Archive for the "Press Releases" Category
For Immediate Release: January 9, 2001
Contacts:
Bob Fennell
The Publicity Office
212-315-2120
Don Summa
Richard Kornberg & Associates
212-944-9444
Susan Vargo
646-505-0256
Oprah Winfrey · Jane Fonda · Glenn Close · Gloria Steinem · Queen Latifah · Rosie Perez · Marlo Thomas · Calista Flockhart · Ricki Lake · Kathy Najimy · Brooke Shields · Hazelle Goodman · Andrea Martin ·
Swoosie Kurtz · Nell Carter · Susie Essman · Gloria Reuben · Marisa Tomei · Kathleen Chalfant · Edie Falco · Shirley Knight · Carol Kane · Melissa Joan Hart · Rachel Blanchard · Marsha Mason · Phoebe Snow · Teri Hatcher · Erica Jong · LisaGay Hamilton · Pratibha Parmar · Katie Puckrik · Amy Irving · Julie Kavner · Natasha McElhone · Cynthia Garrett · Lolita Davidovich · Lois Smith · Teri Garr · Chloe Goodchild · Alicia Svigals · Viola Davis · Sanaa Lathan · Shiva Rose · Ulali · Julie Halston · Sarah Jones · Mikvah · Lisa Leguillou · Tonya Pinkins · Soraye Mire · Elizabeth Streb · Rue McClanahan · Mary Alice · Ann Magnuson · Lynn Whitfield · Dani Behr · Mary McCormack · Roma Maffia · Annabella Sciorra · Mary Testa · Rita Wilson · BETTY · Eve Ensler · Kimberly Williams · Sharon Gless · Claire Danes · Cynthia Nixon · Julia Stiles · Joan Osborne · Linda Ellerbee
**** WILL ALL TAKE PART IN V-DAY 2001 ****
A LIVE PERFORMANCE (WITH MUSIC AND DANCE) OF EVE ENSLER’S “THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES” AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
All Proceeds From Event Benefit Programs Working To End Violence Toward Women And Girls
Over 70 amazing women (see current list above) will participate in a landmark LIVE performance of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues (with special music and dance appearances) as part of V-Day 2001. All proceeds from the evening will be distributed by the V-Day Fund, established in 1998 to allocate funds to grassroots, national and international groups that combat violence toward women and girls. V-Day 2001 will rock Madison Square Garden (7th Ave. at 32nd St.) on Saturday, February 10th at 7 PM.
About V-Day 2001 at Madison Square Garden
As the centerpiece of V-Day 2001, Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues will be performed as it never has been before. Over 70 women will share the stage performing the monologues and participating in song as the “Vulva Choir.” Some Monologues will be performed as solo works and some as duo or group storytelling. In addition to the original Monologues, Ms. Ensler will unveil new works written especially for the occasion and performed by Oprah Winfrey and Calista Flockhart. The evening also features the return of Jane Fonda to the New York stage.
Special appearances by musicians Joan Osborne, BETTY and Phoebe Snow as well as a performance by the Streb Dance Company will be featured throughout the evening.
The corporate sponsors for V-Day 2001 are Hearst Magazines and Marie Claire, Liz Claiborne, Women.com and Lifetime Television, with additional sponsor support from Tampax.
About the V-Day movement
V-Day is a global movement to end violence against girls and women. It produces cultural events to raise awareness and money for existing organizations. A vital, ongoing process that proclaims Valentine’s Day as V-Day, the movement seeks to reinvigorate efforts already underway and commence new initiatives in publicity, education and law. Three wildly successful celebrity benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues in New York (1998), at London’s Old Vic (1999) and in L.A. (2000), as well as performances at hundreds of colleges across the country, have raised thousands of dollars for local, national and international groups that work to stop violence against women. Contributions to the V-Day Fund come from many different places: individuals, corporations, foundations, product and book sales, benefit and commercial performances of “The Vagina Monologues.” Well over one million dollars has been raised during the first three years alone.
