1. Introduction
The Vagina Monologues (TVM) is a play composed by the American writer Eve Ensler. After it
was firstly performed in the US in 1996, it was considered as one important milestone for
achieving gender equality. The affiliated organization V-Day has become one to work against
global violence against women and girls.
The play challenges negative images and associations related the female body, with an aim of
confronting sexual violence against women. “The underlying assumption is that if the word
vagina is not pronounced and made open, audible and visible, the sexual violence enacted
towards women’s bodies will also remain unseen, unheard, unrecognized and secret.” (Milwertz
and Bu, 2012)
Ensler’s TVM touches upon taboo topics such as menstruation, masturbation, sexual violence,
sexual pleasures of women etc., and stages women’s personal experiences as public. By making
the private experiences public and the invisible body visible, the play aims at challenging the
social norms constructed to confine female body, and confronting unfair body politics.
The Chinese version of TVM was firstly performed in China in 2003 in Zhongshan University as
instructed by Ai Xiaoming. (Milwertz and Bu, 2010) After that, many Chinese universities
composed and performed the play, yet their influence was to some extent limited within the
campus.
In November 2013, a NGO named Bcome1 played an important role in bringing TVM into the
mainstream topics in Chinese social media. As influenced by this group, 17 female students in
Beijing Foreign Studies University posted photographs of themselves holding a slogan starting
with “My Vagina Says”, following with contents such as “I want freedom”, “Only the one I want
can get into me” etc. This caused a stir on Chinese social media, and critiques were made against
them, many of which being fierce. (Lu) The Bcome group is a group aiming at creating and
performing TVM in a Chinese context, and the approach of the discussion of body is also
The name “Bcome” has different ways of interpretations according to the group members (personal interview). One
way to interpret it is that “B” has the same pronunciation as the curse word for “vagina” in Chinese. “Bcome” means that
vagina as invisible before is being made visible. Using a curse word for it shows that the group is not afraid of
stigmatization and possible humiliation brought by talking about such a taboo issue.
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reflected in their version of TVM. On the other hand, with the target of situating the play in
China, there could be differences compared with the original version.
2. Problem Formulation
On the basis of this background, I have chosen the following problem formulation for the
project:
How Does the Issue of Body Travel from the USA to China by the means of The Vagina
Monologues?
In order to address this problem I have formulated the following research questions:
1. How is the issue of Body addressed in the American version of The Vagina Monologues by
Eve Ensler?
2. How is the issue of Body addressed in the Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues by
Bcome?
3. What are the differences and similarities between the two versions?
4. What are the potential effects for the issue of Body and gender equality brought about by The
Vagina Monologue in China?
3. Methodology
The essay does a comparative discourse analysis of the scripts both of the original one by Eve
Ensler in 2001 and the one by Bcome, and the focus will be on how the issue of body travels
from the USA to China by the means of TVM.
This chapter aims at illuminating research methods that are used in the project, and clarifying the
theoretical and empirical targets of the article.
3.1 Considerations on the Area of Study
The aim of the project is to study how does the issue of Body travels from the USA to China by
the means of The Vagina Monologues. However, the target is not to study in detail how TVM
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was imported to China step by step; it is on studying how in two different contexts, namely the
USA in 2001 and China in 2014, TVM and the issue of Body travels.
Eve Ensler’s original play is chosen because it is the origin of all versions all over the world, and
special attention should be paid to the time and space of its creation, which is 2001 in New York.
Bcome’s version is chosen because it is among the most influential versions in China due to the
fuss it brought by which is presented earlier. The used version of TVM is the latest one, as used
in the latest performance by Bcome in March, 2014.
The project could shed some light on the interaction between the west feminism and feminism in
China. In the “transplantation, transference, circulation and commerce” (Said, 1984) of theories
and ideas, feminism theories will be tested, and a global trend will be discussed.
The reasons of the travel will only be briefly analyzed, since it is not the target of the project.
What’s more, the focus of the project is on China rather than on the case of America; the case of
America will be used as a lens to understand the case in China more deeply.
3.2 Choice of Theories
In order to understand the interaction of the Chinese feminism and American feminism, I chose
two theories: Mohanty’s Post-Colonialism Theory and Edward Said’s Travelling Theory, whcih
will be the major theoretical tools in the comparison between the American and the Chinese
versions.
Using Said’s theory, the essay aims at giving a comprehensive picture of how TVM travels to
China and how the process of situation is preceded according to a certain cultural and political
context in China. Said’s theory fits well in the discussion of the transference of feminism theory
from one particular time and place to another one.
