Rounding out Women’s History Month, the NEIU Feminist Collective hosted Eve Ensler’s empowering play “The Vagina Monologues” on Tuesday, April 2nd, in Alumni Hall. The event was co-sponsored by .:seeds:. Literary and Visual Arts Journal, Latinas in Power, Alpha Psi Lambda, the LGBTQA Resource Center, and the Women’s Resource Center.
The cast included Feminist Collective president Nergal Malham, Martha Lopez, Michelle D. Arredondo, Madelein Flores, Kaitlyn Judd, Lucy Munoz, Stephanie Johnson, Amber Rosen, .:seeds:. editor-in-chief Linda Monacelli, Becca Cahill, Sarah Vaid, Veleka Meeks, Courtney Jennings, Rebecca Frale, and Jessica Ramirez.
The all-female cast used their talents and feminist fervor to make the audience laugh, think, and tear up. The actresses delivered monologues from a variety of female perspectives, and they also shared “Happy” and “Not-So-Happy” facts about the vagina, such as that “Female genital mutilation has been inflicted on approximately 130 million girls and young women” in the 28 countries where it is practiced, mostly in Africa.

“The Vagina Monologues” first opened as a one-woman show performed by Eve Ensler at the HERE Arts Center in New York City on October 3, 1996. It is now performed in thousands of communities and colleges around the world, especially as part of V-Day and One Billion Rising, the “largest mass global movement to end violence against women and girls in the history of humankind,” according to the webpage http://www.vday.org/1br-victories1.html.

All ticket sales from the play at NEIU were donated to Connections for Abused Women and their Children, located at 1116 N. Kedzie, 5th Floor, Chicago, IL 60651. For more information, call 773-489-9081 or visit their website at www.cawc.org.