What word should they have used?

From the article:

"The school's position is absurd, a throwback to the Dark Ages," [Eve Ensler] said. "So what, if children were to hear the word? Would that be terrible? We're not talking about plutonium here, or acid rain, a word that destroys lives. It's a body part!"

While I think Ensler's heart is in the right place, I gotta say, even a word like plutonium doesn't destroy lives. Is the Periodic Table a weapon of mass destruction because it has a box for the element "Pu", with the name spelled neatly beneath the symbol? Oh, no — don't let the children into chemistry class!

They were told not to use the word "vagina," but they did anyway. So the school suspended them. Big deal.

The stupid move was in approving the piece but telling them not to say the word.

I also note, somewhat perspicaciously, that the URL for this news story ends in the following way:

/n/a/2007/03/06/entertainment/e134236S28.DTL&type=bondage

Ahem.

You'd think the site would have that idiot principal's email available. I may have to dig a bit for it...

That list is missing Hoohaa.

I don't understand why vagina is a no no. Or scrotum or anus.

It's the lamest to teach kids that the actual names of bodily parts, functions and fluids are
somehow repugnant.

Puritanism.

What happens if my child comes home and asks me what a vagina is!!!???

People are such babies.

They are honor students, they miss a day, and this will look great on their apps to Bryn Mawr, so bottom line, no real problem. Other than their HS and HS principal looks stu-pid.

The stupidity was in giving a nonsensical, arbitrary, and ill-thought-out prohibition without expecting to be defied. They're supposed to be educating good citizens, not mindless drones. Idiots.

J-Dog is right.

They broke a stupid rule, and are being punished for it. Now the administration is shown to be idiots, and we should applaud these young women.

It's the not expecting to get in trouble that bothers me.

What? "Where God split her in twain" isn't on the list!?

The school "recognizes and respects student freedom of expression," Leprine said. "That right, however, is not unfettered."

We recognize and respect student freedom... we're just not giving it to them.

This is mind-numbingly stupid. To prohibit young women from saying "vagina" during a reading of that work is to completely miss (or perhaps intentionally undermine) the point of doing the piece in the first place.

Unbelievable.

Really, Discordian? And why's that?

I remember when I used to hang out and debate evolution on Christian websites. The moderations often would often delete posts and ban people for using mature, anatomical terms. It is really frustrating to try to explain sexual selection when they wouldn't allow you to mention sex. And one time I ran afoul of the moderators for quoting a paragraph from Answers in Genesis that contained the word "nipples",

Blake Stacey said box. Eew.

I agree with j-dog and might even flaunt a bit when i went back,up yours Laprine.

Congrats to these girls for defying irrational authority.

What idiots these people are. Smoke some weed, jerk off, relax a little. It's just a body part. It is healthy for people to be comfortable enough with their body that they can talk about it.

Jesus Vagina Christ.

You'd think the site would have that idiot principal's email available.

Well, here's the contact info:
John Jay High School, 60 North Salem Road, Rt. 121 , Cross River, NY 10518
Phone: 914 763-7200 | Fax: (914) 763-7494
The principal's name is Rich Leprine
The school's site manager's emil is: Barbara Semenetz / bsemenetz@klschools.org
I wonder if rleprine@klschools.org is a valid address...?
In fact: http://jjhs.klschools.org/user_profile_view.aspx?id=74ab8eba-a6cf-11d6-…
Richard Leprine
rleprine@klschools.org
High School Principal
John Jay High School
I notice there's no listing for him on the VM (is that voicemail or Vagina Monologues?) list: http://jjhs.klschools.org/www/jjhs/site/hosting/VMList-HS.pdf

Discordian has a point. Although I think the prohibition itself was wretchedly misguided, and was begging to be disregarded, civil disobedience requires that its practicioners be willing to face the consequences of their disobedience.

With that said, I can't help but imagine the school administrators chuckling behind closed doors. "Hey, I know! Let's have them read 'The Vagina Monologues' but not let them say 'vagina.' Hehheh. Hehheh. Heheh. Heheh."

Idiots. *mutter*

The girls should have expected punishment because the school administration had already shown themselves to be crazy authoritarian misogynists. Defying the mad dictates of crazy authoritarian misogynists is obviously going to result in some sort of attempted punishment.

Not deserved from my viewpoint, obviously, but punishment is an entirely consistent reaction given the players.

They also say "cunt" and "twat" in that show. A lot. Did they get suspended for "vagina" and not they other two? I wonder if they were told they couldn't use the word "vagina" they didn't even attempt the others.

The only responses these students need to give are, "They suspended me for saying Vagina."

When someone points out that they were suspended for not following rules they only need to respond, "They said I'd be suspended for saying Vagina."