About “The Vagina Monologues”
The catalyst for V-Day was Eve Ensler’s phenomenally successful play “The Vagina Monologues,” which was originally produced in an OBIE Award-winning run in 1996 by HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art at HERE in New York. “The Vagina Monologues” opened Off-Broadway in New York at the Westside Theatre on October 3, 1999 to great acclaim. Eve Ensler, the play’s author, starred in the sold-out run through January 2000. The show then continued its standing-room-only engagement with three amazing women sharing the stage at every performance for a succession of multi-week engagements. The play has been presented across the country and is being performed around the world. In “The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler has given voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, brave, highly original and thoroughly human stories. Based on interviews with a diverse group of women, the play explores the humor, power, pain, wisdom, outrage, mystery and excitement hidden in vaginas. Having seen “The Vagina Monologues,” no one – woman or man – will look at the world the same way again.
How to buy tickets for V-Day 2001
Ticket prices are $25-50-100-250-500-1000. Tickets are available online through TicketMaster.com
or by calling them at 212-307-7171.
For VIP ticket sales and Sponsorship Packages that include an invitation to the after-party with the cast, contact JFM2 Productions at 212-921-9070 or through sponsor@vday.org.
Contacts:
V-Day
Susan Vargo
212.315.2120
Plumb Design
Susan Teitz
212.285.8600 x 254
New York, NY – January 8, 2001— V-Day and Plumb Design today announced the redesign and launch of www.vday.org, a website dedicated to the eradication of violence against women and girls. V-Day, the movement sparked by Eve Ensler’s Obie-award-winning play “The Vagina Monologues,” partnered with Plumb Design, an interactive services and software firm, to re-brand and reinvigorate its site and to make it a true virtual headquarters for the worldwide V-Day movement. The launch is timed to herald V-Day 2001, which comprises two major events occurring at Madison Square Garden on February 10th 2001: the V-Day Gathering to End Violence (daytime workshops) and the V-Day Event (evening rallies and performances by leaders in entertainment such as Glenn Close, Oprah Winfrey, Calista Flockhart and Winona Ryder).
Unlike traditional advocacy and activist groups, V-Day has no physical headquarters; it is a next-step philanthropy, housed in people’s minds and hearts rather than one physical location. A website for such an organization becomes a central hub, where people “meet,” exchange stories, and develop strategies for overcoming violence against women. To that end, V-Day built a multi-purpose site that appeals to a diverse worldwide audience and communicates V-Day’s vision of a world where women can live safely and without fear of violence. The site is an inspirational and useful resource dedicated to stopping violence and abuse in women’s and girls’ homes and communities.
“We are well aware of the Internet’s enormous capacity as an agent of social change and we are thrilled that this new site expertly extends our outreach and spreads our message across borders—both geographic and technological,” said Willa Shalit, Executive Director of V-Day. “Plumb Design viscerally understands and is deeply committed to V-Day’s mission, and the site is a prime example of how the power of the Web can be harnessed to communicate, educate, and activate across an issue that affects every country, every government, and countless families around the world.”
Vday.org’s bold yet elegant design reflects the strength of the movement and communicates the beauty, grace, and humor inherent in its origin, “The Vagina Monologues.” Its homepage is divided into five main content sections: V-News (press); Violence (resources); V-Day (history, events & initiatives); Get Involved (contributions); and Victory (success!). The panels are painted in rich shades of red, a color that is symbolic of V-Day’s conflation of power, rage, heart, and warmth. The movement is also branded by the new V-Day logo, which includes an image of a victorious female figure, a global Everywoman who stands triumphant in the fight to end violence against women.
Here are some highlights of the new vday.org site:
- V-News: contains press releases, off- and online media coverage, press FAQs, and a downloadable press kit with publicity photos to help journalists with their V-Day reporting.
- Violence: includes a glossary of violence terms, a listing of anti-violence resources, and other information that women can turn to for support, assistance, and refuge from violence. Essential to serving the V-Day mission is the site’s ability to gather and publish stories from women and girls around the world. A “Report Violence, End Silence” area in this section allows users to submit stories of how they overcame violence in their own lives. They are encouraged to share their personal strategies for achieving safety so that other women might gain insight and start their own journey to victory over violence. V-Day intends to work with community activists worldwide to implement some of the most successful strategies that are submitted to the new site.
