Many enter the healthcare field with the intent of helping people. This often becomes a challenge for many reasons. Sometimes this challenge is attributed to the fact that a disease is not fully understood. At others, it is because patients are noncompliant with treatment. Then there are instances in which environmental or lifestyle factors become hindrances. Throughout our professional lives, we will face circumstances in which a problem just seems insurmountable, and the intent to solve it gets lost in the reality of its power to overwhelm us. However, we also hold the power to decide to remain persistent. I’m now reminded of one of my former teachers who frequently said, life is a series of decisions. And, while I agree with this, I also posit that it is a series of actions that we take to define solutions and improvements.
So where does V-Day come into play with this post? And what, you may be wondering is The Vagina Monologues? V-Day and The Vagina Monologues are efforts that address the issue of violence, specifically tackling violence against women.
To briefly summarize, V-Day is a worldwide movement established in 1998 with a group of women in New York City as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its goal is to empower anti-violence organizations and at the same time represents a commitment to ending violence against women and girls. According to the website, http://www.vday.org, V-Day’s purpose is to end violence against females, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation, and sex slavery. This problem may be larger than you are aware of: according to the UN report The World’s Women 2012: Trends and Statistics one key finding was “Violence against women is a universal phenomenon.”
Eve Ensler, a Tony-award winning playwright and the author of The Vagina Monologues, decided to take action by expressing the voices of those women whose stories are often untold, forgotten, or deemed not as important as other matters. Her intention is to foster dialogues about and allow for an openness in understanding and breaking down this worldwide challenge. The play launched in 1994 and was the culmination of dozens of interviews administered by Ensler with women from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. The show initially ran in New York and then toured around the U.S.A.
Today over 5,800 performances are put on annually during the months of March, April, and May. Last year I had the honor of participating in PCOM's annual production of The Vagina Monologues. It required me to step outside my comfort zone, but this is something I believe I need to continually push myself to do. It also allowed me to come together in solidarity with others for a cause that DEMANDS attention. While violence against women may seem deep-rooted and overwhelming, there are steps we can take to educate and change cultural and societal attitudes about violence against women.
This year, PCOM’s performance of The Vagina Monologues will take place Saturday, February 11 at 7pm and Sunday, February 12 at 2pm. I urge you to come support your classmates who have put a TON of effort into this production and support V-Day as a way to implement change.