Mohanty’s theory is chosen because it focuses on the third world, or to be more general, the
“Other” in comparison to the American feminism as the orthodox. (1988) Whether China
belongs to the third world is controversial, but China belongs to the category as being the “Other”
with a starting point of the USA being the “Center”. Since the discussion is about the China, the
theory will help to understand the difference of the feminism contexts in China and the USA, and
to provide us with a theoretical explanation of the differences of the two versions.
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3.3 Epistemological Considerations
In this part of our project I will illustrate what I believe are the more fruitful ways of collecting
data and how this data is further interpreted and used. It is not simple to determine what is
considered as “adequate knowledge” and choosing the right research strategy can determine
different results and lead to total different outcomes.
The approach of the project is majorly qualitative approach. Qualitative approach rejects the idea
that the assumptions and methods of the natural sciences can be applied to the behavioral and
social sciences. Human beings are each unique individuals and that complexities of human social
interactions cannot be reduced to mere numbers. Generally an inductive approach is adopted;
observations are made after data has been collected in order to present a theory. This way is
generally idiographic, meaning the focus is on individual uniqueness hence the data collected in
qualitative research tends to be oriented towards individuals and case studies. (Quantitative and
Qualitative Research, n.d.)
But the major difficulty I face is the lack of literature on TVM in China. Only few literatures are
found with different focuses than the project have. Hence the project is significant in the sense of
filling the knowledge gap, but the deficiency is that the analysis of the article might not be very
deep due to the lack of literatures.
3.4 Methods
The main method of the essay will be discourse analysis of Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse
Theory. The method is chosen because Laclau and Mouffe focus on the discussion of meaning
and the struggle to fix meaning. This is applicable in the case of Vagina Monologue because
“vagina” is a “nodal point” which is under the system of “floating signifiers” raised by them
(Laclau and Mouffe, 1985), and the struggle to fix the meaning of it is the essence of both the
English and Chinese version.
3.4.1 Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory
“The overall idea of discourse theory is that social phenomena are never finished or total.
Meaning can never be ultimately fixed and this opens up the way for constant social struggles
about definitions of society and identity, with resulting social effects. The discourse analyst’s
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task is to plot the course of these struggles to fix meaning at all levels of the social.” (Jorgensen
and Phillips, p24) Laclau and Mouffe combined Marxism and structuralism discourse analysis
theories into a poststructuralist theory “in which the whole social field is understood as a web of
processes in which meaning is created.” (Jorgensen and Phillips, p25)
According to Laclau and Mouffe, “the creation of meaning as a social process is about the
fixation of meaning” (Jorgensen and Phillips, p25)
“A discourse is understood as the fixation
of meaning within a particular domain. All signs in a discourse are moments. They are the knots
in the fishing-net, their meaning being fixed through their differences from one another.”
(Jorgensen and Phillips, p26) “We constantly strive to fix the meaning of signs by placing them
in particular relations to other signs; returning to the metaphor, we try to stretch out the
fishing-net so that the meaning of each sign is locked into a specific relationship to the others.
The project is ultimately impossible because every concrete fixation of the signs’ meaning is
contingent; it is possible but not necessary. It is precisely those constant attempts that never
completely succeed which are the entry point for discourse analysis. The aim of discourse
analysis is to map out the processes in which we struggle about the way in which the meaning of
signs is to be fixed, and the processes by which some fixations of meaning become so
conventionalized that we think of them as natural. (Jorgensen and Phillips, p25-26)
“A discourse is formed by the partial fixation of meaning around certain nodal points”. (Laclau
and Mouffe, 1985, p112) “A nodal point is a privileged sign around which the other signs are
ordered; the other signs acquire their meaning from their relationship to the nodal point.”
(Jorgensen and Phillips, p26)
Discourse Theory has a term for those elements which are particularly open to different
ascriptions of meaning, and that is floating signifiers (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Floating
signifiers are the signs that different discourses struggle to invest with meaning in their own
particular way.
In Vagina Monologue, “vagina” is the most important nodal point in both the scripts of the
Bcome and the Eve Ensler’s versions. I will analyze how the “struggle” to fix the meaning of
vagina is launched in the two countries according to the method.
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Besides the main method, literatures related will also be reviewed, including news report and
scholar articles. What’s more, interviews will be made with Bcome group members as
supplements to the texts. The interviews will be made in Chinese, and since it is only supplement
to the discourse analysis of the scripts, the whole interview will not be transcribed; only
important sentences that are of importance will be quoted.
4. Theory
4.1 Chandra T. Mohanty’s Post-colonial Feminist Theory
Chandra Mohanty in her article Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial
Discourses (1988) discussed “colonization” and “Third World Women”. The main target of the
paper was to analyze “the production of the ‘Third World Women’ as a singular monolithic
subject” (Mohanty, 1988) in western feminist texts. In a word, Mohanty called for the focus on
the difference among women, and the breaking of a hierarchical power structure dominated by
the west.
