It's funny. I watched this play last year (translated to Portuguese, though). Barring the V... word's extensive use, I didn't perceive anything offensive in it. To tell you the truth, nor the "v" word's use was offensive, since it's pivotal to the play's motiff.
The School Principal says it wasn't the 'word' that got them suspended, but the fact they didn't respect orders. Well... read and draw your own conclusions, people.
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quote: The school "recognizes and respects student freedom of expression," Leprine said. "That right, however, is not unfettered."
"When a student is told by faculty members not to present specified material because of the composition of the audience and they agree to do so, it is expected that the commitment will be honored and the directive will be followed," he said. "When a student chooses not to follow the directive, consequences follow."
I really don't have a problem with that position on the part of the school administration.
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posted
The question is: Was the word offensive to 'the composition of the audience'? It's a body part's name, mentioned in a well-known and respected (and very, very good) play.
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posted
The school was in a no-win position. Let it go, and they'd probably get written up in some local equivalent of the Rhino Times as being enemies of the family and corruptors of youth.
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posted
Yeah, I agree with Icarus. I think the school did the best it could in a bad spot.
I don't find the word offensive. I don't think it should be offensive. It is going to provoke a reaction, though, and is meant to do that, I think. Because of that, the school really had no choice but to say, "Sorry, you can't do that here."
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quote:Originally posted by Eduardo_Sauron: It's a body part's name, mentioned in a well-known and respected (and very, very good) play.
It's a very controversial play with very mature themes. Personally, I don't think it belongs in high schools. And it's not just any body part. It's precisely because of the power of the word and the body part it represents that it doesn't need to be treated lightly. And just because it's used in the context of a serious work doesn't mean that the majority of high school students will receive it that way.
But aside from my own opinion of the content, I also think that schools need to have the ability to draw the line somewhere. I think there are places where some censorship is appropriate, and a public school is one of them. Let the girls perform The Vagina Monologues in an independent setting if they want to.
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posted
I agree that if the girls broke what they agreed to, they should be punished. I don't think I agree with what they were kinda forced to agree to and this may be a place for legitimate criticism of the school.
From what I read, it wasn't the play itself that they wre told they couldn't read from. The school was okay with the play, just not the word "vagina". I think, based on the limited account I have, that they were clearly in the wrong in trying to censor the the girls saying vagina.
I don't know if the girls had/tried other ways of addressing this. If they didn't, while, again, I think they should expect and accept punishment, they did a right thing and the school needs to make things right.
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posted
It was interesting to me that the district superintendent said that if the girls had wanted to perform the whole play, they would probably not have met opposition. It's because this was an evening that included monologues out-of-context, so to speak, that they were not allowed.
quote:"As long as the intended audience knows what to expect, we don't have a problem with it."
This actually makes sense to me ... if you know you're going to The Vagina Monologues, you have enough info to make a decision whether it's appropriate or not. But in the middle of an evening of other things, with no warning, it could be controversial. So I understand why the school made the decision it did in the first place.
Once they made that decision and the students agreed to it, they had to stick to it. The girls decided that "standing up for their rights" was worth going against school officials and breaking their word. If so, then it must be worth accepting the punishment and there's no room to gripe about it. That's what I always tell my kids: sometimes (rarely) you have to break the rules because the rules aren't right. But you have to decide if it's really worth accepting the consequences ... because if you choose to break the rules for some greater good, you have to acknowledge that you're still going to be punished and that accepting that punishment would be better than obeying a bad rule.
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posted
It's clear these girls knew the shock value of the word, and intended for their use of it in a classroom setting to be jarring:
quote:The girls took turns reading the excerpt until they came to the word, then said it together.
Their actions were an act of defiance. They effectively created the stir they were hoping for, and now they deserve to be punished for breaking the rules.
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posted
Trying to imagine what my school would do... Yeah. We censored Arsenic and Old Lace to take out the word bastard. Curiously enough, the same word was allowed in Les Mis.
