The definitive vagina monologue

Rhona Canoy

SO… Having just survived the floral and traffic deluge of Valentines and all the female expectations that accompany this fake holiday, my perspective on our dear President Digong’s latest utterances regarding female private parts is definitely broadening. It is easy to surrender to an instant and definitely visceral reaction to it. Yes, I was horrified that our fearless leader could offhand lightly declare that female rebels should be shot in their vaginas considering I have one, albeit long unused. So I understand the condemnation and the violent reactions. As it should be. And yet…

Why should one man bear the brunt of female wrath when we are a culture of subjugated and marginalized women? In trying to understand Digong’s words, I’m having to face the harsh reality that his demeaning attitude towards women is far more common than we like to admit. And certainly deeply imbedded. The brainwashing of women to see themselves as second class has been perfected through hundreds of years. Let’s get honest about it.  Regardless of the current affirmations, female empowerment is a concept that we are nowhere near achieving. And in a truly perfect world, we women shouldn’t have to empower ourselves.

Listen, all I’m saying is take a look around. No matter how hard we women try to assert our equality and individuality, it takes an insane amount of self-confidence and survival arrogance to say, “Take your effing standards and shove it up your effing ass.” Even driving down the highway, the subliminal messages are aimed at convincing women that it is our job to work hard to appeal to male sensibilities. Scantily clad women advertising alcohol, for God’s sake. What is that? Percentage wise, there are more females on billboards than there are men, and men on billboards are usually with women. The messages these billboards send are certainly more horrifying than Digong’s extremely sexist words.

Be pissed at me if you must. But explain to me the obsession with white skin. Smooth, virginal, glowingly white skin. Who is this white skin meant to attract? Mosquitos? Let’s face it. Most of female efforts to present themselves as desirable is geared towards one thing and one thing only—to appeal to the male. After all, it is a biological imperative to ensure the continuation of our race. But I swear, female animals in the zoo have it much easier. They don’t spend fortunes going to the beauty parlor, or shopping for clothes and shoes and makeup and perfume and tons of “beauty” products. And the pheromones to attract the male only appear during mating season. And the males fight for her attention.

Yet you never realized the level of brainwashing? Oh, come on. Advertising is designed to promote not just product but also the myth of romance. Or sex, at the very least. “Drink alcohol, or better yet, get me drunk,” says the bikini-clad voluptuous female. “This is what is underneath my clothes, which I wear for you,” says the lace-underwear-clad nubile female. “Mayonnaise makes my cooking better, so I can please you and your offspring,” says the apron-clad domestic-goddess-cum-servant-type female. Ad infinitum.

We need to redefine gender roles in society. Where is the rulebook that says women who work full-time must also be full-time slaves at home? That the cooking, cleaning, laundry domain is female? That parenting is mostly female? That to be sexually attractive is female? And where in that rulebook does it say that females must be provided for and supported? As a female myself, I had to fight for my place in this world, having been raised in a male-dominated household. Having no sisters, I was blessed to define my femaleness on my own terms, bolstered by a non-traditional mother. So I have had better luck than most. But even I bought into the myth in my younger stupider days.

We females have some accountability in all this as well. Having blindly accepted the male-generated definition, women have helped to reinforce the myth that men can do with women as they please. Yes, we are beginning to stand up for our rights. It’s about freakin’ time. We gave away those rights, didn’t we? Battered, abused, taken for granted, disposable. Disposable? Yes, men seem to think we are disposable. To be traded in for younger, more naïve, less nagging models, those who have not yet come to realize the unfairness of it all.

So we are enraged by the words of President Duterte. But look closer to home. How many husbands out there share his view? How many sons are being raised to believe in his view? How many men accept the “truth” in his view? That we women should be shot in our vaginas if we are perceived as a threat? This extreme concept is only an example, albeit a graphic one, of how disrespected women are in our society. And I’m sure in other societies as well. I don’t want this to be a treatise on inequality. Actually, it is another argument on the issue of respect. For isn’t everything about respect?

Yes, my thoughts are a generalization. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, very few, but they exist. Until we women realize that there is no human existence without us, until we women realize that all the power in the world is in our bodies, we are going to have to struggle for our place in the sun. Men will protest this statement. Okay, I’ll give it to them. They do quickly contribute to the propagation of the race. But science is now finding that this contribution is negotiable. Some Scandinavian scientists have successfully fertilized a female egg with DNA from another female. Which means that having babies may not need men after all. The only catch (for men) is that men will eventually become extinct because this method of fertilization can only create female babies. What a nightmare that must have been for those male scientists.

I have a vagina. Seldom used now, but still functional. It is my source of my unlimited power. If only all women knew that about their vaginas, what a wonderful world this would be.