OMG! I was SO thrilled to open my email this morning! Waiting for me in my inbox was the BEST. SURPRISE. EVER. Check it out:

“Body Drama should be center stage in every young woman’s life. It will make you love every little thing about your body: your sags, your tags, your lumps, your bumps. It’s a book of liberation and it’s fun.”
- Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues

Body Drama should be center stage in every young woman’s life. It will make you love every little thing about your body: your sags, your tags, your lumps, your bumps. It’s a book of liberation and it’s fun.
- Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues

This quote means a lot to me. Eve is one of my biggest role models and her activism is one of the main reasons I’m OK with a lot of the weird things my body, especially my “down there,” does. I performed in The Vagina Monologues every single year at Harvard except for my freshman year, when I didn’t make the cast. Sophomore year, I was so determined to perform that I volunteered to help produce the show to ensure a spot in the ensemble!

When I competed for Miss Virginia, there was debate about whether or not this extracurricular should stay on my resume, but I insisted that it remain, as producing and performing in The Vagina Monologues was one of the most rewarding experiences I had at Harvard. Right after I won, while proofreading my Miss America paperwork with the heads of Miss Virginia, one woman exclaimed, “Oh, Nancy, I’ve found a TYPO!”

“OMG!” I exclaimed. “Where?”

“RIGHT THERE!” She was pointing to my Vagina Monologues credit.

“Uhhh, no..that’s spelled correctly.”

She stared again and began to turn BEET red, while muttering, “You mean it’s not supposed to read The Virginia Monologues?

In Body Drama, Nancy Redd combines the information of Dr. Ruth, the stylishness of Naomi Campbell, the vibe of your best friend, and photos you always wanted to see but were afraid to ask. An empowering, original, funny, and frank book, Body Drama is poised to become the modern girl’s Our Bodies, Ourselves.-Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism.

“Nope! It’s correct as-is!” And we sent the paperwork in, vaginas and all. I actually used a quote from Eve at some point during my Miss America interview!

I performed in the VA state capitol’s showing of The Vagina Monologues as Miss Virginia that year (no, I didn’t wear my crown), which started a lot of fabulous discussions and brought a lot of good press to the cause behind every performance, which is to eradicate violence against women (more on Eve’s organization VDay here). After the show, when I brought my wonderfully prim and proper 55-year-old booking secretary a T-shirt back from the event, she giddily whispered in my ear, “I call it my froggy!”

So it’s plain to see that I am stoked about this quote, but it’s not my first one. My first blurb came from two other incredible women who’ve been my role models since I eagerly approached them as a big fan of theirs at one of their book signings back in 2002:

“In Body Drama, Nancy Redd combines the stylishness of Naomi Campbell, the vibe of your best friend, and photos you always wanted to see but were afraid to ask. An empowering, original, funny, and frank book, Body Drama is poised to become the modern girl’s Our Bodies, Ourselves.”
—Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism.

More on them, and other fabulous feminist writers, in another post!

Tagged as Book Reviews

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