Monday, June 18, 2012

Eve Ensler and Lisa Brown to read Vagina Monologues in Michigan

Author and state congresswoman will protest Brown's banishment from debate for reference

Paul Harris in New York
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 June 2012 15.47 EDT
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Eve Ensler: 'Vagina. If you can'

t say it, you can't protest or complain when it's violated.' Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

Award-winning playwright Eve Ensler is set to add her voice to a wave of outrage against the silencing of a state lawmaker for uttering the word "vagina" in a political debate over abortion in Michigan.

Ensler, whose best known piece is the Vagina Monologues, will now join other protesters on Monday in a reading of the famous feminist work on the steps of the state's capitol building in Lansing.

"I can't wait to moan!" she said in a message posted to her Twitter account.

The demonstration will be just the latest manifestation of dismay against the barring of state congresswoman Lisa Brown after she referred to her own vagina during a debate on the passing of contentious new abortion regulations.

"I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no'," Brown said at the end of her speech on the new anti-abortion laws last week, prompting Republicans to disallow her from speaking at a different debate the next day.

When news of the censure broke it prompted a Twitter storm of protest that spread around the world, as well as vocal condemnation from women's rights and free speech proponents.

On her own Twitter account Ensler has been furious in condemning the action. "Vagina. If you can't say it, you can't protest or complain when it 's violated. It never belonged to you," she stated.

Ensler will now join Brown and other local state politicians and actors for a performance of the Vagina Monologues on Monday night.

She has also encouraged her 11,000 Twitter followers to send stories about their own vaginas to Michigan Republican leader James Bolger.

Bolger, who took the step to silence Brown, has defended the move. In a statement released to the press he claimed Brown had "failed to maintain the decorum" of the legislature.

The Vagina Monologues is work that was first performed in New York in 1996 and consists of a series of different stories that each in their way relate to women's sexuality and their own bodies.

Each year a new monologue is added to highlight a different women's issue, and performances of the play have become a key part of many women's rights organisations activities around the world.