Mind you, I think our drama teacher wanted so badly to avoid trouble that she self-censored way more than my fairly liberal school would have censored. A nationaly prominate evangalist sent his duaghter to my school, and he aparently objected to a line in an earlier play. Curiously, his daughter was also in Les Mis, although she did not play a prostitute.
Ah, school drama. In all senses of those words.
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posted
This reminds me of a thread from earlier this year about a graduation speaker in a very similar situation. She submitted her graduation speech, which was quite evangelical in its proclamation of faith. The school told her it was not appropriate. She agreed. Then at graduation she gave the speech anyway. The administration pulled the plug and disciplined the student (appropriately, IMO).
Personally, I'm not big of, in Ensler's words, "resist[ing] authority when it's not appropriate and wise." I generally think the minimal amount of good it does is more than offset by the dangerous precedent it sets. This is not to say there aren't extreme situations when disobedience is appropriate and moral; I just think those situations are fewer and further (farther?) between than is usually recognized. Certainly the right to celebrate the sentiment that "I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country" before students and parents is not, IMO, sufficient to contravene the negative effect of flaunting administrative authority.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: It's clear these girls knew the shock value of the word, and intended for their use of it in a classroom setting to be jarring:
Tiny nitpick: it was NOT in a classroom; it was at an evening function of the school's literary magazine. Since it wasn't in a classroom situation, I have much less of a problem with it than I otherwise might.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: Their actions were an act of defiance. They effectively created the stir they were hoping for, and now they deserve to be punished for breaking the rules.
I think this sentiment often gets lost in discussions of civil disobedience. Accepting the punishment, even while denouncing the law/policy's unfairness, is a critical part of the moral justification for civil disobedience to my mind. Otherwise, I don't see how its morally different than just doing whatever you want.
<edit>However, upon rereading the article I don't see any indication that the girls are trying to get out of being punished. They're simply using the noteriety of the event to denounce the policy. I was writing in reaction to similar situations I've seen where students have broken rules and then argued they shouldn't be punished because the rule was unjust.</edit>
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posted
Ultimately, people shouldn't be punished for breaking unjust laws. If someone, for example, gets sent to jail because they borke an unjust law, when this law is repudiated, I think they should be set free and possibly compensated.
But, to properly employ civil disobedience, I think you ahve to be willing to accept the punishment.
This situation is complicated by the girls getting punished for something not directly related to the thing they were against. I'm not entirely sure what I think the proper resolution should be.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: I think this sentiment often gets lost in discussions of civil disobedience. Accepting the punishment, even while denouncing the law/policy's unfairness, is a critical part of the moral justification for civil disobedience to my mind. Otherwise, I don't see how its morally different than just doing whatever you want.
I agree.
quote:However, upon rereading the article I don't see any indication that the girls are trying to get out of being punished. They're simply using the noteriety of the event to denounce the policy. I was writing in reaction to similar situations I've seen where students have broken rules and then argued they shouldn't be punished because the rule was unjust.</edit>
My comment was directed at the morons quoted in the article, who are objecting to their being punished at all.
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posted
I don't think the rule barring them from presenting at this particular presentation (or a single in-school suspension for violating that rule) was unjust. I haven't formed an opinion as to whether this was a good rule in these circumstances, but it doesn't appear as if the school exceeded its authority or violated these girls' rights.
If the students did agree to do something else and did this instead, then they are liars. Forget suspension: was the civil rights statement made by doing the monologue at THIS event, as opposed to actually doing the whole play at some other point in time, more important than their honor?
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posted
I have done the play and don't find it offensive, but I do think that the school has a right to decide what is appropriate for a specific event. I would hope that they would allow it to be performed in a venue where people could choose to be exposed to it or not. It sounds like they would.
I don't think the students were right in lying about what they were going to do and I think that they should face some consequences for that.