According to Mohanty, there is no apolitical or objective feminist scholarship, and feminist
scholarship exists under certain power relations. Therefore, feminists “counter, redefine and even
implicitly support” (ibid) these power relations. In her opinion, “colonization” is a discursive
notion, “focusing on a certain mode of appropriation and codification of ‘scholarship’ and
‘knowledge’ about women in the third world by particular analytic categories employed in
writings on the subject which take as their primary point of reference feminist interests as they
have been articulated in the US and Western Europe.” (ibid)
According to Mohanty, the discourse of “colonization” is realized by the distinction of women in
the US and Western Europe, and women in other parts of the world. In western feminism writing,
there is a remarkably obvious similarity on its “assumptions of privilege and ethnocentric
universality on the one hand, and inadequate self-consciousness about the effect of western
scholarship on the ‘third world’ in the context of a world system dominated by the west on the
other.” (ibid) It is called the analysis of “sexual difference” in the third world, which is a
“cross-culturally singular, monolithic notion of patriarchy or male dominance” that causes the
construction of a similar “stable, ahistorical” (ibid) status of women being oppressed in the third
world.
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According to Mohanty, “western feminist scholarship on the third world must be seen and
examined precisely in terms of its inscription in these particular relations of power and
struggle.”(ibid) There is a need to “examine the political implications”(ibid) of the analytical
strategies and principles of the western feminist writings.
According to Mohanty, there are three basic presuppositions that are worth attention and should
be alert of.
The first presupposition that should arise prudence is the assumption of women being “an
already constituted and coherent group with identical interests and desires, regardless of class,
ethnic or racial location, implies a notion of gender or sexual difference or even patriarchy which
can be applied universally and cross-culturally.”(ibid) Specific contexts should be considered
rather than considering women as a coherent group.
The second one is on the methodological level, namely “the uncritical way ‘proof’ of
universality and cross-cultural validity are provided”. The third is a more political presupposition,
which is “the model of power and struggle” these methodological and analytic strategies imply
and suggest (ibid). Among them the first and third is of use in the analysis of this project.
4.1.1 “Third-World Difference”
As mentioned above, Monhanty criticizes the presupposition in western feminist writing that all
third-world women, regardless of classes and cultures, are “somehow socially constituted as a
homogeneous group identifiable prior to the process of analysis”. (Mohanty, 1988)
Western feminist theories tend to examine third-world cultures as “feudal residues” and label
third-world women as “traditional”. This portrays third-world women as immature objects who
need to be taught and instructed by western feminism. This kind of analytical presupposition
needs to be criticized and modified. (Amos and Parmar, 1984)
As Mohanty noticed, there is a distinction between the representation of western women and
third-world women. (Mohanty, 1988) Western women are represented as being educated, as
having control of their bodies and lives, as having freedom to make decisions. However,
third-women are commonly represented as being “ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound,
religious, domesticated, family-oriented, victimized, etc.”(ibid).
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Mohanty also talks about the power relations implied by such kind of presuppositions: its
conflation with imperialism. (ibid) Depicting third-women as a people group under
homogeneous oppression and contracts it with representations of western women as mentioned
above sets western feminists the “true ‘subjects’, and third-world women will “never rise above
the debilitating generality of their ‘object’ status.” (ibid) In other words, the west is set as the
center, and “the East” is declined as “Others”. (ibid)
4.2 Edward Said’s Travelling Theory
“Like people and schools of criticism, ideas and theories travel – from person to person, from
situation to situation, from one period to another.” (Said, 1984, p226) The situation of one theory
in a new environment “necessarily involves processes of representation and institutionalization
different from those at the point of the origin.” (ibid)
According to Said Edward, there are four stages that one theory travels. First, there is a point of
origin, a set of initial circumstances in which the idea came to birth. Second, there is a distance
transversed, a passage through the pressure of various contexts as the idea moves from an earlier
point to another time and place where it will come into a new prominence. Third, there is a set of
conditions which then confronts the transplanted theory of idea, making possible its introduction
or tolerance, however alien it might appear to be. Fourth, the now full accommodated idea is to
some extent transformed by its new uses. (Said, 1984, p226-227)
The focus of travelling theory is “to specify the kinds of movement that are possible, in order to
ask whether by virtue of having moved from one place and time to another an idea or a theory
gains or loses in strength, and whether a theory in one historical period and national culture
becomes altogether different for another period or situation.”(Said, 1984, p226)
A critical consciousness is required here in the understanding of the representation and
institutionalization in the new environment. “... theory has to be grasped in the place and the time
out of which it emerges as a part of that time, working in and for it, responding to it; then,
consequently, that first place can be measured against subsequent places where the theory turns
up for use.” (Said, 1984, p247) We should be aware that situations are different in time and space,
and “no system or theory exhausts the situation out of which it emerges or to which it is
transported”. (Said, 1984, p241)
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In a word, the travelling of theory is a map of territory covered by dissemination, communication,
and interpretation of the original theory, and the study of the whole process is of significance.
