of labia and folds that are the entrance to the tunnel of the vagina itself. It's a strange cowardice for a radical feminist. It's as if one always referred to an arsehole (anus) as a rectum or intestine. One of the wonders of English is that the language has two vocabularies: one curt and Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Norse, and the other more wordy, polysyllabic, with the Romance of Norman-French and Latin roots. She opts for the easy, learned-sounding Southern tongues every time, even when it's the wrong choice.
How can she preach comfort and ease with one's body when she is so obviously experiencing & causing discomfort herself, by her choice of words and language? I don't understand.
One shocking passage - not a back one - in one of the books, I cannot remember which, actually celebrated the alcohol-assisted rape or assault of a thirteen-year-old girl by an older woman; describing it as a positive experience. It was contrasted with earlier rapes of the same vulnerable girl by men, but was still a one-night, one-off nasty seduction that was presented as acceptable because it was initiated by a woman. Strange.
:¬I
posted by Moses at
10:03 am
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