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quote:I don't think the rule barring them from presenting at this particular presentation
As I read it, they weren't barred from presenting an excerpt of the play. The thing they were told they weren't allowed to do was say the word "vagina".
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posted
I don't see a problem with this situation at all. I happen to agree with the girls that the censorship of the word "vagina" was unreasonable. I tend to think we should speak more openly about sex in this country, not less. Then again, that was likely precisely what they were trying to do when they intentionally got themselves suspended for flagrantly disobeying the school authorities. Everything here was staged but the conversation they were after wasn't whether or not they should have been suspended for breaking a rule (because they did), but whether or not the rule was appropriate.
quote:As I read it, they weren't barred from presenting an excerpt of the play. The thing they were told they weren't allowed to do was say the word "vagina".
Rereading, I think your interpretation is more likely now. I do wish they had been more explicit - it's not clear to me that the ban on the word meant the excerpt couldn't be read at all or if they could read it using another word, but this time reading it makes it seem more likely the latter.
Which is stupid - it likely violates copyright law to make a derivative work by substituting another word (fair use likely doesn't cover that). Besided, what word are they going to use instead? I haven't seen the play, but it seems as if the word is used pretty often from what I've heard.
I still think it's a question of whether the rule was good or not, not a question of justice. It still sounds like they lied, although that's not explicit either.
What a crappy article.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
If you can't use the word, there is absolutely no point in performing the play since it is devoted to simultaneously demystifying and glorifying both the word and the organ in question. Performing it edited would just be pathetic.
However, I think an important bit of the article was this:
"Bob Lichtenfeld, superintendent of the Katonah-Lewisboro school district, which includes John Jay, said that had the teens, who are in their third year of high school, wanted to perform the play, they would probably not have met opposition.
"As long as the intended audience knows what to expect, we don't have a problem with it."
Fair enough. I agree that keeping children from hearing the word "vagina" is ludicrous, but that's the parents' choice to make. (But how cool was it that the playwright called the girls?) The students should have chosen another piece to perform that night and then arranged to perform the entire Vagina Monologues later.
(An aside: I saw the Monologues performed in Orlando years ago, with my wife and our friend Alynia and, as it happened, Bob Scopatz. We watched and enjoyed and laughed and cried, and then there was a segment on how a woman came to love herself because of a man named Bob. Messr. Scopatz graciously accepted the applause on behalf of Bobs everywhere.)
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Ultimately, people shouldn't be punished for breaking unjust laws. If someone, for example, gets sent to jail because they borke an unjust law, when this law is repudiated, I think they should be set free and possibly compensated.
But, to properly employ civil disobedience, I think you ahve to be willing to accept the punishment.
The point of civil disobedience isn't to flout laws, it is to get unjust laws changed. On several occasions, Ghandi was offered clemency for laws he had violated but he insisted that unless the laws were changed he should be punished. This worked well for Ghandi and MLK because their imprisionment served as a continuing reminder of the injustice of the laws. I don't think it works as well for most current civil disobedience cases.
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quote:The students should have chosen another piece to perform that night and then arranged to perform the entire Vagina Monologues later.
I don't think that was ever an option. The article says the girls were told when they auditioned that they could not use the word. That suggest that they had practiced the piece, competed for and won a spot on the program and were then told that they couldn't say "vagina" in the performance. If that is the case, the girls were truly put in an impossible position. They were not given the choice to perform another piece. If they had already worked on this piece and had been accepted to perform this piece but told they had to gut the content, then the school was indeed out of line. At a minimum they were asking the girls to violate copyright laws.
But as Dag says, it is truly a poorly written article and its not possible to tell what really happened.
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My daughter was 14 when she performed "My Vagina Was My Village." My wife directed (the entire show). Other (older) High School girls performed other sets from the play. It was totally fine.
Sheesh.