Anyone who doesn't agree this is absurd is a moron and should be dismissed out of hand, including laughter.

Say, whatever happened to the vagina t-shirt girl from a couple of years ago? Searching for her latest status reveals tons of Vaginaphobia all over the place. It's rampant!

The young woman I was wondering about was Carrie Rethlefsen and she appears to have disappeared after her event. Hey, more power to her, I'm just curious how it ended up.

Another issue I noticed on my google search was a vagina costume at school. I can somewhat understand as I probably would think that any genitalia costumes at school might be somewhat distracting. In Austin, TX on Halloween, we have quite a few giant penises walking around on 6th street, but that's not a public school (well, sorta).

Anyhow, saying vagina should certainly be non-controversial and this school principle should be publicly humiliated and laughed at whenever he's seen. It would be hard to resist the urge as a high school boy not to spray paint VAGINA on the principle's car, house, forehead... Yeah, yeah, as an adult I know it's the wrong thing to do, but still...

Will:

According to the article, the two girls only read an excerpt:

The excerpt from "Monologues" was read Friday night, among various readings at an event sponsored by the literary magazine at John Jay High School in Cross River, a New York City suburb. Among the other readings was a student's original work and the football coach quoting Shakespeare.

The girls took turns reading the excerpt until they came to the word, then said it together.

"My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army," they read. "I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country."

I'll bet you dinner that the football coach didn't quote Hamlet's merry sallies about "lying between maid's legs" and "country matters" (heh heh), or this bit of boyish braggadocio from Romeo and Juliet:

Samson: 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids; I will cut off their heads.

Gregory: The heads of the maids?

Samson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.

Actually, these lines might have been censored in my ninth-grade literature book. I know they excised Mercutio's patter about body parts in act 2, scene 1, though I highly doubt modern A-Muhrican kids can get too steamed up about medlars and popperin pears.

Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
An open et cetera . . .

"An open et cetera" — now there's an entry which should be on the euphemism list! Speaking of which, ScienceBreath, "box" isn't on the list either.

Heh heh.

Maybe my 2 year old is really ahead of the curve, but she's known and named her vagina since she's been able to talk.

Then again she pretend-plays to breastfeed her doll. Destined to burn in eternity, I'm sure.

I think that a good protest of this would be to make a bunch of t-shirts that simply said vagina on them, and distribute them to any students who wanted them, and then have all the students wear them on the same day (kind of an awkward sentence, but I'm sticking to it).

Words convey meaning, the principle banned meaning. There is no such thing as a bad word, the ideas expressed with words can be bad but the words are just words.

Rug and Rug muffin are not on that list either.

They weren't censored - they were punished for resisting censorship. And come on, there's a huge difference.
/sarcasm

Cabbage patch??!!
Thanks, PZ, now I won't be able to weed my garden without-gasp- immoral thoughts.

I have said this several times before in comments to various blogs and I will keep saying it until I get some kind of response.
Most people believe that words have magic power. They, including I have noticed, many commenters on these blogs. will write s--t, or sh--, or something; or f---. It is okay to write fuc-, or fu-k, or f-ck, or -uck, even to put all four of those one under the other in a letter, but they seem to feel that if they write all four letters, something magical, mystical, will happen - the skies will open, G-d will rain down catastrophe on their heads. George Carlin used to talk in his stage shows about the 40 words that couldn't be said on the radio, same attitude. I notice that most of those verboten words are slang for body parts or functions involved with sex or elimination. Actually that is what is very strange about this particular situation - usually it is accepted to write "sexual intercourse" but not "fuck", "bowel movement" but not "shit", "vagina" but not "cunt".
I'm curious, will this comment pass through all the censorship on the web?

You can say fuck here.

As well as fuckwit.

Karl:

Your point about superstitious thought is a good one. Actually, in all the time I've spent frittering my life away posting comments on ScienceBlogs, I've discovered their filtering software will let you say fuck but not incest or (and this is weird) soma. If you try, you get an error message saying, uninformatively, "Sorry, there has been an error." Click the "more info" link and you get the following:

Occasionally users have problems commenting on our blogs. There are three main reason for this:

1. You don't have Javascript turned on. In order to baffle spam bots, our comment form requires Javascript. We know it's not ideal, but the bots are vicious, and it's come to this.

2. Your IP address has been previously identified as a source of comment spam or other malicious behaviour.

The solution to this? Drop us a line. We'll see if can track down the source of the problem.

3. If the blog you are trying to comment on has TypeKey turned on (which is rare), sometimes TypeKey causes cookies to conflict and causes a scenario in which you seem to be logged in, but still can not comment.