- V-Day: contains detailed information on V-Day’s four main initiatives and special events: the Worldwide Initiative, the College Initiative, the Youth Initiative, and V-Day 2001. The “Vision” area in this section invites users to “Imagine a world without violence.” Here a user can share her or his own vision of a world without violence, thus energizing the V-Day movement and inspiring solidarity among women and men committed to V-Day’s goals. This section also includes a place to shop, linking vday.org to V-Day’s first-ever online store, developed using Yahoo!. Currently the shop offers items ranging from T-shirts to coffee mugs to buttons. Proceeds go directly to the V-Day Fund so people are actually taking action to stop violence while they shop.
- Get Involved: educates and inspires visitors and encourages people to join together to end violence. This section invites users to join the movement by contributing money to the V-Day Fund or by donating resources and time to fight violence in their own communities. It also contains a downloadable Action Kit with posters and flyers to help supporters spread the word about ending violence.
- Victory: offers information on the results and successes of the V-Day movement. This section includes a list of V-Day grant recipients, V-Day sponsors, and most important, personal stories of victory over violence.
A unique aspect of the new site is its “intervention” functionality. If, while exploring the site, a user becomes inactive—i.e. neglects to interact with the site or its many links—an “intervention,” an eye-opening fact about violence, automatically blacks out the screen, panel by panel. These interventions educate users on the gravity of the problem of violence against women, inspire empathy for women who are suffering, and emphasize the urgent need for action; only by acting (clicking) can one return to the original site and learn how to tackle and conquer the scourge of violence.
“It took time for me to get used to using the word ‘vagina’ in a professional setting—it took some of the men on the team a little longer. But we were all struck by the need for action in the face of such a serious issue. Plumb Design is proud to be a part of the V-Day movement, and we hope that vday.org helps pave the way for a safer environment for women and girls worldwide,” said Mary Azzarto, CEO of Plumb Design and a member of V-Day’s steering committee.
About V-Day:
V-Day is a global movement to end violence against girls and women. V-Day is a decision, an energy, a spirit, a day — Valentine’s Day — for which annual theatrical and artistic events are produced in local, national and international venues to raise money and to transform consciousness. To date, Eve Ensler’s Obie Award-winning play, “The Vagina Monologues,” has been the centerpiece of these events. In order to translate its mission into action, V-Day established the V-Day Fund in 1998. The V-Day Fund allocates resources to grassroots, national and international groups that work to end rape, battery, incest and genital mutilation. Contributions to the V-Day Fund come from many different places: individuals, corporations, foundations, product and book sales, benefit and commercial performances of “The Vagina Monologues.” V-Day 2001 will take place this year on February 10th at Madison Square Garden in New York. Corporate sponsors include Hearst Magazines, Lifetime Television, Liz Claiborne, Women.com, Tampax and Marie Claire. V-Day is the trademark of the V-Day Fund. All rights reserved.
About Plumb Design:
Plumb Design, Inc., designs and develops software, Web applications, and communication platforms. Plumb Design Services provides strategic consulting, Web design, custom software development, and systems integration services for Global 5000 companies and major nonprofits. Our wholly owned subsidiary Thinkmap, Inc., develops software, including Thinkmap, a platform for animating and displaying complex sets of interrelated information, and Condensity™, software that shrinks, obfuscates, and optimizes Java code. Plumb Design, a closely held corporation, is backed by GFT Technologies AG and Motorola, Inc. Clients include Merrill Lynch, Experience Music Project, and the Smithsonian Institution. More information about Plumb Design Services can be found at www.plumbdesign.com. More information about Thinkmap can be found at www.thinkmap.com.
Calling all college students, supportive faculty and administrators – actors, directors, Women’s Studies majors, activists, health educators. Calling anyone affiliated with any college or university worldwide who is interested in participating in the most important political, social and theatrical event of the year 2001. No experience necessary. No interview required.
More than 225 schools around the world will be bringing “The Vagina Monologues” to their communities on or around V-Day 2001 to help stop violence against women. For more information on the V-Day 2001 College Campaign – what it is, who’s involved and how to get involved – click here.
Results of the Stop Rape Contest, a joint V-Day and Equality Now project, will be made available on the V-Day website in early February. The deadline for the contest is December 31, 2000. The contest will be judged by a team of twelve regional coordinators – all activists around the world working to stop violence in their communities.