The school censors the girls' speech ("You cannot use this [English language, non-obscene] word") and then when the girls (young wonem, really) fight against the censorship, the school administrators say, "Oh, we weren't censoring them. We're only punishing them because they refused to do what we told them" (which happened to be, in and of itself, CENSORSHIP).
--Steve
Besides, you can't do The Vagina Monologues without using the word "Vagina." And if you've ever read, seen, or performed the piece, you know that "Vagina" is pretty darn tame!
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: The school censors the girls' speech ("You cannot use this [English language, non-obscene] word") and then when the girls (young wonem, really) fight against the censorship, the school administrators say, "Oh, we weren't censoring them. We're only punishing them because they refused to do what we told them" (which happened to be, in and of itself, CENSORSHIP).
I completely agree. The administration, in this case, claims that they didn't want the excerpt performed because of the audience, but I'd argue that anyone going into a performance that features excerpts and monologues from several different plays would be ready for anything. I don't see any reason to believe that a performance of excerpts would necessarily be any tamer than a performance of the Vagina Monologues on it's own.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Were there kids in the audience who hadn't yet received sex education?
Either way though, I'm siding with the students here. The school doesn't seem to have exceeded its authority, but the source of the problem is the school's censorship of a word denoting a body part 50% of the human race has. Like erosomniac I would have more respect for the girls if they took whatever punishment was given (as they seem to be doing, judging by the article); and it will serve as a mild form of martyrdom for their position.
I'm trying to imagine my all-boys Uniting Church school allowing a play called 'The Penis Monologues'. I can't do it.
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posted
I wish some of you would spend some time in a public school setting and see what we deal with. And then ask yourself whether it's really our job to change the politics of parents--in addition to all the other societal jobs we already do. I've seen situations like this before, and they always blow up in the school's face. Parents do not go in there expecting anything. They expect that their daughters and sons are children. And they don't expect us to legitimize them talking publicly about their vaginas or their penises or about their sexuality. If the school had let the performance go on, you can bet that there would have been an outcry, and it would not have been unlikely for someone's career to end over it.
Just the other day, a local teacher was fired because, on a field trip to an art museum, for which permission slips were signed, students saw nudes. Most were probably okay with this, but some parents were not.
There really is no winning.
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quote:The administration, in this case, claims that they didn't want the excerpt performed because of the audience, but I'd argue that anyone going into a performance that features excerpts and monologues from several different plays would be ready for anything. I don't see any reason to believe that a performance of excerpts would necessarily be any tamer than a performance of the Vagina Monologues on it's own.
I think that his concern was far more specific. If hearing the word "vagina" is mortifyingly embarassing for you, you aren't going to show up to a play named "The Vagina Monologues" but you might very well show up for a school literary club reading of anthologies.
Given my experience with schools I'm going to speculate that what happened went something like this. The literary club solicits groups to prepare readings for the event. In the solicitation its specifies that things that are crude, sexually explicit or involve excessive foul language won't be allowed, Audition are required participate and a key reason for requiring auditions is so that the teachers and administrators can screen the acts for stuff that's offensive. At the audition, one of the judges (probably an older administrator) finds the material to be very embarassing and insists the students shouldn't be allowed to perform. Another judge feels very strongly that the students should be allowed to perform. Its even likely that the students had discussed the selection with a teacher before hand and had been told it was acceptable. So now the judges are at an impasse. The principal negotiates a compromise telling the students they can perform the piece as long as they don't use the word "vagina". The principal making the decision was so unfamiliar with the work that he didn't see why that wasn't a reasonable compromise. The girls are therefore placed in a loose loose situation.
In contrast, its a pretty safe one for the school. They've let the girls perform but if anyone was offended they've got themselves covered and punish the girls. When parents complain that the girls were being sensored, the school says they would have allowed this in another venue and the girls are simply being punished for breach of contract not saying "vagina".
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Just the other day, a local teacher was fired because, on a field trip to an art museum, for which permission slips were signed, students saw nudes. Most were probably okay with this, but some parents were not.