How did I get around the filter to post this message? Ah, that's a secret for the wizards to know and the rest to find out, young grasshopper. ;-)

What about the Mink Donut?

Karl,

I think the reason most of my friends write "f_ck" instead of "fuck" in e-mails or on blogs is more pragmatic - to make sure that our other friends that work at places with restrictive filtering in place can still get our e-mails/read our blog comments while they're at work.

Getting back on the original topic, I completely agree with Kseniya , "civil disobedience requires that its practicioners be willing to face the consequences of their disobedience." In my opinion, the girls did the right thing, but nobody should be surprised that the school administration carried through with what they said they were going to do.

I really think the students will have the last laughs here. For years to come, as the principal and assistant principals roam the hallways, guess what word they will hear thrown their way, ventriloquist style? Students might even adopt a new school song; e.g., following Leonard Bernstein:

The most beautiful sound I ever heard:
Vagina, Vagina, Vagina, Vagina . . .
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word . .
Vagina, Vagina, Vagina, Vagina . . .
Vagina!
I've just met a gir-url's Vagina,
And suddenly that word
Will never be the absurd
To me.
Vagina!
I've just kissed a gir-url's Vagina,
and suddenly I've found
How wonderful a wound
Can be!
Vagina!
Say it loud and there's music playing,
Say it soft and it's almost like praying.

Vagina,
I'll never stop saying Vagina!

The most beautiful sound I ever heard.
Vagina.

Yes, wound, rhymes with found here, is on the list.

Karl,

Words mean things. They are not merely characters arranged in a certain order. It has nothing to do with "mystical" beliefs.

removing a "the" improves scansion:

I really think the students will have the last laughs here. For years to come, as the principal and assistant principals roam the hallways, guess what word they will hear thrown their way, ventriloquist style? Students might even adopt a new school song; e.g., following Leonard Bernstein:

The most beautiful sound I ever heard:
Vagina, Vagina, Vagina, Vagina . . .
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word . .
Vagina, Vagina, Vagina, Vagina . . .
Vagina!
I've just met a gir-url's Vagina,
And suddenly that word
Will never be absurd
To me.
Vagina!
I've just kissed a gir-url's Vagina,
and suddenly I've found
How wonderful a wound
Can be!
Vagina!
Say it loud and there's music playing,
Say it soft and it's almost like praying.

Vagina,
I'll never stop saying Vagina!

The most beautiful sound I ever heard.
Vagina.

Yes, wound, rhymes with found here, is on the list.

Actually, the girls didn't miss school. They got an IN SCHOOL suspension. Which means sitting in the lunch room all day. If it were MY kids they would come to school that day in T-Shirts that read "VAGINA is not a dirty word"

Sure, kids will push, and maybe they did it just to stir up some trouble at the school. But it's the kind of trouble that NEEDS to be stirred up.

With all the books we can't read, all the words we can't say, what will be left?

I don't know if anyone has read Ella Minnow Pea by MarK Dunn, but I HIGHLY recomend it.

Retired Principal: So? Where's the mp3?

This whole thread reminds me of a favorite old SNL joke from early in the current administration: W and Cheney are in the Oval Office, and the veep makes some comment about his angina acting up... to which W replies "Don't be silly: Boys don't have anginas!" ;^)

The V word missing here is Victorian.

Touché, Mister McGrath.

dorid:

With all the books we can't read, all the words we can't say, what will be left?

Mary Prankster:

Shoplift ideology
So at a loss for leaders,
When the flame-retardant books came out,
They had to burn the readers. . . .

maybe they should've used the word "bagel"

Retired Principal:

Clearly, the song should include as many euphemisms as possible, including "secret places" and "an open et cetera"! :-)

"Cunt" wasn't in the totse list (it was the first thing I checked). I wonder why.

Blake: Yeah, it took me forever to figure out the "incest" one out. I still have not received an answer to any of my emails on my mysteriously denied posts, so I'm guessing the email has a similar filter in place.

Nevertheless, I still want to know why the "problems commenting" page doesn't mention a word filter (it's possible I may have finally got a response that was lost in the jumble on a particular other thread, in which case I apologize for repeating the question, but an answer would be nice :/ )

notthedroids:
I think that you are completely wrong. Words ARE in fact merely characters arranged in a certain order. They remind you of some external reality, an object, an idea, an act, but they are only symbols. That is exactly my point of people thinking that they are magic. If you write down the correct combination of symbols, something magical will happen. Many different words refer to the same reality, and everyone recognizes that, but only certain symbols - words - are considered "bad", "dangerous". The latest example of this is "n-word". It refers to the same thing as "negro" or even "nigger". But the latter two are no longer acceptable to be written or even uttered. If you use one of those words in polite company, not even as a reference to a person, everyone will look frightened, they will glance around to see whether God's minions have heard it, they will begin to edge away as if they expect lightning to strike. If you use "n-word", conversation will continue normally.
If that is not an example of people's fear of the magic power of words, then I don't know how to explain it.

