http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16959
      The Feminist War on Valentine's Day
By Jon Sanders
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 14, 2005

"According to the legend, St. Valentine was beheaded on Feb. 14, at Rome,
under Claudius. The old notion was that birds began to couple on that day,
and hence arose the custom of young persons of both sexes choosing each
other as 'Valentines' for the ensuing year by a species of lottery, and of
sending love missives to each other."

That was the description of Valentine's Day given by Collier's New
Encyclopedia in 1928. One legend runs that Claudius II, believing that
single men were better soldiers, forbid young men from marriage -- a decree
that Valentine flouted by continuing to marry young lovers. Another version
has Valentine rescuing Christians from Roman prisons, getting caught,
falling in love with the jailer's daughter, and before being executed,
sending her a love letter "from your Valentine."

Either way, the namesake of the holiday has long stood for selfless service
and romantic love. Amor vincit omnia.

So why do American universities choose to celebrate this holiday by
ritualistic chanting of "vagina," the sale of "vulva
cookies," "Period
Party" bags, "Vagina Warrior" T-shirts and other merchandise, and
discussions of rape and sexual violence?

The answer is, they're American universities, and the peddler of those
ideas, Eve Ensler, knew her audience well and crafted a marketing plan for
them that was nothing short of brilliant. Those of us in what students call
"the real world," of course, necessarily think it's stark lunacy.

Those things mentioned above are all part of the growing marketing package
for "The Vagina Monologues" (TVM). Several years ago Ensler thought that a
one-woman play about talking vaginas would be great, and the cognoscenti at
American universities, being what they are, agreed. Feminists, being
feminists, parroted Ensler's theory that men conspire to prevent women from
talking about their vaginas and lauded as revolutionary Ensler's
encouragement for audiences to chant words for vagina. Given such a setup,
when any man laughs off the idea as "the stupidest thing I've ever heard,"
it's treated as confirmation of the alleged conspiracy, and he is of course
set upon. Similarly, a female scoffer proves the conspiracy's terrible
range.

TVM proved to be such a hit that Ensler was encouraged to market more along
those lines. Thus "V-Day" was born. "The 'V' in V-Day stands
for Victory,
Valentine, and Vagina," Ensler's press kit helpfully explains. And just as
Christians supplanted the pagan Lupercalia festival of fertility with
Valentine's Day's celebration of romantic love, the Puritans of academe now
use V-Day to supplant that "heterosexist,"
"patriarchal" holiday. But
they're too busy being good Puritans to notice that they're being scammed.
Think "PTL" for feminists ("PTV").

The V-Day Press Kit urges you to "Take Action to Help Stop Violence Against
Women and Girls." What action? She lists them. First is "Sponsor
an Event."
The event is, of course, presenting TVM; she says it will "mobiliz[e]
communities to stop violence against women" and "raise awareness and money
to stop violence against women and girls." Next is "Host an Event in Honor
of V-Day." This is for non-TVM events, for which "[t]here are specific
guidelines" so contact V-day.org. Third is "Spread the
Word," which involves
marking "communities as 'Rape-Free Zones'" and buying
"'Rape-Free Zone'
ribbons, buttons, temporary tattoos and other 'Rape-Free Zone' items at the
V-Day online store." Last is, redundantly, "Take Action," which means
"Volunteer" (your time or resources, just contact V-Day),
"Donate" (by money
or check to V-Day), and "Shop" (at the V-Day Store).

So much self-promotion, so little in the way of solving the problem. ("Take
Action" listed as a step under "Take Action"?) Ensler's
V-Day apparatus has
the vaguely unsettling feel of an Amway pitch. Friends, do you want to make
a lot of money/end violence against women? Well, join Amway/V-Day! Now, the
first step to making money/ending violence against women is buying
Amway/V-Day products! Then, host an event/TVM in your community!

If pressed for a solution, as she was by Salon.com in November 2001, Ensler
resorts to reflexive leftist sloganeering: "we are living in a paradigm of
escalating violence -- based, in my opinion, on corporate greed and the
emerging globalization of the world." Then, despite the fact that she's the
one being asked "So, what's your solution?", she concludes with very basic
questions: "What is violence towards women, the mechanics of it, the
trajectory of it? And then, what are we going to do to stop it?"

This is no solution. This is an amalgam of bumper-sticker quotations
(globalization -- and "of the world," no less!) followed by a challenge to
"be setting out to think about" (emphasis added) a solution.

Like any good scam, V-Day accomplishes some good among all the profiteering,
just to keep up appearances. Writing for The Nation Dec. 2, 2002, Jennifer
Baumgardner stated, "The salient question is, 'Is V-Day effective in
liberating women and ending violence?'" Her answer was affirmative: "V-Day
boasts 1,281 events around the world and $14 million raised in the past few
years. It grants more money to antiviolence initiatives than the UN
Development Fund for Women...." It has established a "safe
house" in Narok,
Kenya, for girls fleeing female genital mutilation, and another one in Rapid
City, South Dakota, to serve as a shelter for Sioux women fleeing from
domestic violence. It donates to local agencies fighting sexual assault,
rape and domestic violence, and to international groups fighting those and
other things, including bride burnings, female genital mutilation, honor
killings, incest, and sexual slavery.

Nevertheless, Baumgardner states a few paragraphs later (emphasis added):
"The most profound contribution of V-Day, though, might be simply saying the
word and performing the piece." The piece is TVM, of course, and the word is
"vagina."

Just taken at face value, Eve Ensler wants violence against women across the
world to end. Credit her with noble intentions -- intentions and concerns
that are hardly unique and are shared by well-meaning individuals worldwide.
What sets Ensler apart is not her intentions or concerns, but her
approach -- which is so profoundly trivial, silly, weird and off-putting
that she alienates nigh on all of her potential allies.

But she's making a mint in the meantime. Plus, she's adding to her
profitable repertory of talking body parts. She's written a play about her
stomach entitled "The Good Body." Turns out there's not only a
conspiracy to
keep women silent about their vaginas, but also one to make them hate their
stomachs, too.

Ensler told the Times (U.K.) of Oct. 2, 2004, that "I have been in a
dialogue with my stomach for the past three years. I have entered my
belly -- the dark wet underworld -- to get at the secrets there." Now that
is navel-gazing!

Remembering the marketing lessons she learned from TVM, Ensler already has
an accompanying project to go along with TGB. It's called the "Love Your
Tree" project. Environmentalists be still, it's not about tree-hugging. It
takes its name from dialogue in TGB in which Eve narrates:  "Turns out Iım a
tree. Love my tree. Iım all tree. My partnerıs been worried and he surprises
me in Africa. We spend the night in a hut in a netted bed in a safari park.
The sound of wild hyenas in the dark. Iım all tree. Iım all naked, dancing
tree. Iım all tree inside me."

Readers will be forgiven if they think Ensler is, to borrow a euphemism,
completely out of her tree. They aren't her target audience. But if
academics and feminists react as they still do to TVM, Ensler will have
every excuse to love her new money tree.

Jon Sanders, jsanders{at}popecenter.org, is a writer in Raleigh, N.C.




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