Parental Advisory

[venta]

Does anyone know anything about The Vagina Monologues ?

I'd been told, by people who I'd regard as reliable, that they were extremely funny. Last night, I accidentally found a performance on the telly. The 2 minutes I watched seemed to consist entirely of a woman explaining how she'd "reclaimed" the word cunt, and then repeatedly saying it in different silly voices.

Which the audience seemed to find hilarious. Which I found incomprehensible. It's not like I found it offensive, it just... wasn't funny.

[One Notional Kudos Point to anyone who realises why I suddenly remembered about this :) ]

Comments

Re: Next time I shall have to be more clear...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

How do you tell someone that they are too sexist ?

Cunningly engineer a debate about subconscious sexism, maybe, so that people are somewhat curious to know what other people's opinions of their behaviour is, and thus less likely to be upset?

I find it relatively easy to accuse people of sexism (or other forms of discrimination, of which the most common I see is anti-Americanism and of which I'm arguably guilty myself when it comes to their government). Often they disagree with me, pay no attention, or claim that it isn't important, but if someone appears to be discriminating I have the option available to say so. If they're unfairly treating someone who's a friend of mine, I might even use emotionally loaded terms...

Usually the comment is met with denial, and then a request for proof

I tend not to approach it as a case of "you're sexist (or anti-American), and here's a list of incidents which prove it", but more by waiting for occasions where they do show bias, and saying *at that time*, something like "I think you're showing your prejudices there". Certainly when people have made similar comments to me, it's enough to make me stop and think about it (even if I'm not willing to argue it out with them).

I agree that if they're just going to be upset and defensive, there's no point causing trouble for no benefit. But I don't think that's always the case.