They don’t want your dirty vagina money

Maria House is a homeless shelter for women and their children in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. The shelter takes less than 10 residents (and their kids) at a time, and is focused on transitional services to break the cycle of homelessness. It’s not a faith-based organization.
The local paper reported yesterday that a production of The Vagina Monologues offered to donate 30% of their proceeds to Maria House, which refused the offer. Why, you ask?

“A couple of the scenes are not in our best interest to be associated with,” said [Maria House director Michelle] Brown, who admits she has not seen the play. “We just feel it is better to be more prudent.”

Don’t all of their clients have vaginas? And a huge percentage of their residents are domestic violence victims. Seems like a perfect V-Day cause to me.
Given what I know about the organization, I’m assuming the real reason they rejected the money is that they just received a big chunk of funding from a local order of Catholic nuns. And the board membership (which includes my mother- more about that later) is generally very conservative. But really, what’s so controversial about vaginas? (I mean, even the nuns have them…)
I know that hating on the Vagina Monolgues isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, but this incident really hit home. Mainly because Maria House is one of the few causes my mother and I both wholeheartedly support. She’s a conservative Catholic who doesn’t believe in birth control, is against any sexual activity that’s not between a married man and woman, and agrees with Pope Benedict’s assessment that feminism is an “ideology of evil.” Yeah, so we don’t have much in common. And I’m sad that this has soured me on Maria House a little bit.
The paper’s site is registration-required, so I posted the rest of the article below the jump.

Maria House declines play’s proceeds
Producers offered to donate 30% to the women’s shelter
By ERIK HOGSTROM
Maria House officials have rejected promised proceeds from a local performance of “The Vagina Monologues.”
HogueMade Productions, of Galena, Ill., had planned to donate 30 percent of the proceeds from the Feb. 24-25 shows at the Dubuque Five Flags Center to the Maria House.
“We initially were grateful to be chosen and agreed to accept the proceeds,” said Michelle Brown, the executive director of Maria House. “We did not really know how controversial this play was until we started getting more feedback.”
The Maria House is a homeless shelter for women and children at 1561 Jackson St. in Dubuque.
Eve Ensler based her Obie Award-winning play on interviews with more than 200 women. The string of monologues portrays numerous women and their experiences, including sexual encounters and rape.
“A couple of the scenes are not in our best interest to be associated with,” said Brown, who admits she has not see the play. “We just feel it is better to be more prudent.”
“The Vagina Monologues” has inspired the creation of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and proceeds from the Dubuque shows will benefit the Riverview Center Inc. sexual assault prevention and intervention services.
“We are working with the production,” said Josh Jasper, Riverview’s executive director. “The show itself is basically raising awareness of violence against women and girls.”
Jennifer Hogue, the producer and director of the local performances and one of the actresses, expressed disappointment with the Maria House decision.
“I support what they do,” Hogue said. “I find it unfortunate that so many people are misled by the title of this show. It absolutely supports women.”
Brown said her organization could have used proceeds from the play. About 92 percent of the Maria House budget comes from grants and donations.
“We feel that accepting funds from a production that includes a monologue portraying sexual exploitation would be contrary to the mission, vision and values of our organization,” Brown said.
Hogue sought to allay such concerns.
“Once people in Dubuque come out and support this performance and see this performance, they will be empowered,” she said.
Copyright 2006 Telegraph Herald