Michigan Rep. Lisa Brown, whose use of the phrase “vagina” in a floor speech last week prompted condemnation and censorship from her GOP colleagues, is defiantly holding a reading of Eve Ensler’s feminist play “The Vagina Monologues” on the statehouse steps Monday night to protest her treatment.
“I questioned if you think there’s something wrong with the word ‘vagina,’ what word would you like me to use instead?” Brown told ABC News. “I’m not going to be all ‘Little Women’ by using some cutesy name.”
House GOP lawmakers blocked Brown from speaking after she condemned a bill restricting abortion rights by saying, “I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.'”
Brown told TPM after the incident that she viewed it as part of “a war on women when our voices aren’t being allowed to be heard.” The Republican House speaker has since claimed Brown was barred from speaking for making a reference to rape, though other Republicans at the time specifically cited the use of the word “vagina” in their complaints.
The Monday reading of Ensler’s work will include at least nine lawmakers.
