Three girls were suspended by their Cross River, NY, high school for defying a ban on saying the word "vagina" during a reading from the play The Vagina Monologues. The word is "inappropriate," explains vaginaless principal Richard Leprine, because the event, a reading put on by a literary magazine, was open to the community, which includes children.
Monologues author Eve Ensler applauded the students' defiance, and said: "The school's position is absurd, a throwback to the Dark Ages. So what, if children were to hear the word? Would that be terrible? We're not talking about plutonium here, or acid rain, a word that destroys lives. It's a body part!"
To those girls I say, "huzzah!"
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think it's kind of silly for people to be complaining about their subsequent suspension.
Their act was an act of mini civil disobedience. As the name suggests, disobedience involves disobeying, and accepting the resulting punishment. The administrators made a stupid rule and the smart teens disobeyed it.
Now it's time for them to serve their in-school suspension without complaining and to let the media do its job.
How come a play titled "The Vagina Monologues" is opened to children? And how silly is being suspended for saying a word that, besides not being offensive, is in the title of the play?
ReplyDeletePeople can be really stupid sometimes.