After creating a global phenomenon in 1996 with The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler is moving on from the vagina and tackling the cultural perceptions of the entire female body.
In her newest one-woman show, The Good Body, Ensler communicates her insecurities about her stomach, as well as the insecurities of the women she has met during her worldly travels.
Ensler will be in town for an exclusive one-week engagement of The Good Body at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, Feb. 28 through March 5.
Windy City Times: What inspired or drove you to take on the female body as a whole for this project?
Ensler: Well, I think that I've been doing The Vagina Monologues for about seven years, and to be perfectly honest, I've come to a very good place about my vagina, and I thought I was kind of done. And the next thing I knew, I looked down and discovered my not-so-flat, post-forty stomach and realized it had just moved up. [ Laughs ]
WCT: Are you friends with your stomach now?
Ensler: I am, actually. I am. So, it feels very—I mean, look, I have my moments. But for the most part, now I really love my body. I'm so incredibly grateful to it. That it functions the way it does, that it's sized the way it is, that it's with me everywhere I go.
WCT: Why do you think it's so hard for women to talk about their bodies?
Ensler: Well, I think we have been so trained and so conditioned from a variety of sources to hate ourselves. To not love our bodies the way they are. To not feel good about our bodies the way they are, you know? And I think that it comes from corporate consumer capitalism, which is always going on. The basis of it is that something has got to be wrong or else we wouldn't consume products to fix it. So, you've got that. Then you've got patriarchy, which has always made women feel less than, and it has always kind of engineered an idea of ourselves, who we are supposed to be, that we're just desperate to achieve, which has nothing to do with who we are. And then you have religion, which is telling women they need to be pure and good and quiet and subdued. And you put those together and it's a toxic cocktail of women really fighting to be this good thing they're supposed to be. And then the body, well you just tell women they're supposed to be skinny and that's a perfect manifestation of it all.
WCT: What is your advice to women, especially young women?
Ensler: I think that ultimately, this conditioning is unbelievably powerful. It's cellular. I'm a feminist for 30 years and it got me, OK? So all my great, critical thinking didn't overcome it. I think we have to stop treating body hatred as if it's a personal neurosis. And we have to understand it's a political, social and cultural problem. And we have to start treating it the way we treat all those problems—by social movement. Until enough of us begin to withdraw and refuse to play, it's not going to be safe enough for a lot of women to do that. And it's too hard for a person to do it alone, you know? Way too hard. You need support.
WCT: How long did your journey take before you felt comfortable in your own skin?
Ensler: Well, I'm 52. [ Laughs ] And I'm just beginning to feel OK about this body.
WCT: We have a long road ahead of us.
Ensler: Look, I think it can happen sooner. I don't think they're supposed to wait until they are 52. I think if we build social movements now, we create groups and we begin to shift consciousness, we can shift it overnight. But it just requires the desire on people's part to do that.
WCT: And that's what happened with The Vagina Monologues. Did you ever imagine it would become this global phenomenon?
Ensler: No. Not at all. [ Laughs ] I just hoped someone would let me do it without shooting me.
WCT: But you've ran into a lot of criticism this year from the Christian right wing.
Ensler: No more than usual. It's V-Day season. The Christians come out. The right-wing Christians, I should say, because it's not all Christians. The play is done by many Christians who have no issues with it. There are a few right-wing fringe men who seem to be—maybe one man. It always seems to be maybe one angry man who just makes a lot of noise … who seems to be creating a lot of stir and making it hard for people to do it. But look, there were 2,000 productions in 1,150 places. Seven of those had trouble. I mean, it's not a high percentage.
WCT: Oh, not at all, which is amazing.
Ensler: Yeah. And we are talking about really interesting places like Botswana and Tanzania, so I am surprised that Notre Dame succumbed to that pressure. I was there last year and I thought we had a really excellent dialogue about why The Vagina Monologues are important, why my talking about vaginas is important in a Catholic university. And I thought there was kind of an agreement and we had come to this place. So, it was very surprising to me and disheartening to see that at a Catholic institution would not [ only ] shut down a production, but not allow women to make thousands of dollars which would have been fundamental to the organizations there that were working to stop violence. That's very, very upsetting.
WCT: What are you working on now?
Ensler: I have a book coming out in the fall that I have been writing on the road called Insecure At Last. Just really looking at how we've been controlled and directed and manipulated by this notion of security and how absurd it is. There is no security. And why we have suddenly become people who are after security, as opposed to being after kindness or being after connection.
WCT: Sounds very interesting.
Ensler: Yes, I'm excited about it.
WCT: So, you'll be appearing on The L Word [ the episode from last Sunday ] .
Ensler: Yes!
WCT: How was that experience?
Ensler: It was so much fun. [ Laughs ] It was really fun. I had a great time. The women who run the show are fabulous. And everyone on the show is great. I had so much fun.
WCT: There seems to be this powerful connection between queer rights and women's rights. Can you explain your deep connection to the gay community?
Ensler: Well for one, I've been attracted to women and men, and my whole life I've gone back and forth between the two. So, for me to say that I wasn't connected to the queer community would be a lie. [ Laughs ] I'm single now and free, and have no idea where it's all going to end up. [ Laughs ] So, that's a huge piece of what's going on. I'm also—I have always identified with gay women and believe that they are, to a large degree, really paving the way for women's liberation and holding the ground in terms of independence and creating their own realities, which is just a huge model for women in general.
WCT: Did you see LOGO's documentary, Beautiful Daughters?
Ensler: Oh yeah. Definitely. It's beautiful. I loved it, and I'm very proud to be in it. I'm very proud of the trans V-Day that they did and the impact it had on transsexual women. Not to mention that the monologue I wrote was an optional monologue for women to do in V-Day's around the world. I think 70 percent of the V-Day's did that monologue. So, not only did it educate people about transsexual women, but a lot of trans women in communities came forward to be in productions who had never been out before. So, that was thrilling.
WCT: Who inspires you? Who are your personal vagina warriors?
Ensler: The women who most inspire me are women who are the grassroots activists who are doing work in their communities in this ongoing, invisible way. Who are changing, standing up for rights, standing up for women, fighting for women and girls to be free, and they do it all the time, without any credit, without any mention, without any visibility.
WCT: Do you have a favorite term for the vagina?
Ensler: [ Laughs ] It changes every day. I mean, what do I like today? I'm really fond of the word 'cunt,' I'd have to say. I like it.
