"The Vagina Monologues is congruent with the mission of John Carroll University."

http://www.jcu.edu/news/vaginamonologues.htm ^ | February 9, 2005

[Diago]

"The Vagina Monologues is congruent with the mission of John Carroll University."

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES
February 11, 12, & 13 in the LIttle Marinello Theatre

The Vagina Monologues
Performances at John Carroll University:
Friday, February 11th – 8 p.m.
Saturday, February 12th – 8 p.m.
Sunday, February 13th –7 p.m.
Place: Little Marinello Theater
No reservations are necessary.  Tickets are available at the door.

The Vagina Monologues are being sponsored by the Departments of Communications, History, Political Science and Sociology and the Office of Developmental Programming.

Violence is an epidemic that plagues women in our country and all over the world. On our campus this past semester we are aware that at least five female students were sexually assaulted by fellow John Carroll University students. While these sexual assaults outraged many J.C.U. community members, they also revealed an under-lying culture where women feel guilty, ashamed, and personally responsible for sexual assault. This makes the fourth annual J.C.U. benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues especially poignant and critical.

In our efforts to challenge existing beliefs, attitudes, and behavior towards women, a significant event is this benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues. The play, based on 200 interviews, contemplates not only the horrors of violence against women but also what can bring healing to them: birth; sex; humor about one’s body; and talking, at long last, about past hurts. The play shows women that “vagina” is NOT a bad word, and is NOT something of which to be ashamed. The play celebrates women, and discusses issues that many women experience, but never felt they could talk about. At the same time, the campaign raises money for institutions committed to stopping violence against women.
In seven years, the National V-Day movement has raised over 25 million dollars. Last year, the spot light on Missing and Murdered Women In Juarez Mexico raised over $120,000 for local groups working in Juarez with the families of the murdered women and those that provide direct services. In 2003, the spotlight on Native American and Canadian First Nations Women raised nearly $100,000 to support the opening of a safe house in South Dakota. In 2002, the spotlight on Afghanistan raised over $250,000 to aid in opening schools, orphanages, and to provide education and healthcare. This year’s spotlight is Women of Iraq, Under Siege. John Carroll will give 10% of the proceeds to this spotlight, and the remaining proceeds to the Domestic Violence Center of Cleveland.

The Vagina Monologues, unfortunately, has been under scrutiny in Catholic Institutions. Our response to this criticism is best summarized in an article published for the National Catholic Register on May 21, 2004, written by Demetria Martinez:
“Some Catholic administrators are calling the monologues “vulgar” and “offensive to women.” You could say that about parts of the Bible. But that shouldn’t detract from the larger narrative, which has revolutionized lives. And this is precisely what the monologues are doing for so many women today.”

The degree and severity of abuse towards women and girls is staggering. According to the Department of Justice, at least one in every three women around the world have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused during her lifetime. However, only 39% of rape and sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement officials, about one in every three. Also, nearly one third of American women (31%) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives. On average, more than three women are murdered by a husband or a boyfriend in this country every day. The Vagina Monologues in no way compares to the vulgarity of these crimes against women that it aims to stop.

Many people who are opposed to the monologues feel that the play does not belong in a Catholic institution. However, The Vagina Monologues is congruent with the mission of John Carroll University. John Carroll’s mission statement says:

“The educational experience at John Carroll University provides opportunities for the students to develop as total human persons. They should be... able to make a commitment to a tested scale of values and to demonstrate the self-discipline necessary to live by those values; alert to learning as a life-long process; open to change as they mature; respectful of their own culture and that of others; aware of the interdependence of all humanity; and sensitive to the need for social justice in response to current social pressures and problems.”

This year, John Carroll University as well as: Loyola Marymount University; Saint Mary's College of California; Stanford University; Trinity College of Connecticut; Wesleyan University; Yale University; Georgetown University; DePaul University; Northwestern University; University of Notre Dame; Purdue University; Johns Hopkins University; Boston University; Harvard University; University of Michigan; Dartmouth College; Princeton University; Cornell University; Duke University; University of Akron; Ashland University; Ohio University; Baldwin-Wallace College; Bowling Green State University; University of Cincinnati; Case Western Reserve University; Ohio State University; University of Dayton; Hiram College; Kent State University; Marietta College; Oberlin College; Miami University; University of Toledo; and 595 other colleges across the United States will have a benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues…

In other words, we are not alone; we have good company in this campaign.
We hope you will respect our efforts and join us in this on-going battle to stop violence of any kind, particularly violence against women. We urge you to visit the V-Day website and learn more about our cause, at www.vday.org.

