Maria M. Silva, Staff Writer

The Womyn’s Resource Center (WRC) wraps up the Women’s History Month with an event stressing the importance of women’s issues and gender equality.

With the beginning of Women’s History Month, the school has mobilized to celebrate women from all backgrounds and ages, but also to promote women’s rights in the community and beyond. The Womyn’s Resource Center has been an advocate for the cause organizing several events that started this month including a bruncheon dedicated to the celebrated female documentarian Ky Dickens on March 4, followed by phone banking on March 22 to promote the passing of the “Women’s Opportunity Agenda” and finishing with the Vagina Monologues on March 28 as their major activities for this month.

The Vagina Monologues, one of the events that has been highlighted for this month’s celebrations, is a theater play created by Eve Ensler in 1996 that reflects on different aspects of life from a woman’s perspective.

“The Vagina Monologues is a collection of women’s stories that talk about topics such as coming of age, sex and sexuality, sexual assault, relationships with each other and with the men in their lives, with a big focus on domestic violence,” said Alane Varga, the dean for diversity and student development.

She explained that ever since the Vagina Monologues had made its first appearance it has evolved to eventually become part of a much larger movement, known as V-Day.

“This worldwide movement is mostly celebrated on Valentine’s Day and stands for empowering women and girls and combating sexual violence,” Varga added.

Hermina Garic, administrative intern at WRC, stated that the importance of the Vagina Monologues, not only on a campus level but also in general, lies in raising awareness.

“It’s really important that we do bring attention to this because it’s not all the physical abuse the victims suffer, but it’s also emotional and mental,” Garic said.   

The Vagina Monologues is generally performed in March during Women’s History Month, which is not a coincidence.

“It is related to the achievements that some women have made in the past, while also connecting them to the struggles that women still have to face nowadays,” Garic said.

All around the globe and even at UC, everyday, women and girls deal with many types of gender-based discrimination and violence, such as work inequality, stalking and sexual abuse. Garic stands up to these challenges.

“This happens everywhere, and if we don’t raise awareness or change the policies, nobody is going to do anything about it,” she said.

The Vagina Monologues strives to become the voice of women from different backgrounds and contexts targeting a broad public, meaning that although female stories in this case are protagonists men are not excluded and are also involved in the cause for women’s issues.

“It is imperative for male counterparts to attend events like the Vagina Monologues in order to be truly open-minded and aware of the struggles that women have to go through,”  student Sung Jang said. “The Vagina Monologues combines narrative from all types of women, from those who are usually visible to us in the media, to those who are marginalized such as women of color and women of the LGBT community.”