How seriously can we take a list that omits the euphemism "hoo hoo dilly"? I mean, really!

Why are we supposed to be offended by the word vagina? We're not supposed to use anatomical words? Are we supposed to pretend that they don't exist?

Ah, the court of public opinion - the best venue for enforcing (or eliminating) social restrictions on behavior.

Karl, I don't really think people believe words are magic they just believe that they have meaning and history. The N-word your talking about is not offensive religiously,it is almost always used negatively (until more recently in rap music as some sign of brotherhood) and the meaning behind it is oppresive. People glance around because everybody knows it is taboo and the reason it is taboo is because it IS offensive for some people.

Real suspension has been all but completely replaced by "in-school suspension."

Why? School administrators remembered that federal aid is based on attendance.

Zeno: Is that what Robin Williams calls it?

This story smells very much of the "Scopes monkey trial" style set-up.

Never forget, Scopes was a football coach and a patsy with no real interest in science. He was recruited by a group of Dayton businessmen to deliberately break the law in order to gain publicity for the town. ...

I have to wonder what biology is like in that school. Or sex ed.
Well I can kinda understand if the adminestrators were worried about their bieng children in the audience. Blame the idiots who don't want their children to know what their body parts are, and who seem to have made it socital norm. Me I always knew what my penis and testicles were called. I just didn't know what they were for until I was twelve. (considering my brothers that was a miricle)

Next time they should read the Stoning/Jehova sketch from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"

That should really torque people up.

Jehova! Jehova! Vagina! er Jehova!

I can remember my mother telling me when I was four or five years old, in response to the inevitable question regarding the origins of babies, "a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina, and the man's sperm meets the woman's egg to make a baby in the woman's stomach."
At the time I knew what a penis was, the rest was utterly lost on me, and had the (I imagine) intended effect of befuddling me past the point of wanting details.

On the topic at hand, these girls did something brave and right, and they will hopefully accept their punishment as a neccessary step toward eventual sanity.

My favorite euphemisms: Whisker biscuit, and nether-bifurcation.

oh come on! this list doesn't even have "bearded clam"!

"a baby in the woman's stomach"
I was wondering why I had stomach problems when I was pregnant...

I am reminded of the Kevin Bloody Wilson song, "You can't say Cunt in Canada".

A bit of Backstory, KBW is an Australian comedian, and when he went to do a tour in Canada, was told that, as part of his Visa conditions, he was forbidden to say cunt during the course of his R-rated show. He opened with the above song.

It's the not expecting to get in trouble that bothers me.

What makes you think they didn't expect to get in trouble?

That's not the only unwarranted assumption in these parts. Most people here, including PZ, have mischaracterized the events in one way or another. One point not mentioned is that the girls had agreed not to say "vagina" but did anyway. On that basis, the school principal has characterized the suspension as punishment for disobedience, rather than censorship. But of course requiring the girls not to say "vagina" was censorship, and promising not to but doing so anyway was apparently a very deliberate act, the only way they could present their performance, and a political stand for free speech (keep in mind that all three are honors students). So while there are many things that one might reasonably be bothered by here, being bothered that these girls were clueless as to the consequences of their actions does not appear to be one of them.

I'm curious, will this comment pass through all the censorship on the web?

I'm curious if you have a clue about the technology you're using. Just what parts of the web do you suppose your comment passed through?

Number ten on the euphemism list is ass.

I am confused.

Never forget, Scopes was a football coach and a patsy with no real interest in science. He was recruited by a group of Dayton businessmen to deliberately break the law in order to gain publicity for the town. ...

Not quite. Scopes wasn't a patsy, he was a willing and knowledgeable participant. And he wasn't recruited to deliberately break the law, he had already broken the law by teaching from the state mandated science book.

Number ten on the euphemism list is ass.

Also on the list is cock.

I am confused.

Why? Do you have some reason to expect that site to be an authoritative source?

I correct myself. I'm not confused, but some people definitely are.

This is a test. Here is in---- (the word, that is) without any magic, and here is incest with magic. Is this really filtered (by the soft parts in my interwobblie connection to SciBlogs)?

And the answer is yes: I couldn't even preview this without the superstition-like obfuscatingcensorship.

Whoa. "incest" really is censored by scienceblogs? That's weird -- and so stupid. (Especially considering how easy it is to get around.)

