The Talking Vaginas

Last weekend, I went to the little OU theater to see “The Vagina Monologues”. Actually, I saw two shows in one: In the second part, students were performing the original play from the Seventies, but in the first part, students recited monologues they had written themselves to give their own vaginas a voice. I had a great time: The show was funny, clever and serious and touched on a wide variety of topics. The pieces the students wrote today showed two main concerns: body dysmorphia on the one hand, and power and assault issues on the other hand. This was not the first time when I was impressed of the high visibility of feminist ideas and the LGBT+ community here in Athens. These topics were touched upon in several of my classes, and a while ago I visited the “Designated Space”, an open space for spoken word art at Donkey Coffee, where issues like gender identity and bodily

The Lovely Donkey Coffee Backroom

autonomy were also some of the most prominent topics. When I visited both these events, I was surprised about how positive and encouraging the audiences were towards the many queer artists. There was this poem of a transgender boy, who talked about his ambiguous relationship with his vagina and how he could not quite part with it, that ended on a positive note: He joined a group called “Men with Vaginas” and finally feels at home there. And the whole audience cheered for him! As well as for the girl who talked about coping with the abuse of her childhood. And for the girl rhyming about her love life as a bisexual. After these events, I could not help but feel pretty good: Pretty good about how accepting people can be, and how a community can tolerate - and even celebrate - all kinds of different lifestyles. I felt somewhat hopeful, with a vision of what a community I would like to be part of might look like: colorful, considerate, uplifting.

But that is only one part of the story one can tell about college culture here. Because looking deeper, there is a reason why the emphasis on feminist issues is so strong, and there is a reason why we have to cheer for transgender and queer people and be encouraging. Because the other part of the story, of course, is that not everyone likes the colors, many people are not considerate, and the people I mentioned above are probably more often weighed down than lifted up. I was surprised to learn in one of my classes that the US was only ranked 45^th in the Global Gender Gap Report of 2016 (measuring economic and educational opportunities, health and political empowerment of women). And I am even more shocked about how frequently I am confronted with the topics of sexual assault and harassment on and around campus. A few days ago, there was a big protest against the return of an instructor who had been accused of sexual harassment by several students. A few weeks ago, I read the local newspaper, only to find out that there had been three rape cases reported on campus in just one weekend, as well as a young man arrested for drugging the drinks of female students in the bars.

It is the extremes that are fascinating to me in this society. Conservative and religious ideas regarding sexuality are still powerful, and some things seem quite 'backwards' from my perspective. But at the same time, there is a very active culture voicing their discontent with the status quo, and representing very progressive ideas.

I for one will do my best to be a part of the colorful, considerate and uplifting world I have experienced and would like to live in in the future!