Sixty finalists will be chosen and invited to New York to attend the V-Day Gathering to End Violence Against Women, a day-long strategy session in New York on February 10, 2001, where their strategies will be presented and discussed. At the Gathering, the regional coordinators will select three winning ideas and a concrete global action plan to stop rape will be formulated.
Winners will have the opportunity to see their action plans implemented in their countries, supported by grants from the V-Day Fund. The STOP-RAPE Contest finalists will also attend the gala V-Day 2001 performance and rally that will take place in Madison Square Garden on the evening of February 10, 2001.
Contacts:
Flixer:
Carly Rondinelli
Sarah Thomas
Urge Public Relations
323-762-1600
V-Day:
Susan Vargo
212-315-2120
Los Angeles, CA, December 22, 2000 – FLiXER, an Internet-enabled entertainment studio, and V-Day, a worldwide movement to end violence against girls and women, today announced that they have joined together for a holiday fundraising campaign. Between December 18th and January 12th, Flixer will donate to V-Day one dollar for every person that becomes a member of the Flixer.com website, and five dollars for every person that signs up as an enhanced member.
“This fundraising initiative is very exciting because it capitalizes on the Internet as an agent of social change,” said Willa Shalit, Executive Director of V-Day. “We are thrilled to work with Flixer and we partnered with them not only because they embrace V-Day’s mission, but because they know how to create community and thereby know how to leverage the Web’s global reach and communication capabilities.”
The promotion is available via Flixer’s website at www.Flixer.com and via a viral email campaign. Both Flixer and V-Day have called upon their circle of supporters and constituents — a community of moviemakers for Flixer and a community of activists for V-Day – to participate and to tell friends about the campaign. Anyone that visits the Flixer site between now and January 12th, 2001 can click on the V-Day icon for more information on how to join the Flixer community and therefore make a measurable difference in the worldwide fight to stop violence against girls and women.
“Our collaboration is about how community, communication and creative passion can bring about social activism,” said Robert Lazarus, Co-Founder and CEO of Flixer. “It’s inspiring what can be accomplished through passion; be it passion for human rights, global change or moviemaking. The power of the web and the voice of a passionate community is an unstoppable connection. We hope our outreach helps to make a difference.”
About FLiXER:
Founded by entertainment industry veterans Robert Lazarus and Christopher Buchanan, Flixer is an Internet-enabled entertainment company providing a platform for independent moviemakers and entertainment companies to market their projects to online communities. Through Flixer.com, a website that allows consumer and moviemakers to interact in the creation, production and promotion of original entertainment and advertising content, Flixer engages audiences and creates a vested fan base for both Flixer Studio’s and partners’ productions.
About V-Day:
V-Day is a global movement to end violence against girls and women. V-Day is a decision, an energy, a spirit, a day – Valentine’s Day – for which annual theatrical and artistic events are produced in local, national and international venues to raise money and to transform consciousness. To date, Eve Ensler’s Obie Award-winning play, “The Vagina Monologues,” has been the centerpiece of these events. In order to translate its mission into action, V-Day established the V-Day Fund in 1998. The V-Day Fund allocates resources to grassroots, national and international groups that work to end rape, battery, incest and genital mutilation. Contributions to the V-Day Fund come from many different places: individuals, corporations, foundations, product and book sales, and benefit and commercial performances of “The Vagina Monologues.” V-Day 2001 will take place this year on February 10th at Madison Square Garden in New York. Corporate sponsors include Hearst Magazines, Lifetime Television, Liz Claiborne, Women.com, Tampax and Marie Claire. For more information, please visit www.vday.org.
October 2, 2000 (NEW YORK, NY) –- No woman or girl in the world is safe from rape. All women know the fear of rape, the threat of rape, and all too often the reality of rape.
The V-Day movement to end violence against women is a vision of human life in which all women and girls live free, equal, safe and with dignity. V-Day is reaching out to the world with one message: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MUST STOP. V-Day envisions and demands a world without rape.
