Extreme acts of sexual violence seem to be everywhere. In response, a worldwide day of action has been called.
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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.
‘I have been clear of cancer for two years, so I have a hard time saying that a little bit of extra skin on my neck is problematic.’
I am over rape.
I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.
I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.
It was cold in Zuccotti Park this week for our Ambiguous Upsparkles group. Particularly late into it as the sun went down and a wet Autumn wind rose up in the yellow orange trees from the bottom of Manhattan. It was cold and so we huddled together on the concrete steps for warmth, to make it easier to hear, to allow the stories to pass amongst us and through us. We repeated each line of each person’s story and the repeating kept us warm.