Pull up your socks, Western feminism!

Gearing up for International Women's Week/Day, I attended Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at the National Gallery with my boyfriend and his/our (male) friend. Feeling the gender solidarity, I relaxed into my chair and let the vagina talk sweep me into a world of love for bleeding, hair and odours. I have to say, for all my squeamishness, it is a pretty liberating atmosphere. Nobody calls that stuff "discharge" and hair is not prefaced with "unwanted" and it's considered par for the course to take a time out to inspect oneself with a spotlight and a hand mirror. My vagina thought this was a good place. On top of this, our friend Meg performed two monologues, and she was fabulous.

HOWEVER, as is to be expected at a relatively mainstream feminist event, I found some of the transcript frighteningly problematic. I don't see the event as male- or hetero-hating, and while we could spend time debating the use of the word "vagina" and the hetero=violence, lesbian=rescuer representations, I'm not too hung up on this (actually, I sort of am, but I'll save it for another time). There is stuff going on with this V-Day move to "end violence against women and girls," though, that makes me squirm...

I know I'm hypersensitive to race issues at the moment, but these need to be addressed in mainstream liberal/radical Western feminist activism. The Vagina Monologues unwittingly contributes to the colonial feminism that some feminist activists in academia and the community are trying desperately to attack. Inadvertent or not, it's time for activism to be more self-aware.

Every year, V-Day highlights a different world issue under the VAW theme. This year, all eyes are on women in Haiti. Hmmm... This provoked a background check on my part which upturned the colonial roots I anticipated. In 2003, Eve Ensler focused the spotlight on women under Taliban rule in Afghanistan with a monologue entitled "Under the Burqa." Nice post-9/11 "war on terror" timing, Eve. Now that I've done some digging, I realize my sense of covert racism in Eve's themes was bang on. While the monologues I watched weren't as explicitly Orientalist as "Under the Burqa," and I think the racism and colonialism bound up in the Monologues is unintentional, the ignorance is inexcusable. Addressing a "third world woman's" (hate this concept, think it's essentialist, read: Chandra Mohanty) experience with violence and rape is irresponsible feminism. In My Village Was My Vagina, a tribute to the "victims" of rape camps in Bosnia and Kosovo, rape and torture is totally externalized as something that is committed by others, against others. Where are the situated knowledges? Where is the critique of domestic violence at home on Turtle Island? Where is the monologue about the pretty (Christian) white woman in Connecticut whose handsome (upper class) husband comes home from his Manhattan office and rapes her on their marital bed? And what about rape in queer relationships? What about sexual violence by women? What's with all the ablebodiedness? The more I think about it, the more the representations in this play disappoint me. They disappoint me... they drive me nuts.

AND THIS BRINGS ME TO LADY GAGA'S BORN THIS WAY VIDEO!!

Not to harp on Gaga, but her most recent video begs feminist commentary. Alright, rewriting the creation myth, check. Cyborgs, double check. Gender bending/refusal, it's all there. If you're looking for a neat summary of Gaga's appropriation of these tried and true Western feminist traditions, the LA Times Music Blog nails it.

Problem: representation of difference. What difference? Sure, she's appropriating queer/drag imagery as she tells us we're beautiful even if we're disabled, trans, Lebanese or "orient." Well that's a relief. But where is the diversity in this video? Gaga can't help being a thin blonde bombshell in a designer bikini ("God makes no mistakes!"), but she can, as an artist, take responsibility for her own self-proclaimed feminism. Her trans imagery was femmed out to the max and her hallmark plastic makeup and hair extensions routine felt a little much for the "I'm beautiful in my way" theme.

Nice track, Gaga, but get some guts.