Well truth machine (re. #59), for starters there's apparently the scienceblog software itself.
And then there's no telling how puritanical a company that people browsing this site work for really is. What kind of filters and blockers are running and interfering with their websurfing experience depending on the number of occurences of certain words on a page, or the amount of flesh-coloured pixels in the JPGs that decorate it.

you can pretty much say whatever you want on the web, but an audience can't necessarily see/hear whatever it wants ...

For what it's worth, the comment screening seems to be aimed at weeding out spam, so terms that frequently appear in spam (like Viagra) get targeted, not necessarily "offensive" language. It does make things difficult, though, when many of the ScienceBlogs posts themselves make used of these terms, and the error page gives no clues about what's going on.

"Number ten on the euphemism list is ass. I am confused."

(1) The list is in alphabetical order, not in order of prevalence.
(2) "Ass" is sometimes used as a catch-all reference to sex, as in "Did you get some ass last weekend?"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=get+some+ass

While I'm not into censorship, I DO have to disagree with people on one point: Words DO have power.

Language is the set of symbols we use to express those ideas that are relevant to the culture from which it springs. They are molded around ideals and not just descriptions of things. When we have no vocabulary for something, we have to resort to attempting to put words to something we don't have a grasp on... we try to describe, choosing an element or two but not capturing the whole thing. It's the difference between our understanding of /PEACOCK/ and /ELEGANT CHICKEN/

When you loose the word, some of the idea is lost also. Loosing words that are offensive, like racial slurs, makes it necessary to either invent new slurs, or loose the force of the slur. It's no coincidence that certain members of immigrant groups in America have some mainstream acceptance and the words "Mc", "Whop", and "Dago" have pretty much disappeared from common usage. These words that I grew up with (and the associated ideas) are totally missing from my kid's experience.

The problem is that there is a vast difference between words created as cultural weapons and words created to describe something. It's not the denial of the use of the word that's troubling in itself, but the denial of basic body functions... this idea of sin, evil, or naughtiness associated with sex and defecation that really degrades all of us.

What I find amazing is that the school KNEW what was going to be read, and that the very PURPOSE of The Vagina Monologs is to say "look, we are NOT ashamed to have vaginas or to use the word vagina" and then think that the girls are NOT going to say the word "vagina"

Words DO have power, and being able to say "vagina" is an empowering move for women.

(oh, btw, when I spellchecked this I had mistyped "vagina" at one point, but /vagina/ was not one of the options my spell checker gave me as a possible correct spelling.)

Students might even adopt a new school song; e.g., following Leonard Bernstein:

Ahem. Stephen Sondheim. For some reason, everyone always attributes music and lyrics in West Side Story to Bernstein. Including characters in other Sondheim shows!

So, one-day in-school suspension for you!

P.S.: Vagina. Vagina vagina vagina!

Maybe the girls should have said "vulva and that interior part".

I wonder how the source of the text the girls read was announced. From "The Saywhat Dialogs"?

Or, they might have said the female equivalent of the penis. Apparently the principal didn't try to prohibit that word.

Well, the principal is a prime candidate for Jon Stewart's "Douche Bag" award.

They were told not to use the word "vagina,"

There you have the stupid move, notthedroids.

I don't know if there's still enough interest in this thread, but here's a slightly different angle:

For the people who claim that the school was exercising "censorship", should the school have allowed any student to read *anything* at this event?

Put differently, are you angry at the school for exercising editorial judgement *at all*, or because the topic under discussion is (to you, at least) innocuous?

The principal probably should have told the girls that they couldn't do the reading, but I'm not impressed with these girls agreeing to the terms and then defying them.

I would rather have seen them refuse to do the reading under the restrictions and take it to the press. They could have also done the reading with an introduction explaining the restrictions and made a point by performing the piece and substituting a strange sounding euphemism to undersocre the ridiculousness of the prohibition. (I vote for hoo-hoo.) Or maybe they could have flashed themselves instead of saying the word. After all, isn't the aversion to the sight of a vagina just patently silly and prudish? It's just a part of the human body. Artists and performers have done this sort of thing. It would certainly say something about how committed to principle these girls (and their parents) from a toney NYC suburb really are.

Would that have affected the aesthetics of the presentation? Sure. But suddenly saying the word vagina in unison also disrupts the aesthetic of the presentation. It's clear that the girls turned the piece into a ham-handed protest instead of letting the piece stand on it's own.

The way they handled this seems more like childish defiance than standing on principle. They didn't have anything substantial to lose, unlike the principal who puts his job at risk every time a few community crackpots are offended by something he might allow.

