Twenty years ago, when I wrote The Vagina Monologues, it was very difficult to say the word vagina anywhere. The public utterance of the word alone was explosive as so much of the truth about what happened to vaginas was repressed, denied, kept secret, and coated in shame and self-hatred.
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There have been many victories, but still the violence continues. The refusal to hold perpetrators to account is a ‘global plague’ – and this year the campaign will focus on justice.
Playwright and activist Eve Ensler explains One Billion Rising, a global day of action – and dancing – in protest against violence against women.
Extreme acts of sexual violence seem to be everywhere. In response, a worldwide day of action has been called.
Eve Ensler, the writer of The Vagina Monologues, founded the City of Joy in Congo. She writes about Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege.
One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime; ending violence against women is as important as ending poverty, or Aids or global warming. That’s why I want you to join our campaign.
Dear Todd Akin,
I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.
‘She taught me that the lives of women existed in the future and that language was the pathway to that future.’
It’s 14 years since we started V-Day. We made a determination that we were going to end violence against women and girls. It was an audacious and almost absurd idea, but we committed to it. We believed we could change human consciousness and make the world a place where women were safe, free, equal, with agency over their bodies and futures.
This 1960s radical was given 75 years for driving a getaway car. It’s time to accept that perpetrators can be transformed.