“Go further. Work harder. Believe deeper. Be bolder. Speak louder.”
-Eve Ensler,
V-Day Artistic Director and Founder, Playwright, Performer, and Activist

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[Diago]

Father Edward Glynn eglynn@jcu.edu 216-397-4281


Sr. Mary Ann Flannery phone (216) 397-4240 fax (216) 397-1759 email at mflannery@jcu.edu


Bishop Pilla (800) 869-6525 (216) 696-6525 Ext. 2030 info@dioceseofcleveland.org

Alumni relations: tshannon@jcu.edu

University mission and identity: hgray@jcu.edu

[VisualizeSmallerGovernment]

I think it's also congruent with Andrew Dice Clay's mission statement.

[bikepacker67]

BAD MALES! BAD! BAD!

Hey Bo'Fetus... It's MY VAGINA, and I'm evicting you!

[Dominick]

Some Catholic administrators are calling the monologues “vulgar” and “offensive to women.” You could say that about parts of the Bible.

I missed where the Bible has a lesbian seducing a teenage girl with a glass of wine.

[xsmommy]

did you hear about this?

[siunevada]

Well, I see the sentence about the play being congruent and I see JCU's blah blah blah mission statement but the author failed to state what makes the two congruent.

Sorry, that's just the left side of my brain speaking. No need for an actual logical connection to support the assertion, is there?

[Unam Sanctam]

The play, based on 200 interviews, contemplates not only the horrors of violence against women but also what can bring healing to them: birth; sex; humor about one’s body; and talking, at long last, about past hurts.

Since lesbian sex and sex out of wedlock are sins according to Catholic teaching, how in heaven's name can calling such sinful activity "healing" be in accordance with Catholic teaching, the promotion of which certainly should be the mission of a Catholic educational institution.

The play shows women that “vagina” is NOT a bad word, and is NOT something of which to be ashamed.

To say that the treatment of this particular word in and of itself has ANYTHING to do with mistreatment of women is ridiculous. It is a technical term for the female reproductive organ. Penis is the technical term for the male reproductive organ, but it most certainly is vulgar and inappropriate to lace one's speech or any play with either term, and it is not in accordance with modesty and chastity, virtues that Catholic teaching has always upheld, to its great credit, for both men and women.

[Yo-Yo]

I know when I was in college I spent most of my time trying to talk to ... nevermind.

[Conservatrix]

The Vagina Monologues needs a good spokeperson...

[NeoCaveman]

did you hear about this?

They did it last year too. They'll never get a penny out of this alum.

[LibFreeOrDie]

If this group is really serious about stopping rapes on campus, then they'd be sponsoring a chapter of the Second Amendment Sisters, not this cr*p!

[Diago]

ping

[Coleus]

Good Catholic Colleges &  Universities

Assumption College
Ave Maria College
Benedictine College
Campion College
Christendom College
Holy Spirit Institute
The College of St. Thomas More
Franciscan University of Steubenville
Legionaries unveil Thornwood college plans
Magdalen College
New Catholic University
Our Lady of Corpus Christi
Southern Catholic College
Thomas Aquinas College
Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
Ave Maria School of Law

• Senator Brownback’s Commencement Remarks
  
  Who Is Catholic? New conservative colleges

Ex Corde Ecclesiae--APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
JOHN PAUL II ON CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

To add to the silliness, one might assume that the students who helped raise this money are themselves working part-time jobs and going deep into debt on loans to pay this tuition. They need to stop brainwashing American students with liberal guilt about the Third World. The students will be poor and in debt when they graduate, so they are taken advantage of on two levels with this fiasco.

This kind of kooky liberal unreality has no rightful place in Catholic education.

[thor76]

But......as I am fond of saying: "it's all part of the agenda".

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

This year's spotlight is Women of Iraq, Under Siege. John Carroll will give 10% of the proceeds to this spotlight, and the remaining proceeds to the Domestic Violence Center of Cleveland.

I suggest they give the money back as a refund to the families that paid the tuition for this crap to be pumped into their children's heads under the fraud of claiming they would get a "Catholic college education."

[thor76]

Yes. The tragedy goes further......any informed person should know that at this point the overwhelming majority of Catholic elementary & high schools are also Catholic in name only.

Children are being forced to learn and parrot back modernism, and hetrodox liberalism as if it were the gospel itself.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The version of North Korean mind control that passes itself off as a "college education" these days is quite absurd and ridiculous in the extreme. It's utter madness that anyone takes out a second mortgage to pay for any of this crap. The "conservatives" have failed the culture on this issue.

[corpus]

"Children are being forced to learn and parrot back modernism, and hetrodox liberalism as if it were the gospel itself."


Hey! It sounds like you attended Seattle University (a "Jesuit" University)! The V*** Monologues are scheduled right at St. Valentines day so that V-Day is now associated with feminism rather than a saint's feast day. Sick. Seattle U is supporting this, of course, by having both the V*** Monologues and the V*** Dialogues (a discussion after the play).

At least Seattle U took on a pagan name, lest one be fooled into thinking it Catholic.