Welcome to the Sciences Po Vagina Monologues 2015 blog!

Dear all,

We are very excited to launch the Sciences Po Vagina Monologues blog today, the 8th of March, to announce not only that we are only a month away from our event (which will take place on the 10th of April 2015, in Amphiteatre Jean Moulin, 13 rue de l’Universite, Paris @ 19h) but also to celebrate the International Women’s Day!

In 2015, we are still far from living in a world where being a woman represents not having equal rights-be it equal pay, access to education and healthcare-,or even living in a state of fear that rape, domestic violence, FGM (female genital mutilation) happen in all impunity.

We need not be afraid! We will speak out for women’s and girls’ rights!

International Women’s Day Celebration in Paris, France
-Place de la Republique

If your vagina could talk, what would it say?

This year’s cast of fierce and lovely women that will be performing at Sciences Po have thought about what their vaginas would say if they had a chance: Here are some of their replies…

“Gimme rain”

“I know what I want and I’m a happy vagina”

“Yay”

“Saquen sus rosarios de nuestros ovarios”

“I don’t need a man to make me happy”

“I bring you honey made from flowers”

“Oooohhhhh”

“Hmm..yes…more”

Mon vagin et moi…

Mon vagin et moi, aujourd’hui, avons vécu une nouvelle expérience…

L’expérience est arrivée par la poste. Un coup de téléphone de la part du livreur pour me dire qu’il avait déposé un petit colis dans ma boîte aux lettres. Je suis allée voir, et l’expérience était là.

Toute emballée, dans une belle boîte noire très chic, déposée sur du velours. On aurait dit un Iphone. Mais c’était tout autre chose…

A la vue de cet objet, mon vagin et moi étions tout émoustillés. Il faut dire que mon vagin adore le sexe. Il adore les orgasmes. Et l’expérience, offerte à moi sur son lit de velours, en annonçait plus d’un.

Sans plus tarder, mon vagin et moi avons tenté l’expérience. Nous avons tenté toutes les fonctions de l’expérience. Je zappais d’un mode à l’autre, d’une puissance à l’autre, et pendant ce temps-là mon vagin riait, mon vagin était heureux. Et tandis que mon vagin s’amusait, je me demandais… Je me demandais pourquoi je n’y avais jamais pensé plus tôt. Pourquoi tout le monde n’y pense pas, systématiquement. Pourquoi on voit ça comme quelque de honteux, quelque chose de sale.

La violence contre les femmes, c’est sale, le sexisme, c’est sale.  Mais le plaisir de mon vagin, exalté par les pulsations de l’expérience, était on ne peut plus pur.

 Mon vagin et moi sommes ressortis de l’expérience comme délestés du poids des tabous, grandis, libérés.

An Education

by Mariya Yefremova

I read ‘My Vagina Was My Village’ in a Women’s Studies course in college when I was 18. I had decided by that point that I wanted women’s studies to be my minor and had read various gruesome and thought-provoking works on the subject of violence against women. Nonetheless, I cried as we read the monologue in class. The poetry of the story coupled with the violence and the sorrow was heart-breaking.

I bought the Vagina Monologues and read them over and over, even forcing my mother to read them begrudgingly (she has a rule against reading works that have a negative effect on her state of mind and I generally respect that rule. I decided this was a legitimate exception). I went to see the Vagina Monologues again and again. I went to various events in which Eve Ensler participated and was ecstatic when I was finally able to meet the woman who had so magnificently woven together such a variety of diverse women’s stories.

Vagina Triumph!

We are so grateful to all the supportive audience members who joined us to end violence against women. Thanks to you we raised an incredible 258.86 euros for the Collectif Féministe Contre le Viol!

In case you missed it, you can still join us on April 25th at 20h, at the Fondation des Etats Unis at the Cité Universitaire, 15 boulevard Jourdan, 75014. See you there!

The vaginas are waiting!

Come meet these beautiful vaginas and more in the Péniche!

And leave a message for women’s rights!

 

Liberte, Egalite, Parite

Quand est-ce que les femmes françaises ont obtenu le droit de vote?

Si vous ne savez pas, vous n’êtes pas seul. Ce n’était qu’en 1944 qu’on a accordé aux femmes le droit de vote, comme l’explique une des premières électrices françaises dans ce témoignage touchant:

 

Wolverine of Balls Street writes …

My friend went to the theatre with her husband here in Paris the other day. She came home very disappointed. Almost all of the female characters were nude without a purpose and all she got was a little male ass. Some might like a hairy male ass, but my friend thought she got the short end of the stick. In her boredom she looked around the audience in the darkness and realized that she was not the only one, all the husbands and boyfriends had a content smirk on their faces and the wives and girlfriends were feeling generally a bit pissed.

A similar thing happened to me while watching The Wolf of Wall Street. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. Loads of fully naked female bodies, all very fit of course, being filmed in a way that compliments the male gaze. It was obvious that the women were being fucked, they were not fucking the men. The women, mostly whores, desired the men, they desired to be fucked by them, nothing else. The women are only portrayed as the passive object of the male desire and the male gaze.

What was also interesting was that in this film they did not show one dick. Considering the amount of female nakedness you might assume that DiCaprio could be persuaded to show some dong. But nooooo.  Even when Jonah Hill is pulling his pants down to pee in a bucket, the camera moved quickly up from his middle area and to his face! Come on!

Let’s un-taboo “domestic violence”

We were having dinner. Everyone was enjoying themselves, laughing and telling jokes.  Boys will be boys, or so they say, and one of my friends picked up a knife and pointed it at me, pretending to be a pirate. Little did he know that pointing that sharp object in my face would trigger memories that I had buried deep, long time ago.

You see, my father was an abusive alcoholic (I say was,..he still is), who would regularly beat my mother up. For no particular reason…we used to call it “he’s in the crazy mood”, which meant that we were supposed to be as quiet as possible. I’d cringe every time the phone rang and avoided leaving my room, so as not to make the old wooden door screech and remind him we were there.  But fear was always present. I had even learned how to identify whether he was drunk or not by the way that he walked between the elevator and our front door- scenarios were being created in my head in those 10 seconds and panic would take over. In hindsight, what I find most heart-wrenching is the indescribable joy I had as a little girl, when it turned out he was in fact sober. No toy or present could replace the feeling that, at least for that day, we were safe.

We need to talk

 

I was raped. Five years ago, after a party, by a stranger who shared the taxi home with me. At the party we flirted, he refilled my drink. I enjoyed kissing him in the back of the cab on the ride back to the neighborhood where we both lived. When he invited me up to his flat I drunkenly agreed. I didn’t know that this 27-year-old man expected sex from this 19-year old girl. When he started removing my clothes I said, Wait, I’ve never done this before. I can’t, I’m not ready, stop. Please. STOP. And then he was inside me and I was paralyzed. The weight of him on top of me and the fear trapped me. He finished and fell asleep, crushing me, and still I couldn’t move. It was as if I was watching it happen to someone else.

 In the morning I got dressed, gathered my things, and walked home. I was bleeding. I was numb. Later I saw a friend who had been at the party. “I saw you went home with Him. Did you have a good night? He’s always trying to get in everyone’s pants.” I couldn’t respond.