“The Vagina Monologues,” an emotion-packed journey through the female experiences of love, sex, rape, menstruation, birth and more, will return to The University of Toledo Friday and Saturday, Feb. 12 and 13, in the Driscoll Alumni Center Auditorium.
The play will be performed at 7 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday, with a resource fair beginning an hour before the performances. The event is sponsored by the UT Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Program and brought to the community by V-Day UT.
V-Day is a global activist movement determined to end violence against women and girls. The campaign raises awareness and money for anti-violence organizations and works to regularly revitalize efforts.
Several UT students and a handful of community members will perform “The Vagina Monologues.” Eve Ensler wrote the play that premiered in 1996 after interviewing more than 200 women about their experiences and views on relationships, sex and violence against women.
Lily Ostrander, a second-year pharmacy major and director of this year’s program, said the monologues raise awareness about topics no one wants to discuss, like sexual assault and domestic violence, and show survivors they are not alone.
“To me, ‘The Vagina Monologues’ are about diminishing the stigma around women’s bodies by claiming the word ‘vagina’ as something we don’t have to talk about in hush-hush voices behind closed doors,” Ostrander said. “It’s about not feeling embarrassed or shamed about our bodies, and empowering women to acknowledge and claim their sexuality.”
The resource fair that precedes the event will include a number of local organizations and businesses that are run by women or empower women and other intersecting identities. Among the organizations scheduled to be at the event are the People Called Women Bookstore, UT Feminist Alliance, Spectrum, Women of Toledo, Khroma Magazine and others.
Tickets for the play are $5 for students and $10 for general admission and can be purchased at the door. Proceeds from this year’s event will go to Northwest Ohio’s YWCA Hope Rape Crisis Center.
For more information, contact Ostrander at lillian.ostrander@rockets.utoledo.edu.
