V is for Vagina Monologues

V is for Vagina Monologues, and vagina. The vagina, creator of life and necessary for the continuation of mankind. V is for victory of the vagina. A shout out to feminism, women’s liberation efforts, equal rights amendments, me too, the struggle to end glass ceilings and cement ceilings. Accolades for efforts to free women from poverty, dependence and victimization.

V is for violence. Violence is a human behavior. Violence is a basic human instinct. Survival of the fittest. Violence to establish supremacy, control and power. Violence against other human beings. Violence against the environment. Violence for power. Violence powered by testosterone. Violence as a macho instinct. Violence as a male construct. Historically we have associated violence with men because gender roles were established. Men fought, women nurtured. The fearsome conquerors- Visigoths, Mongols, Turks-the soldiers were men. The mayhem they wreaked made the concept of violence a predominantly male concept. We are all capable of violence-men, women and children. We are socialized to accept male violence-boys will be boys. We expect females to be softer, weaker and somehow less power hungry.  The perpetuation of this social structure over generations is a testament to the stubbornness of habit and the unwillingness of the collective conscious to change.

Women are powerful. They have always been so. I come from a culture that fears ma kali- the goddess Durga who destroys evil. I loved the goddesses of Greek and roman mythology- Juno and Athena and Diana. The Amazonian women. The biblical Deborah. Jason and the argonauts against the limnos women. The Greek play Lysistrata from 411 A.D. tells a fictional tale of Greek women banding together to withhold sex until the men ended the Peloponnesian war. There have been brave queens and wise queens in every kingdom. There have been tyrannical queens like Catherine the great. I loved the story in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci code where he talked about the worship of the feminine and how it was driven underground by the male leaders of the church. Of course, the fiction that the French Merovingian dynasty could be descendants of Mary Magdalene was a little too farfetched, because hello. Jesus was an Arab. To get back to my point, there have always been powerful women, and their power has not always been political. Strong women can be role models, inspiring teachers or just principled people.

Patriarchy could not survive if it was not supported by women.  For valid reasons- protection, comfort, socialization, religion, many women became co-conspirators in the genderization of the world. It is 2021 folks. Things change because they need to change. Wars will be fought with artificial intelligence, not brute force.  We need an educated citizenry, technologically enabled and spiritually free from the constraints of gender based stereotypes.  

v is for victory. Victory against violence. Victory against bigotry. victory against systemic racism. Victory over poverty. Victory against slavery and human trafficking. Victory over oppressors. Victory of the empowered. Victory envisioned as a world of true equality, not gender based but human based. Victory created by awareness that life may be unfair, but dialogue and meaningful monologues can facilitate change, real change.