By Alison Zupkus

The Vagina Monologues was performed in Neumiller Lecture Hall in Bradley Hall on February 27 and 28.

The Vagina Monologues is an annual show that raises both money and awareness in prevention of domestic violence. All of the proceeds go to the Center for Prevention of Abuse in Peoria. This year, the cast and directors raised over $1,000 for the Center through ticket and merchandise sales and collecting donations from the dorms and Greek houses on campus.

In 2013, Robin Lukehart, a reporter for the Scout, wrote that the Vagina Monologues has been performed at Bradley University for about a decade. Now, in 2015, it marks a dozen years that the Vagina Monologues has helped raise money and awareness.

This year marked a milestone in the history of the Vagina Monologues at Bradley University: this was the first year that a Bradley student performed the piece They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy, the transgender piece. Derek Banauch, a freshman who identifies as genderfluid, was given the role and was adored by his fellow cast-mates for it.

Upon auditions, the directors ask each cast member why they want to be part of the performance, and each woman who auditions has a different answer.

Alyson Bourret, a freshman cast member, for example, wanted to join because of girls she had gotten to know in high school.

“I was surprised to find out that they had all been abused,” Alyson said. “It really hit home for me.”

Others, such as sophomore Jocelyn Treadway, dedicate their time and efforts because they have had difficulties facing their sexuality. “When I learned about asexuality, I was relieved to find out that there were other people like me out there,” said Treadway. “I wasn’t alone.”

Hollie Ferrer, a sophomore who has struggled with her body image in the past, auditioned for her mother, who faces the same struggles.

“I’ve come to accept and love my image, and it’s helped her love her image too,” Ferrer said about her mom, who attended both shows.

Eve Ensler is the author of the Vagina Monologues, a show that has been performed in over 140 countries according to her website. The show was her inspiration for V-Day, an activist movement that she started in 1998 to stop violence against women and girls, a goal to which she has since devoted her life.

The V-Day website explains that V-Day was created to raise money for local projects to stop violence and abuse, but the efforts also raise awareness about domestic violence. This desire to raise awareness led to the creation of One Billion Rising.

One Billion Rising started in 2012 with the realization that one in three females would be raped or abused in their lifetime. That means, out of seven billion people, more than one billion women and girls will face violence. The movement and call to action occurred in 200 hundred countries in 2014.

This year, the theme was Revolution, and Ensler wrote a piece called My Revolution Lives in This Body that was performed in the 2015 Vagina Monologues show. You can read it here.

According to the V-Day website’s About page, the V stands for “Victory, Valentine, and Vagina.”

See a timeline of the history of the Vagina Monologues here: