One of the most surprising things I have learned during my experience with this play is that a lot of people don't like the word "feminism." It seems exclusive, aggressive, political, unfriendly… "kind of, um, butch," to quote Glenn Close in an interview at V-Day 2001.

So what's the deal? What is feminism, anyway? Theoretically, it's the principle that women should have social, political, and economic rights equivalent to those of men. That's not so bad. In fact, I believe most people would agree with this statement. I don't think, however, that most people would call themselves feminists--at least not actively, not out loud.

It's unfortunate that feminism has become a dirty word to many people. Women already deal with a lot of guilt and shame in their lives--they should at least be able to say they deserve (and even demand) equality with pride. For me, using "feminist" in a negative way is just as bizarre and offensive as using "woman" as an insult. In my mind, being a woman and being a feminist go hand in hand--after all, who better to be an advocate of than yourself?

That said, I have come to realize that a lot of people don't necessarily think like me, and I'm not just talking about misogynists. The word "feminism" just doesn't sit well for many women. It feels too much like a label, too limiting. When actresses from the 2001 V-Day Gala at Madison Square Garden were asked if The Vagina Monologues was a feminist play, responses were all over the place.

According to Isabella Rossellini, "I would not label tonight a feminist night; it's a women's night. I mean, there are Republican women, there are Democratic women, there are feminist women, and women who don't define themselves, they're just women against violence."

"I always was a feminist, but without definition," answered Marisa Tomei.

Swoosie Kurtz qualified, "I was a bit of a feminist before, a fair-weather feminist. Now, I'm a vagina feminist."

Perhaps most surprising, though, Glenn Close admitted, "I have this clichéd image of what a feminist would be, and I don't want to be that way . . . It's [her performance in the play is] about something bigger than what I always kind of thought feminism was."*

The fact that so many women struggle with the word feminism suggests two things to me, both of which I've come to believe. First, it says that even a lot of our society's most prominent, powerful, and beautiful women are still afraid to take a stand for themselves, and that as a group, women need to take some serious time out to reclaim feminism, and learn to love it for what it truly is. Second, it says that feminism does have a strong presence in our lives--it just goes by a different, seemingly unknown name. Through The Vagina Monologues, and various other vehicles, women are demanding the respect they deserve, they're just not labeling it. Such anonymity is nice in that it avoids alienating the conservative, and even the moderate, but at the same time, it's hard to rally for a nameless cause.

The feminist question is not one that can be settled through a couple paragraphs of explanation. All words differ to some degree in definition from person to person, but "feminism" really seems to run the spectrum. All I can really say with absolute confidence is that I'm a feminist, and that I'm glad to see the principles I associate with feminism dealt with so beautifully, honestly, and collectively in The Vagina Monologues. As reporter Katha Pollitt writes, "after all the feminist debates (and splits), and all the books and the Theory and the theories, in the real world there are still such people as women, who share a common biology and much else besides. And the power of feminism, whether or not it goes by that name, still resides in its capacity to transform women's consciousness at the deepest level . . . Sisterhood-is-powerful feminism may feel out of date to the professoriat, but there's a lot of new music still to be played on those old bones."**