I might be late in reading this-after all, other eminent bloggers have already written about it long back–it’s interesting, nevertheless.

In her typically pithy, scathing style, Shobaa De takes the insipidity called The Vagina Monologues to task.

Eve had one. I have one. So do all women. In all these years I have not engaged mine in a ‘dialogue’. Nor have I encouraged a ‘monologue’. If I need to articulate my thoughts I use my mouth (the official one). And I also use my mind, which is lodged in my brain. I do not take any of my body parts for granted. At the same time, I think it is corny to single out one particular orifice and give it a voice. Each orifice in my body has its own specific role to perform-but that doesn’t mean the orifice needs a stage. To convert a body part into a mouthpiece with some sort of a vague ‘agenda’, is to insult that body part. And the audience.

And so, starting from here, De takes us on a fascinating journey of words such as,

Sure, they were taken for the obligatory tour (and photo ops, of course) of shelters for underprivileged women and HIV-infected sex workers. But most of their time in Mumbai was spent partying. Again-no issues with anybody having a good time. But why convert what was essentially an attention-grabbing, gimmicky stage production into something weightier and more meaningful? Overnight, a bunch of light weight stand-up comics and fringe people from the English theatre community, posed smugly as crusaders, like they were a vital part of some really, really important ‘mission statement’ that could/would radically impact the lives of women. Puhleeze. Let’s get real. This is what I call the Page 3 brand of social activism. Nafisa Ali has made a career out of it. So have many other bleeding heart socialites in Delhi and other metros.

To,

Women in India take sexuality in their stride. They don’t need to parade it on stage in quite such an exhibitionistic manner. I’m all for giving voice to suppressed feelings of desire/rage/longing/disappointment. That’s a basic, democratic right. If God had wanted our private parts to speak, he wouldn’t have given us a tongue!

Which echoes my own thoughts on feminist movements and associated rubbish. Look what the “feminist revolution” has brought us. The commodification of the female body is complete–the West, and particularly the Victorians, once upon a time insisted on covering up the body completely because “exposing the undesirable parts of the anatomy” was vulgar. The feminist movement opposed this in the name of “freedom to do what we choose, how we dress, et al” and paved the glorious way for parading semi-nude bodies on the stage of Miss Universes and Worlds–of course, all in the name of freedom, the glory of God’s finest creation, the Woman, and all that.

I have nothing against anybody’s sense of baring dressing, but this “freeing up of prudery” has spawned an entire industry that thrives on feeding voyeuristic imaginations of people, and making tons of money out of it.