(Said, 1984)
5. Historical Contexts
This part illustrated the historical contexts of the feminism activism both in the USA in the end
of the 20th century and today’s China. The contexts are both based on a social review, and
feminism ideas and practice evolved from it.
5.1 The Second-to-Third Wave of Feminism in the USA
Though the book The Vagina Monologues was published in 2001, the first performance was in
1996 performed by Eve Enslver. Thus it is proper to view the play as a product in time of the
conjunction of the second and third wave of feminism in the USA.
The second wave of feminism started in the early 1960s in the USA, and lasted through the
1980s. Issues tackled include gender equality such as reproductive rights, sexuality, kinship
system, rights in the workplace etc. The second wave of feminism was challenged by the third
wave of feminism starting in the early 1990s by its domination of white and middle-class women.
(Mann and Huffman, 2005) In other words, the third wave of feminism came with a new
discourse of understanding gender equality by criticizing the second wave. Intersectionality
theory as developed by women of color and ethnicity, feminist postcolonial theory which is also
know as global feminism, poststructuralist theory and aganda by young feminists compose the
four major perspectives of the third wave feminism. (ibid)
As a product created in the end of the second wave feminism and in the beginning of the third
wave of feminism, it is possible for TVM to be viewed as influenced by both the waves.
4.2 The Feminist Activism in China Evolved from 1995
To understand the current situation of feminism in China, we have to start from the 1995 Fourth
UN Conference on Women. Before the reform and opening up of China in the late 1980s, the
dominant theory of feminism in China was socialist state feminism, and the key tenets was
“equality between men and women”, and it was believed that equality between men and women
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would be ahieved by women’s equal participation in production under public ownership. (Wang
and Zhang, 2010) Yet as China opened up to the world and as the state began to privatize the
economy, the discontent under the a narrowly defined “equality between men and women”
started to rise both in the academics and in the political aspect. (ibid)
The 1995 UN Conference on Women “provided provided conceptual frameworks for Chinese
feminist activists eager to break away from or transform a Marxism theory of ‘equality between
men and women’ that had dominated Chinese state socialism”. (ibid) “The UN's Fourth World
Conference on Women enabled Chinese feminists to discover the transnational feminist concept
of gender as well as other important concepts such as ‘women-centered sustainable development’,
‘women empowerment’, and ‘mainstreaming gender’.”(ibid)
Besides that, after the conference, the Chinese women’s activism got access to international
foundations such Ford Foundation, which provided funding for their projects and programs.
We need to bear in mind that “the feminist conceptual, organizational, and social transformations
in China” goes in conjunction with the transnational feminism movement during the same period
when China opened up and became a capitalist power. (ibid) Representing activism include
“organizing against domestic violence, promoting legal aid for women, building leadership
capacities among rural women, empowering women from ethnic minorities in rural development,
addressing sex-ratio imbalances, providing vocational schools for training rural women” (ibid)
etc., and “organizing cultural productions such as staging a Chinese version of The Vagina
Molonogues”. (ibid) These activities had either been involved in the preparation for or
participation in the 1995 Conference or other international feminism conferences, or were
achieved by the cooperation with feminist abroad. (ibid) According to Wang and Zhang, all of
them accorded to “the interactions with feminist abroad as transformative”(2010).
Unlike the feminism movements in the USA that could be defined as first, second and third
waves, as majorly being influenced by the western feminism since 1995, the context of feminism
in China can be viewed as a mix of all the three waves.
Though having interactions with western feminism, we need to bear in mind the characteristics
of feminist contexts in China. The culture difference as being traditional left China with many
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own characters. What’s more, as a developing country, China faces many judicial, political and
institutional deficiencies.
6. Analysis
6.1 Eve Ensler’s Version of TVM in 2001
6.1.1 Body: from the “Private” to the “Public”
Related to women’s body, there are taboos and negative associations. (Hammers, 2010) As one
of the most important parts of the female body which many consider as the vital one, the vagina
has long been invisible and unspeakable. “Lingering primarily in pejorative slang and
embarrassed whispers, the vagina is the epitome of "private" - kept out of view and rarely, if ever,
openly named or discussed, even among and by women.” (ibid) Along with it, is the result that
“the sexual violence enacted towards women’s bodies will also remain unseen, unread,
unrecognized and secret.” (Milwertz and Bu, 2010) Women’s sexual experience should not be
made public, and so is sexual violence.