There are times when dishonesty could be acceptable because one is defending a higher principle (e.g., lying to Nazis to protect someone), but one should think long and hard about what exactly is to be gained by dishonesty, particularly when alternatives not involving compromise of one's honesty are available.

As far as euphemisms go, I'm partial to "thy bed of crimson joy." :-)

As someone who lives in the district, graduated from that school, and knows both the girls and the principal, let me offer a little clarification:

- They read "My Short Skirt," which I understand to not technically be a part of the vagina monologues proper, but rather a related work written afterwards. It's rather more g-rated than the rest of the monologues - the worst words in it are "rape" and "vagina," and it's rather telling which of these words Leprine decided to ban.

- The principal made a stupid move. But his actions are not representative of the rest of the district, which is actually quite liberal. Please don't go around accusing anyone else of being pure evil - I know of some people in the schools who are completely separate from the issue that have been getting hate mail and calls over this.

- The girls are claiming that they did not, in fact, agree to censor themselves - Leprine told them that they had two choices, to either remove the one stanza, or to not read the piece, and said that they had until the performance to decide. At the open mic night, they told the administration that they had made a decision, but didn't say what it was. The administration took this as agreeing. So the claim of insubordination is rather a matter of perspective.

"Leprine told them that they had two choices, to either remove the one stanza, or to not read the piece, and said that they had until the performance to decide. At the open mic night, they told the administration that they had made a decision, but didn't say what it was. The administration took this as agreeing. So the claim of insubordination is rather a matter of perspective."

If this is true, then the girls still lied, because they neither removed the stanza nor decided not to read the piece.

"The girls are claiming that they did not, in fact, agree to censor themselves - Leprine told them that they had two choices, to either remove the one stanza, or to not read the piece, and said that they had until the performance to decide. At the open mic night, they told the administration that they had made a decision, but didn't say what it was. The administration took this as agreeing. So the claim of insubordination is rather a matter of perspective."

If that's what really happened, or if the girls are justifying their actions in this way, it is disappointing. I'm not saying that the girls are sociopaths, but their defense is sociopathic. Adolescents are prone to this kind of defense, but it should not be mistaken for a honesty, nor is it a morally vindicating position.

The intent, obviously, was to deceive and cover themselves by means of a technicality - knowing that they were misunderstood and failing to clarify it in order to salvage a patina of moral purity. It's not honest in spirit. It's calculating and manipulative. Again, as I said in my previous comment, one should think long and hard about what one forfeits honesty for.

To the men out there, try a rationale like that on your girlfriend or wife some time and just see how honest she thinks it is. I've seen it done enough in the work I do with couples. I can assure you the reaction isn't pretty.

Dr. X:
"I would rather have seen them refuse to do the reading under the restrictions and take it to the press."

Yeah, that'd be a story. "Principle Won't Let Girls Say 'Vagina', Ruling Deemed 'Totally Unfair'." No, you're not going to get the attention of a news man that way.

"Or maybe they could have flashed themselves instead of saying the word. After all, isn't the aversion to the sight of a vagina just patently silly and prudish?"

Perhaps, but it's sort of beside the point, isn't it? This is about words. And you can bet the press wouldn't be near as kind to teenage nudity. It'd be a "get yourself into a froth of outrage" story for the heartland. Sex and nudity running rampant in our schools!

"The way they handled this seems more like childish defiance than standing on principle."

Well, they are kinda sorta children. If I were in their place, and seventeen years old, I would have done the same thing. I figure they just got the most bang for their buck, protest-wise.

And your previous idea of showing one's hoo-hoo or your ta-tas would be more mature how?

"It's clear that the girls turned the piece into a ham-handed protest instead of letting the piece stand on it's own."

And your idea wouldn't? You got some weird ideas about protest.

Well, I, for one, would gladly sacrifice my honesty to get egg on the face of an idiot high school administrator. I guess my ideals are just in a different place.

"Well, I, for one, would gladly sacrifice my honesty to get egg on the face of an idiot high school administrator."

Yeah, those asshole administrators, trying to give kids a decent education while keeping parents and members of the community supportive of the school . . . the nerve!

Sex and nudity running rampant in our schools!

Imagine the outrage if they'd performed the reading in SHOP CLASS.

Dr. X. and notthedroids, you have led me to soften my view of the administrators.

I still think the prohibition was misguided. Perhaps the reading should have been nixed entirely on the grounds that it is "too controversial" for high school. This makes more sense to me than allowing a reading from "The Vagina Monologues" on the condition that the word "vagina" be omitted.

But call it an honest mistake in the face of the many pressures and interests that a person in his position has to juggle week-in, week-out, year after year.

And I still approve of the girls' action, even if it was done in a somewhat underhanded way. It was a classic teen move: everyone knows that asking forgiveness afterwards is easier than getting permission beforehand.

