A review by sampena16
I am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

2.0

"but mainly we are refusers. / We don't accept your world / your rules your wars / We don't accept your cruelty and unkindness. / We don't believe some need to suffer for others to survive / or that there isn't enough to go around / or that corporations are the only and best economic / arrangement."

I am a big fan of The Vagina Monologues, mainly because it publicized a topic that is usually taboo in most cultures. Therefore, I have been wanting to read this book to see what Ensler will present. Granted, the book is beautifully written. Part poetry, part prose, the book explores the perspectives of girls from various countries around the world. My problem with it is that similar to Vagina Monologues, it seems to present a Westernized viewpoint of "other" cultures without any factual evidence or specific reference to a primary source interview. It seemed to me that each girl from a country had only the one story - the American girl with the eating disorder, the African girl who gets her clit cut and is sold in exchange for cows, the Parisian girl who smokes to feel. It creates dichotomized narratives about prettiness/ugliness, intelligence/humor, helplessness/liberation, traditional/Western. I wanted an ethnography of experiences, not a mosaic of cultures sown together to prove the point that all girls want the same thing everywhere.