The target of TVM was to challenge taboos and negative associations related to vagina and to the
female body. As a women who was sexually abused as a child (Ensler, 2001), Ensler’s original
motivation was to make the word “vagina” pronounced and speakable, so that sexual violence
against women would also be made visible, and would be ended eventually. “Ensler's interest in
disrupting the taboos that surround the vagina is driven, in part, by the fact that she believes that
these taboos help perpetuate a culture of silence in which women are rendered more vulnerable
to various forms of violence...if we cannot talk about the vagina openly, respectfully, and
publicly, how can we ever hope to change the attitudes that underlie the violent and oppressive
practices that are visited upon women?” (Hammers, 2010)
The fact of “vagina” being silenced can be seen in the view of the distinction between the “body”
and the “mind”, and thus to the one between the “public” and the “private”. Since ancient Greece,
“body” has been discussed as a negative and passive matter (Grosz, 1994). It is important to
understand the degrading of body as related to gendered hierarchy.
The gendered hierarchical system set women into the box of being “body” with all the negative
associations. (Grosz, 1994)
The split of body and mind influences the dichotomy of the
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“private” and the “public”. “Dominant definitions of the ‘public’ are grounded in an emphasis on
shared interests, generally relevant to all persons; in contrast, the ‘private’ is the realm of
personal interests, of special concern to individual persons.”(Hammers, 2010) The hierarchical
gender system is thus constructed with the universality of the “public” which corresponds
“mind”(as relating to the “male” identity), and the “private” which relates to particular
experience of the “body” (as relating to the “female” identity).
The gendered burden on women of being confined as being “body” is shown in social discourses
that “either exclude, altogether, or define and regulate women's interests in accordance with
masculinist-defined "public" needs. (ibid) Associating issues such as sexual violence, sexual
harassment, sexual experience etc. are thus muted and “long rendered unfit for public
consideration” (ibid).
TVM discusses topics such as birth giving, menstruation, sexual violence and sexual pleasure of
women etc. By doing so, Ensler publizes the invisible female body and challenges the negative
associations with female body and violence against it.
For example, in the Scene “Because he Liked to Look at It”, Ensler talks about how the shame
caused by having a vagina is dissolved.
In the beginning of the scene, the woman says:
“I hated my thighs, and I hated my vagina even more. I thought it was incredibly ugly. I was one
of those women who had looked at it and, from that moment on, wished I hadn’t. It made me
sick. I pitied anyone who had to go down there”. (Ensler, 2001, p53-54)
Then she meets a man called Bob, who is a “connoisseur” of vagina. “He loved the way they felt,
the way they tasted, the way they smelled, but most important, he loved the way they looked.”
(Ensler, 2001, p55-56)
And there is an interesting conversation between the woman and Bob:
“ ‘What are you doing, Bob?’ I asked.
‘I need to see you,” he replied.
‘No need,’ I said. ‘Just dive in.’
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‘I need to see what you look like,’ he said.
‘But you’ve seen a red leather couch before,’ I said.
Bob continued. He would not stop. I wanted to throw up and die.
‘This is awfully intimate,’ I said. ‘Can’t you just dive in?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s who you are. I need to look.’
I held my breath. He looked and looked.
...‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.’
...I began to swell, began to feel proud. Began to love my vagina. And Bob lost himself there and
I was there with him, in my vagina, and we were gone.” (Ensler, 2001, p56-57)
This scene focuses on eliminating the shame of having a vagina and eventually the shame of
being a woman, and it talks about the sexual pleasure and pride of being a woman following it.
To sum up, TVM makes visible the previously invisible personal experiences of women, and
stages them publicly. By “making the private public”, TVM challenges the constructed
stereotypes of the female body by making meaning of the vagina, and thus works against the
political consequences related to it, such as sexual violence etc.