But I stand my my earlier words about civil disobedience. What's really childish is knowingly, willfully disobeying a restriction and then whining about the (relatively minor!) consequences. But that's another classic teen move, isn't it?

Sigh. Life is imperfect.

My suggestion that the girls flash themselves was in jest, to make the point that offense is in the eye (and ear) of the beholder. Where the line is drawn is socially negotiated and it's unfair to simply characterize the principal as an idiot.

The psychic reality is that human beings have internal lines that they draw around what they are comfortable exposing and being exposed to. Where the line gets drawn by an adult who has obligations to both children and a larger community can be a difficult decision even for a wise and sophisticatd person.

It isn't an objective decision and that is really my point about suggesting the girls flash themselves. There is nothing inherently 'wrong' with vaginas, but the intersubjective nature of the sense of offense is brought into relief by considering such a suggestion.

As for the girls being children, I can assure you that I understand human development just about as well as anyone. They are not 5-year-olds, nor are they 40-year-olds. If I were dealing with the parents in this situation I would explore the bases for their support of their daughters, if indeed they supported this particular course of action.

Part of the responsibility of anyone raising children is to gradually draw them into greater attentiveness to their own their motivations. Presumably, these girls will be leaving home in about a year and a half and simply thinking of them as children misses the nuance of growing up and the emergence of less narcissistic relationships with others. I generally favor people pushing the envelope and teenagers do that. However, sometimes they need to be told no and sometimes they need to look at the way they are carrying their actions forward. Simply feeding the grandiosity of a teen isn't a good thing. 17-yearolds are usually capable of looking at these matters and, if they are not, it should be of great concern to their parents.

In my own blog I said that I can't get all that worked up about how this went down. At the same time, I believe that the principal was probably trying to do his job the best he could in a thorny situation. What troubles me most about this situation is the indulgence of moral hair-splitting to rationalize the girls' actions. You can shout vagina, penis or anus to the rafters without developing refined moral sensibilities, while indulging the narcissism that underlies moral equivocation can be quite damaging to a teenager.

I also question why it is that no one seems the least bit concerned about stoking the grandiosity of these girls at the expense of the principal who must have authority to perform his job. He has not beaten or humilited a child here, he has not so far as we know tried to add creationism to the school curriculum; he attempted to draw a line that must be drawn somewhere. Unfortunately, the blogosphere reaction functions as a kind of hit and run demolition of this man's life, thoroughly lacking in the kind of subtlety and sensibility that anyone with the job of school principal ought to possess.

My suggestion that the girls flash themselves was in jest, to make the point that offense is in the eye (and ear) of the beholder. Where the line is drawn is socially negotiated and it's unfair to simply characterize the principal as an idiot.

The psychic reality is that human beings have internal lines that they draw around what they are comfortable exposing and being exposed to. Where the line gets drawn by an adult who has obligations to both children and a larger community can be a difficult decision even for a wise and sophisticated person.

It isn't an objective decision and that is really my point about suggesting the girls flash themselves. There is nothing inherently 'wrong' with vaginas, but the intersubjective nature of the sense of offense is brought into relief by considering such a suggestion.

As for the girls being children, I can assure you that I understand human development just about as well as anyone. They are not 5-year-olds, nor are they 40-year-olds. If I were dealing with the parents in this situation I would explore the bases for their support of their daughters, if indeed they supported this particular course of action.

Part of the responsibility of anyone raising children is to gradually draw them into greater attentiveness to their own their motivations. Presumably, these girls will be leaving home in about a year and a half and simply thinking of them as children misses the nuance of growing up and the emergence of less narcissistic relationships with others. I generally favor people pushing the envelope and teenagers do that. However, sometimes they need to be told no and sometimes they need to look at the way they are carrying their actions forward. Simply feeding the grandiosity of a teen isn't a good thing. 17-yearolds are usually capable of looking at these matters and, if they are not, it should be of great concern to their parents.

In my own blog I said that I can't get all that worked up about how this went down. At the same time, I believe that the principal was probably trying to do his job the best he could in a thorny situation. What troubles me most about this situation is the indulgence of moral hair-splitting to rationalize the girls' actions. You can shout vagina, penis or anus to the rafters without developing refined moral sensibilities, while indulging the narcissism that underlies moral equivocation can be quite damaging to a teenager.

I also question why it is that no one seems the least bit concerned about stoking the grandiosity of these girls at the expense of the principal who must have authority to perform his job. He has not beaten or humiliated a child here; he has not, so far as we know, tried to add creationism to the school curriculum; he attempted to draw a line that must be drawn somewhere. Unfortunately, the blogosphere reaction functions as a kind of hit and run demolition of this man's life, thoroughly lacking in the kind of subtlety and sensibility that anyone with the job of school principal ought to possess.

