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Queerness, Disability, and The Vagina Monologues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Kim Q. Hall
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Abstract

This paper questions the connection between vaginas and feminist embodiment in The Vagina Monologues and considers how the text both challenges and reinscribes (albeit unintentionally) systems of patriarchy, compulsory heterosexuality, and ableism. I use the Intersex Society of North America's critique as a point of departure and argue that the text offers theorists and activists in feminist, queer, and disability communities an opportunity to understand how power operates in both dominant discourses that degrade vaginas and strategies of feminist resistance that seek to reclaim and celebrate them.

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Type
Research Article
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Hypatia , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Winter 2005, pp. 99 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Hypatia, Inc.

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