6.1.2 Third-World Difference
Ensler’s TVM reflects the “third-world difference” as criticized by post-colonial feminism as
represented by Mohanty. As Mohanty noticed, there is a similarity among western feminism
writing, which is the presupposition that all third-world women, regardless of classes and
cultures, are “somehow socially constituted as a homogeneous group identifiable prior to the
process of analysis”. (1988)
The American version of TVM is, in the words of anthropologist Sea Ling Cheng (2004), a
“monologue” controlled from the center of feminist, rather than a “dialogue” presenting the
differences between women. “It fails to acknowledge the problems of a global movement that
begins with American voice-overs and interpretations of other women’s lives.” (Bell and
Reverby, 2005)
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For example, in two parallel and contrasting “vagina facts” that serves as background
information and a connection between longer chapter, Ensler put third-world women in a more
oppressed and vulnerable position. (ibid)
Regarding genital mutilation in the west, Ensler describes it as follows:
"In the eighteenth century, girls who learned to develop orgasmic capacity by masturbation were
regarded as medical problems. Often they were 'treated' or 'corrected' by amputation or cautery
of the clitoris or 'miniature chastity belts, 'sewing the vaginal lips together to put the clitoris out
of reach, and even castration by surgical removal of the ovaries.
...In the United States, the last recorded clitoridectomy for curing masturbation was performed in
1948 – on a five-year-old girl.” (Ensler, 2001, p65-66).
Here apparently this kind of operation is considered as something happened in the past in the US.
However, in the next page, Ensler quotes from a report by The New York Times in 1996, which
writes about the case in Africa as this:
"Genital mutilation has been inflicted on 80 [million] to 100 million girls and young women. In
countries where it is practiced, mostly African, about 2 million youngsters a year can expect the
knife - or the razor or a glass shard - to cut their clitoris or remove it altogether, [and] to have
part or all of the labia...sewn together with catgutor thorns.
...Short-term results include tetanus, septicemia, hemorrhages, cuts in the urethra, bladder,
vaginal walls, and anal sphincter. Long-term: chronic uterine infection, massive scars that can
hinder walking for life, fistula formation, hugely increased agony and danger during childbirth,
and early deaths.” (Ensler, 2001, p67-68)
Although Ensler talks about genital mutilation both in the west and third world, the way she
addresses it actually contributes to the colonialist conceptions of third-world women. African
women are being described as homogeneously deeply oppressed by the hierarchal gender system.
They are depicted as victims of patriarchal system way worse than western women, while
western women are represented as educated and free. Third-world women are being seen as same
in the sense that they are all victims of violence, and they are so vulnerable that they cannot be
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the subjects of feminism. In other words, the west is set as the center, and “the East” is declined
as “Others”. (Mohanty, 1988)
6.2 Bcome’s Version of The Vagina Monologues in 2014
6.2.1 Body as the Battlefield
In general, the Bcome version inherits the essence of the discussion of body in Ensler’s version.
The untalkable personal experiences of anxieties, pleasures, shame and abuses of the female
body are presented publicly with the target of challenging the unfair social norms regarding the
body, and eventually criticizes and challenges the political results of these norms, such as laws
with deficiencies etc.
For example, Scene 7 is about a story of rape. In the monologues of the men, we understand the
background of the case. The man feels helpless and lonely, and calls a close female friend to
watch a movie with him in his place. The woman shows up, and talks with him to console him.
And then the man asks the woman to stay for the night, and she agrees, and then the man rapes
her. The monologue of the man reveals the double standard of woman in the aspect of body:
“Everything is a sort of implication, isn’t it? So I fucked her. The whole process was so
passionate: I tore up her shirt, plucked off her underwear. She was busy too: busy scratching me,
kicking me, yelling and hitting. Such a violent girl. So I told her: ‘I like you. I love you.” I had to
do something to console her, to make her give up. (pause) Her body was resisting yet welcoming
me, which is amazing. I knew this, I knew that she was into me, so I did this for her. I fucked her
for real, I fucked her. Such happiness that I experienced!” (The Bcome Version, Scene 7)
Then the woman continues with her monologue. She is desperate, and she does not dare tell
anybody that she was raped, because people will only degrade her and consider this as her fault,
since she agrees to stay in the man’s place at the first place.
“I do not dare tell anybody about this. I cannot imagine what people will talk about me. ‘When
you agreed to stay at his place for the night, haven’t you thought of the possible results?’ ‘You
don’t feel good when you are fucked?’ ‘She is so pitiful, no man will ever love her again.’ ‘You
are a total shame to me and your mom’... Why me? Why...No. I don’t want to be humiliated
again. I don’t want my parents to bear the shame for me. I hate him, I want him dead. But other
15
than silence, other than bearing the shame myself silently, what can I do?” (Scene 7, The Bcome
Version)
This scene is important in the sense that it touches upon the topic of rape, which is a hot topic
both in the political discussion and in the academic world.