October 2nd, 2000 V-Day launched the Stop Rape Contest, a worldwide initiative designed to produce innovative and effective strategies to stop rape. The contest is open to women and girls of all ages, and the deadline for submission of action plans is December 31, 2000. Strategies can be unconventional, outrageous, funny, improvisational, daring – through the Stop Rape Contest V-Day hopes to bring new and creative energy to the worldwide campaign to end violence against women.
The contest will be judged by a team of twelve regional coordinators – all activists around the world working to stop violence in their communities. Sixty finalists will be chosen and invited to New York to attend the V-Day Gathering to End Violence Against Women, a day-long strategy session in New York on February 10, 2001, where their strategies will be presented and discussed. At the Gathering, three winning ideas will be selected by the regional coordinators and a concrete global action plan to stop rape will be formulated. Winners will have the opportunity to see their action plans implemented in their countries, supported by grants from the V-Day Fund.
The Stop Rape Contest finalists will also attend the gala V-Day 2001 performance and rally that will take place in Madison Square Garden on the evening of February 10, 2001. The inspiration for and creator of V-Day is playwright and director Eve Ensler whose play “The Vagina Monologues” sparked and continues to fire the V-Day initiative. V-Day performances have been and are being produced in countries around the world where, through laughter and tears, many women for the first time in their lives examine and openly express their intimate hopes, fears and emotional experience, defying common cultural taboos. Past V-Day performances have included such celebrities as Glenn Close, Desiree, Calista Flockhart, Whoopi Goldberg, Alanis Morissette, Rosie Perez and Susan Sarandon.
Through the V-Day 2001 Gathering to End Violence Against Women, V-Day is bringing together a new force to support coordinated global activism to end violence toward women. The Gathering is being hosted by the V-Day International Steering Committee, which is comprised of twelve Regional Coordinators from around the world and a number of international organizations. The Steering Committee is facilitated by the international women’s rights organization Equality Now.
For more information on the Stop Rape Contest, or for entry forms, contact:
Tsinu Tesfaye, V-Day Coordinator at Equality Now, (212) 586-0906, Email: vday@equalitynow.org.
AIDS Free World
http://www.aids-freeworld.org/
I screamed, but no one came to help. There were four men… They were beating me, and I fell down and hit my head on the floor. Then one of them hit me in the mouth with his fist. They knocked out my front teeth. It hurt very much. They spoke to each other about who should be the first to rape me. One of them said, “Go first, comrade…” I was out of my mind by then.
Patience contracted HIV from the rape. Frightened for her life, she fled Zimbabwe for South Africa, where she works as a babysitter and longs for her own child, who is with family in Zimbabwe.
Patience is one of the women AIDS-Free World met recently. Her story, heartbreaking though it is, is tragically typical. Soldiers banged the head of one woman’s toddler into the wall. He died of his injuries. One woman was forced to lie on top of her dying husband’s body while she was being raped. Another woman was raped while her small daughter, the child of a previous rape, watched. She got pregnant from this second rape as well, and her second child is HIV-positive. It goes on and on and sickeningly on.
The men seized the women, raped them, beat them, made them cook and clean and cower, and then sent them home to spread a message of terror and intimidation.
In July 2008, a leading human rights group in Zimbabwe working with women and girls appealed to AIDS-Free World for help. AIDS-Free World’s legal team, with the help of pro bono lawyers from DLA Piper, set out to document evidence of a well-orchestrated, politically motivated campaign of rape and sexual violence directed at women and girls associated with, or believed to be associated with, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), then the opposition party in Zimbabwe whose followers threatened to unseat President Robert Mugabe.
Interviews with survivors ranged in length from three to six hours each, were conducted by lawyers and videotaped, and are ultimately memorialized in sworn affidavits signed by the affiants and certified by a commissioner of oaths. To date, AIDS-Free World has completed 53 interviews.
In the course of the investigation, the lawyers heard stories almost too horrifying to comprehend, and met courageous women with heartbreaking burdens — ostracism, unwanted pregnancies, wounds that don’t heal, and ongoing psychological trauma. They also uncovered clear patterns among the stories.