I doubt the girls are really whining about getting punished, I think they're just making the most of the little protest they started against a stupid ruling not to be allowed to say "vagina" on stage.
If they had said something racist on stage, and kicked up a stink about being punished for it, they wouldn't have gotten nearly as much support, which to me seems like a clear sign that the end justified the means in this case.

Just re-read the original article and found this:

"The girls will all serve one-day, in-school suspensions[.]"

A quite reasonable punishment for not mere disobedience, but lying as well.

But I stand my my earlier words about civil disobedience. What's really childish is knowingly, willfully disobeying a restriction and then whining about the (relatively minor!) consequences. But that's another classic teen move, isn't it?

-Kseniya

The restriction was unjust. The use of the word "consequences" confers upon the school's decision to punish the girls a legitimacy it absolutely does not deserve. Punishing a person for violating an unjust rule is itself unjust, even if the punishment seems "minor" to someone not suffering it. Speaking out against injustice is the duty of every moral human being who isn't too rock-solid-stupid to differentiate between the concepts of "the rules" and "what is right."

I also question why it is that no one seems the least bit concerned about stoking the grandiosity of these girls at the expense of the principal who must have authority to perform his job. He has not beaten or humilited a child here, he has not so far as we know tried to add creationism to the school curriculum; he attempted to draw a line that must be drawn somewhere.

-Dr. X

He made a poor decision about where to draw the line. Even if we assume that drawing a line IS necessary, this fact does not excuse stupidity in drawing it, any more than the fact that the fact that the President needed to respond to the problem of global terrorism excuses the Iraq war. This man is in a position of public trust, and it is his duty to not just make decisions, but to make GOOD ones. He has been derelict in this duty.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that the principal "must have authority to perofrm his job." Whatever authority he has is useless if his authority is not respected, and his authority will not be respected unless he conducts himself, in his capacity as an authority figure, in a fashion worthy of respect. Making poorly reasoned and unjust decisions is not an example of conduct worthy of respect.

Unfortunately, the blogosphere reaction functions as a kind of hit and run demolition of this man's life, thoroughly lacking in the kind of subtlety and sensibility that anyone with the job of school principal ought to possess.

-Dr. X

Suspending the girls for saying vagina, regardless of the circumstances and legalistic hair-splitting ("rules"istic for the TRUE hair-splitters) used to justify the *principal*'s actions, is a flagrant display of the utter absence of subtlety and sensibility I have found to define every school administrator I have ever dealt with.

A quite reasonable punishment for not mere disobedience, but lying as well.

-notthedroids

It is not a reasonable punishment because the command they disobeyed was not reasonable or just. Do you actually believe that simply being in a position of authority makes a person infallible? Do you actually believe that following the rules is more moral than standing up for principles that are absolutely necessary for a free society? Is there any decision by an authority figure you would contest? ...are you American (German would be just too damned ironic), and, if so, do you even stop to consider that you are living in a country and enjoying freedoms that exist because people had the courage and conviction to stand up to unjust demands of authority figures?

Azkyroth,

So you're arguing that the punishment is automatically unjust by sole virtue of the unjustness of the corresponding rule? Ok, I don't feel compelled to argue that, but I'd say whether the punishment is "unjust" is beside the point.

If you're going to knowingly cross a line out of protest, you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences as part of the protest. Civil disobedience includes the expectation of consequences. The consequences may be unjust, sure, but - so? There's a big difference between saying "I shouldn't be punished" and "This punishment is unjust!"

This is academic now, because I don't even know (without looking it up) the girls' attitude about the punishment. And don't forget, I'm on their side, I approve of their protest. All I'm saying is, if they're saying "We shouldn't even be punished for this!" then they don't really know what it means to protest in that way.

The play itself is a protest. Any performance of the play is a protest. There may be consequences (criticism, etc.) for that kind of protest, and those too are to be expected. The girls said "vagina" as a protest against the restriction against saying "vagina," and I assume they had some expectation of consequences for blatantly defying the restriction.

The whole point of intentionally breaking a rule and accepting the punishment is to get people to recognize that the punishment is unjust, presumably because the rule is unreasonable.

If they hadn't been punished, would we have heard about the story at all? Not likely.

I also question why it is that no one seems the least bit concerned about stoking the grandiosity of these girls at the expense of the principal who must have authority to perform his job.

Because it's the grandiosity of "authority" that we need to worry about. Look around you.

They were told not to use the word "vagina,"

There you have the stupid move, notthedroids.