Traditional Chinese culture holds that women are responsible for causing the act of rape by men,
and rape is defined with the concern to protect the chastity of a woman. (Tanner, 1994) As a
Confuciousnism scholar in ancient stated, "to die of hunger is a small matter, but to lose your
chastity is a huge matter”. If a woman is raped, she is considered as being “dirty”, and she must
have done something to cause it, such as drinking too much, going out alone at night or dressing
in an improper way. (ibid) This kind of culture stereotypes not only are exposing women to more
sexual violence, but are also employing a double standard regarding male and female gender
norms. In the play scripts, The social construction of women’s body and the double standard are
illustrated vividly in the man’s claim that the woman “want it” and the woman’s fear to talk
about it to anybody.
What’s more, the Chinese rape law is under a lot of criticism. One reason for this is that the
Chinese rape law focuses too much on principle and is not clear in its practical use, and it does
not support rape within marriage. (ibid) In other words, domestic violence is not considered as
serious matters, and the man who carries out domestic violence is commonly not punished. In
this sense, China is left behind by many developing countries, such as Bangladesh. (Marquez,
2009) Almost 70% of rape happen between acquaintances according to a media report of rape
done by Zhang Qi(2007). The percentage of a man forcing a partner into having sex is as high as
20%, and up to 50% of men said they physically or sexually abused their partner, according to
the Gender-Based Violence Survey done by Tianjin Normal University, 2013.
Yet without a judicial support, the domestic violence in the case of rape and abuses cannot be
sentenced. The story in the play reveals the deficiency of the law. That is, the rape law of being
unclear. As raped by a friend, the woman is vulnerable to be described as “wanting it herself”,
and therefore the judge might not judge it as rape. The victims are always under social pressures,
and only one out of ten cases is reported. (Tanner, 1994) As an official discourse, the law is both
16
the consequence of social norms considering the body of women as stated above and also a
discourse to construct farther the body.
As presented above, women’s body is considered as private, belonged to somebody, whether this
person is a boyfriend, a husband or a family before she gets married. Violence against it is a
taboo, since the victims must have done something to trigger it. Women are confined in a private
sector, which is a hindrance of achieving gender equality. By talking about the private body
experiences, Bcome makes efforts to dissolve the distinction between the private and the public,
thus making visible the sexual violence against women. If the silence regarding body and the
shame of having a vagina is removed, women will be less vulnerable in the aspect of various
kinds of violence.
6.2.2 “One World, Different Dreams”
The slogan for the Beijing Olympics is “One World, One Dream”. Yet in the case of how private
experiences are represented in the Bcome version, the case can be called “One World, Different
Dreams”. One important characteristics of the Bcome version is its concerns of different women
group in China regarding class and sexual orientations.
The Bcome version touched upon body experiences of women from varied classes.
The “Scene 8: Sex Workers” talks about the living situation of female sex workers in China. In
this scene, two prostitutes talk with each other on their experience as being a prostitute, including
how to work as a prostitute in China, the potential dangers and the stigmatization they face. One
prostitute, Liu Ying talks about all kinds of weird requirements her customers ask her to do. Da
Yang, another one, tells a story of herself as being raped by an old man. She fought with him
fiercely but was still raped. She called the police in the end. The police officers came, and the
case was filed. But she escaped from the police office, because “if the police gets down with it, I
will be in trouble as a whore”. (Scene 8, the Bcome Version)
This scene reveals the living situation of prostitutes in China as being terrible and unprotected,
and criticism of the current legislation system is also presented. This is not only related to the
rape issue as discussed in the former chapter, but also touches upon the issue of the legislation of
17
prostitution in China. Prostitutes could be viewed as from a different class than urban and
middle-class women as depicted, say, in the Rape Scene.
In “Scene 4: Menstruation”, there are a lesbian, a common university girl and a transgender
woman. The monologue of the trnasgender woman is very interesing. While the others resent
menstruation and consider it as a burden, from the age of a child, she has had a yearning for it,
and envies them for having it. As she said:
“I feel so sad because I am deprived of this kind of happiness. There is something absent
between my body and me. I am a woman without menstruation.” (Scene 4, The Bcome Version)
Yet interestingly, she found peace with her body:
“Even the doctor could give me a vagina, I will never have real menstruation. But it doesn’t
matter. I have made peace with my body. The difference between me and real woman is
minimal”. （Scene 4, the Bcome Version）
The monologue of the transgender woman challenges the homogenious identity of a woman
being defined by having a vagina (or menstruation). It further reveals the value of seeing a
woman being a woman in how a person appreciates his/her body. Body here is not a matter to
confine a person, but there can be a mutual performance between the body and the mind.
In a word, the Bcome version of TVM is coherent in the concern of women of different class and
sexual orientations. According to Mohanty, “Third World Women” is not a monolithic term, and
feminism writing should focus on the difference among women. (1988) In the Bcome version,
women is not “an already constituted and coherent group with identical interests and desires,
regardless of class, ethnic or racial location” (ibid). Specific social contexts are considered, and
nuance is given in the representation of different women.
