Spotted on Feministing:
Saying the word “vagina” during a reading at a John Jay High School open mic session has resulted in suspension for three female students and has sparked a debate about censorship throughout the community.
School administrators had warned the girls it would be inappropriate to say the word while reading a selection from Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” but the students were willing to suffer the consequences.
Jeepers. Here’s the news article. Thankfully, students and parents are organizing and speaking out — they’ve already got a facebook group (the students) and a letter-writing campaign (the parents). The administrators of the school are saying that the issue isn’t censorship, it’s insubordination, which is kind of odd because the original ban on saying the word that the girls defied was censorship, no?
Eve Ensler has volunteered to go to the school and talk about the situation. Her quote to the press: “What is wrong about the word ‘vagina,’ which is the correct biological term for a body part? It is not slang. It is not dirty or racy. The fact that it was censored is an indication of exactly what is going on in American schools, where girls and boys are not being educated about their bodies in a healthy way. We’re pushing everything into the closet. We need open, healthy sex education where girls know and love their bodies.”
For the record, the offending V-word came in the verse: “My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country.” The girls considered not saying the word, or holding up a sign with the world written on it, but in the end did “not feel they had the liberty to change a work of art.”
Bravo, kids. Turn this whole thing into a wicked college application essay.
