An Open Letter to the Superintendent and Administators of the Amherst/Pelham Regional High School and to Educators and Parents Throughout the Valley.

Dear Editor:

    The well-known play, "Vagina Monologues," will be performed at the Amherst/Pelham Regional High School.  The public should consider several issues before this ill-fated plan continues. The Department of Justice determined that 19,000 sexual assaults occurred on school property across the country in 1999.[1]   The majority of the victims are female.  While explaining complex human behavior is a 'soft' science, it is clear that there is a preoccupation with sex and objectification of the human body - two key prerequisites for sexual assault. Why is it that an educational institution for our children would feed this dynamic? 

    The play focuses on a single part of the female anatomy, isolating it from the woman as a whole.  Are then educators unwittingly assisting in a preoccupation with sex and the objectification of women? The Vagina Monologues obliterates the wholeness and intactness of a woman and reducing her to a part, an item, an object to be used for the entertainment of an audience with the involvement of our children.  Since there is no personification of an object, it is fated to be discarded when its usefulness has expired.

    The producers of this play are objectifying women in full view of our children.  Further, the wholeness of woman is ignored, and the completeness of her humanity is caricatured into a single anatomical structure, one without a brain, emotion, or moral standing.  This is much like the vocational viewpoint of a pornographer.  Sexual violence against women is the result of them being discarded like objects.  If educators need examples of women to send a message, there are plenty of esteemed female heroines who display the best in human character such character: Harriet Tubman, Massachusetts patriot Abigail Adams, Joan of Arc, or the heroic judge of ancient Israel, Deborah.  These historical figures embody integrity, intelligence, determination, courage, insight, commitment, honesty, and faith.

    School productions have the potential to change the culture of a school.  Even students who do not attend the performance are altered by the tone and content of conversations that follow.  How can we complain if a student makes a comment about a girl's genitals after the precedent was set by a school play, under the aegis of a superintendent, principal and teachers?  The aftermath of this may become legally actionable. Proponents of the performance may use the defense that permission slips are required and that the play occurs after school hours.  This mitigates nothing.  All the destructive elements described above persist. 

    Based largely on the Department of Justice report, researcher, Dr. Judith Reisman has concluded that, "the school sexual abuse data - were they even modestly reliable - support a finding that eroticized schools are hazardous to children's health, even in terms of "verbal threats" of rape and sodomy."[2] [3]   One would think that this school system in particular would be sensitive to intentional erotization of the high school environment in light of the dismissal of a recent principal and a sports coach within the last 3 years for reasons with sexual overtones.  This same school system tabled "West Side Story", a signature work by Leonard Bernstein; a musical that features ethnic minorities in major roles, and deals sensitively with true love, overcoming prejudices, and standing courageously against bigoted mobs.

    The producers of the Superbowl 2004 halftime show, MTV, could really get creative and combine this "school" play with the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake act; look for the next "Super Bowl rip-off" to occur about one and a half feet south of where it occurred this year.  For the sake of "equal time," will school officials select next year's high school play: "If Penises Could Talk"? Even in the face of reasoned argument and widespread parental opposition, school officials still find the motivation to impose debauchery on our children.  

The Amherst/Pelham scoreboard: Vagina -1... Love, Respect, Wholeness - 0.
John R. Diggs, Jr. MD
South Hadley February 8, 2004