6.3 From the Vagina Monologues to the Vagina “Dialogues”
This chapter will analyze the similarities and differences between the two versions, and
discussion will be focused on the process of travelling of the discussion of body from the USA to
China.
18
The process of travelling of the issue of Body in the means of TVM can be analyzed according to
the four stages as stated by Said. (Said, 1984) We can view the discussion of body in the USA as
the origin, which is the first stage of travelling according to Said. And then the discussion of
body moved to China, which fits into the second stage: the distance transversed. The third stage
is a set of conditions that confronts the moved theory and makes it possible to be tolerated in the
new environment. As mentioned before, the context of Chinese feminism activism as well as the
cultural and political reality of China provides these conditions, which both confront the
movement of theory and make its travel possible. In the end, the Bcome version of TVM could
be considered as the last phase: an accommodated idea as transformed in the new environment.
6.3.1 Similarities between the Two Versions
As discussed in the chapter of “Body as the battlefield”, the major similarity between the two
versions is the discussion of body, to be more specific, the challenge of the constructed discourse
regarding the female body as represented by the discourse of vagina, and the challenge of body
politics in the end. The untalkable personal experiences of anxieties, pleasures, shame and abuses
of the female body are presented publicly with the target of challenging the unfair social norms
regarding the body, and eventually criticizes and challenges the political results of these norms.
Talking about similarity, we must bear in mind that the current feminist activism evolves from
the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing. Achievements were obtained in the preparation
for or participation in the 1995 Conference or other international feminism conferences, or were
achieved by the cooperation with feminist abroad. (Wang, 2010) The discussion of body as a
feminist theory and method has its origin in the west, and it travels into China with its essence of
making the personal political as a measure of empowerment.
6.3.2 Differences between the Two Versions
With the analysis of the discussion of body as presented above, we can conclude the difference
between the two versions as follows: while the original version focuses on the experience of
middle-class and white women, and presents third-world women as homogeneously oppressed,
the Bcome version is more coherent in the discussion of differences among women, namely the
difference of class and sexual orientations. Ensler’s version is viewed by some critics as merely a
“monologue” based on the “center” of feminism which is the voice of the American white
19
feminists (Cheng, 2004), the Bcome version is more of a “dialogue” of Chinese women of
different classes and sexual orientations.
The reasons for the differences between the two versions are multiple, and the discussion of it is
beyond the target of the project. Yet I will still offer some points, which might not be
comprehensive, to consider when thinking about the differences between the two versions.
Firstly, as a country having a long feudal history, China does have some culture differences in
the aspect of female body. For example, the second scene in Ensler’s version, “Hair”, which is
about the shaving issue, is not a hot topic in China. Therefore this scene is deleted, and replaced
with issues of significance in China, such as the ones of virginity and prostitution.
What’s more, with the time difference of more than a decade (2001 and 2014), the context of
global feminism is different. Compared with 2001 as the third-wave of feminism just started and
the second wave of feminism had not yet all descended, 2014 is a time when the critiques of the
second wave of feminism for its domination of white and middle-class women (Mann, 2005) are
more developed. Chinese feminism has a strong interaction with western feminism, and it is
possible that the young and urban volunteers of the Bcome group are influenced more deeply by
third-wave ideas such as intersectionality, postcolonial feminst ideas etc. than Eve Ensler was. In
a word, the difference of feminism contexts might have a role in the difference of the two
versions.
7. Conclusion
In the process of TVM travels from the USA to China, there are similarities and differences
regarding the issue of Body. The major similarity between the two versions is the discussion of
body as a tool to achieve gender equality, to be more specific, the challenge of the constructed
discourse regarding the female body as represented by the discourse of vagina, and the challenge
of body politics in the end. The untalkable personal experiences of anxieties, pleasures, shame
and abuses of the female body are presented publicly to achieve this target. The major difference
lies in the Post-colonial trend reflected by the Bcome version, which highlights the differences
among women of different classes and sexual orientations.
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Due to the limit of pages, many important issues are not addressed thoroughly here, such as the
reasons for the similarities and differences between the two versions, and deficiencies of the
Bcome version etc.. The article has no aim of claiming that the Bcome version of TVM is an
all-rounded version addressing all problems in China regarding gender inequality. The analysis is
made mainly on the basis of a comparative discourse study, and the study only aims at providing
the trend as how the issue of Body is modified in the process of theory travelling. The two
important issues as mentioned above and other important issues, however, still need to be
discussed in future studies.
21
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