There really is no winning.
I actually heard about something similar a year or so ago. It just amazed me that such a thing could happen. It's situations like that that make me very concerned going into the teaching field.
As for the situation that this thread is about, my opinion seems to match several others. I'm not for censorship or anything, but if they agreed to not use the word vagina in their part of this group of presentations and then did, well they should be punished. Under a different situation, I might have felt differently about it, but that's just how I feel for this one.
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posted
"Girl suspended over Vagina Monologues" sounds like some weird David-Blaine-style stunt to me ...
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
would the school have preferred them to say 'my V-word'... "my secret place"... "my unmentionable"... "my peepee" or perhaps P**** maybe, C*** or T***
The girls chose one of the tamest sections of the play, one that only uses the polite and accurate term.
Really what was the alternative, the segment requires the word to work, the girls were right in their civil disobedience of the school and noone is harmed by hearing an anatomical term.
Funny. There is agreement here for the censorship or censoring actions/consequences of saying the anatomical term for female parts, but in the higher power of lucky thread (that included an anatomical term for male parts) the censorship and/or censoring actions/consequences were generally disagreed with. very interesting.
Also, wouldn't the word had to have been in the Program, "excerpt from the Vagina monologues" sort of thing? wouldn't the girls normally have to introduce what they're presenting (and where it's from) in such a setting? this whole mess is ridiculous. Yes the school was justified in applying consequences for breaking the rules, but the school also overreacted to the wrong word--nothing is clearer to me than that. There are very vulgar and disrespectful terms that are as bad as curse words (part of the play is about dulling the cutting edge of most of those words) and in an unprepared setting/reading as described those terms would be inappropriate--but 'vagina' is not an inappropriate word nor is it a vulgar word.
Had it been one of the raunchier sections of the play they would have grounds for being offended, but for crying out loud the word is okay in a very tame PG movie for kindergartners and elementary school kids back in the early nineties (kindergarten cop, which is where I first heard the word as a child).
out of curiosity I wonder if any boys have ever been suspended for playing the penis game, I sincerely doubt it.
This is like someone being fired for saying niggardly.
Or better yet, this is EXACTLY like someone being suspended for performing reading a section from Huck Finn that uses the word 'negro.' (because naturally any reader would avoid performing a section with the word 'niggar' in it).
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: "Girl suspended over Vagina Monologues" sounds like some weird David-Blaine-style stunt to me ...
You know I puzzled over this for quite sometime before I looked at the thread title and realized what you were talking about.
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quote:would the school have preferred them to say 'my V-word'... "my secret place"... "my unmentionable"... "my peepee"
A local theatre put on the play, and got some flack for having "that word" up on the billboard ... so they replaced the title with "The Hoo-Ha Monologues."
quote:ask yourself whether it's really our job to change the politics of parents--in addition to all the other societal jobs we already do. I've seen situations like this before, and they always blow up in the school's face.
This is a good point. My sister teaches band in a public school and gets threatened with a lawsuit about once a year, usually because a kid receives a "C" instead of an "A." Conventional reasoning hardly works on them, she tries explaining that their child didn't turn in his/her assignments or failed a playing test and they generally take the stance of "well, MY child would never fail at anything." So I see what you mean.
quote: Really what was the alternative, the segment requires the word to work, the girls were right in their civil disobedience of the school and noone is harmed by hearing an anatomical term.
This, I guess, is a little closer to what I feel about the situation. Considering that the students don't seem to be resisting the punishment being given, it seems like a mild form of Civil Disobedience. There maybe more unjust things going on the world than public school censorship, but the girls made a pretty strong point with their actions.
I think some censorship in public schools is a necessary evil, schools after all have to maintain a certain image to the parents, but I say students are more than welcome to challenge that censorship; so long as challenging it doesn't involve breaking the law or harm to others.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I don't understand why, ideally, the school couldn't just let the girls do the play, but let everyone know what they were doing ahead of time. If anyone didn't want to be exposed to the word 'vagina', then they didn't have to come.
quote: I have no problems with there being some level of censorship in high school.
Certainly, the BoM and praying should be censored.
While my reply initially, and to Porter, is tongue in cheek, it underlines the impossibility of making everyone happy. Everyone is in favor of censorship until it is their holy cow that is getting the shaft. Either everything is censored and fair, or nothing is censored and fair. To draw the line, you must put one group's feelings over another's for almost aways no good reason.
Consider what would happen if the Vagina Monologues were put on and some people saw it and were made uncomfortable. What would happen? I believe nothing bad would happen, beyond those feelings, and if they came to the show, whose fault is it that they were made uncomfortable?
Beyond this, though, I don't believe that uncomfortable feelings are a reason to censor speech, as it makes the standard of need for censorship so low as nothing could ever really be said except that which the power elite of any community let be said.
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posted
Some people would feel that more harm was done than that. You or I might not agree, but I wanted to point out that your analysis was predicated on agreeing with your values.
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posted
I would say that not agreeing with the value someone assigns something is probably the root of most disagreements on Hatrack.
Having been on Hatrack for about five years now, I'm well aware that many people don't share my values.
So, I'm not clear on why you felt the need to remind me of this fact, as to me it seems pretty self evident. But I assume it was done in the spirit of friendly helpfulness, and so I thank you for the reminder.
Anyone who disagrees with my analysis of this issue is certainly welcome to voice their opinion on where they believe I am wrong. Frankly, I'm having a hard time understanding what someone believes could possibly happen from hearing the word 'vagina' that would necessitate not showing the play, particularly with the caveat that I proposed where people were given a clear understanding that the play was a so-called 'mature' play.
posted
I don't know much about women, but after watching this play, I realized that every woman I've ever known is incredibly well-adjusted and open about their sexuality.
Watching The Vagina Monologues, well, I had no idea so much sexual repression and blatant sexual ignorance still existed in our society. I know it is meant to be funny, on occasion, but some of the crowd (mostly male voices) were laughing at wildly inappropriate times. I was sitting there, horrified that these women (trusting that the play really is based on interviews) were so ignorant of their own bodies ... while others laughed. I don't know how many here are familiar with the work, but some of it is... well, not something that should be laughed at.
Do I think this play is appropriate for High School? That's tough, I know on the college level, there are people who aren't mature enough to handle it, so obviously there are High School students who wouldn't be mature enough to handle it either.
But I don't see how the piece would damage anyone, aside from some men going into shock over the idea that women are people too.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
We have girls in this country getting knocked up at 12 and the school was worried the subject was too mature for high school students? Really, how many high schoolers aren't having sex or talking to someone who is about it?
If they want to teach high schoolers sex ed, why shouldn't they put on the Vagina Monologes? I'd think the bits with how women feel when they don't understand their bodies would be rather pertinant.
(As an aside, I didn't realize that's what it was about. I'd just heard it described as women talking about their vaginas. I have one. Don't need to hear about it, thanks.)
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
While many, or most, kids are sexually active in high school, and some are getting knocked up as early as 12, that doesn't mean that all kids are ready for this type of frank talk.
So the school limits its official responses to help those who are not. I consider that a decision well with in the rights of the school.
Its similar with Religion in school. While many or most of the kids in a certain school may be Christians, setting up a Christian curriculum is not allowed because of the minority that would be uncomfortable with it.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
We don't teach religion, but we don't do away with pregnancy prevention in our sex ed because the homosexuals in the class might be uncomfortable with straight sex. Some subjects are important enough that we teach them fully aware that people will be uncomfortable with them.
I would think helping teens to be comfortable with and respect the female body would be important enough to override a little embarressment.
But for full disclosure, I feel public schools are usually envious of boot camps and want that kind of obedience from their students. I think they really were angrier that the girls disobeyed them.
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