The rapes and sexual violence that AIDS-Free World documented occurred from September of 2007 through August of 2008, with a surge in violence before the June 27th election. The attacks occurred in all eight provinces of Zimbabwe, suggesting a widespread campaign. The accounts were graphic, highly detailed, credible and consistent in a number of ways. The women were all supporters of the MDC, and the rapists were militia members or supporters of ZANU-PF, Robert Mugabe’s ruling party. (The two parties now have an uneasy power-sharing agreement.)
In every case, the attack was well organized. Rapists identified individual women, often on the basis of prepared lists, and often arrested them in their homes. Many women were forcibly marched to militia bases established for the purposes of raping and torturing opposition supporters. Many of the women were forcibly confined at bases and abused over several days; some were required to cook and clean for their captors.
Several of the women witnessed the rapes and beatings of other women confined at ZANU-PF bases. Some were stripped naked and paraded in public. The women were beaten with sharpened sticks or logs on their buttocks, lower backs and the soles of their feet. Several victims were burned, cut, whipped and left to die; some were beaten so violently that they lapsed into unconsciousness during their ordeals. The perpetrators made no attempt to hide their faces or identities and some called each other by name before, during and after the assaults.
The lasting physical damage associated with the gang rapes is profound. Several of the women have suffered internal bleeding. Some of the victims were hospitalized for weeks on end. Compounding the trauma of their attacks, several women have tested HIV-positive in the months after being gang-raped; many of the others are afraid they were infected and their status remains uncertain. One woman was raped so violently that her uterus is permanently damaged and she will not be able to bear children. Several women became pregnant as a result of the rapes. Many continue to experience nightmares in addition to their physical injuries. A number of victims admitted to feeling “dead” or suicidal in the aftermath of their ordeal, and at least one woman actually tried to commit suicide.
Most victims were abducted and taken to ZANU-PF bases or to the forest or the bush, where they were raped, sexually assaulted and tortured, usually by a group of men. The other women were raped in their homes. More than half of the victims were raped by multiple men, sometimes as many as 10 and up to 18 men, often over more than one day and in one case over a period of five days. Most of the victims were told to relinquish their allegiance to the MDC and/or were informed that they were subject to assault or would be “fixed” because of their membership in the MDC. Several of the victims were accused of wanting to sell or give their country to white people.
Many of the women were forced to attend ZANU-PF rallies or compelled to sing ZANU-PF songs and recite ZANU-PF slogans. One victim was abducted and interrogated by police about her political affiliations. Another victim was gang-raped by a mob in early July after admitting that she had voted for the MDC on June 27th.
In almost every instance, the women were unable to successfully report their attacks to the police. More than one woman tried to report the rape and was told that authorities would allow her to open a file for the beating but not the rape. Several were told that the police could not get involved because the crimes were “political.” In some cases, sympathetic police officers told the women they were barred from recording incidents of ZANU-PF violence. No perpetrators have been investigated or arrested for their participation in the sexual violence. In several cases, victims continue to live in the same communities as their attackers, and are forced to see them every day.
Without the police report required by Zimbabwe law, survivors could not gain admission to public hospitals for rape treatment or post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV. For those who have or may test HIV-positive, their access to antiretroviral drugs is threatened.
In the aftermath of these attacks, these women’s lives are permanently changed. Husbands, fathers, and other family members have been killed. The stigma around rape and sexual violence is pervasive, preventing many of them from speaking about what happened to them. Many have been rejected by their husbands, in-laws, or the larger community because they were raped. Those still living in Zimbabwe live in constant fear for their safety, and many continue to receive threats from their perpetrators.
Like Patience, many have fled to neighboring countries. Some were forced to leave children behind. They have no family, no money, no medical care, no counseling, and very little hope for rebuilding their lives or obtaining justice. It is difficult to imagine the horrible choice they face: remaining behind terrified and insecure, but in familiar surroundings with familiar people — or leaving and going to a hostile country where they are invisible, unwanted and often alone. How bad does home have to be before you choose to leave the places and people you love for a strange and unfriendly land?
Every woman who testified wants accountability and justice — not revenge, but simple justice. Many knew and named their attackers. But what they want most is assurance that if someone tears a woman apart, he will not get away without paying for it.
After AIDS-Free World finishes the documentation, and collects more evidence about the perpetrators, they will explore avenues such as the International Criminal Court. They are working towards UN and African involvement both in bringing attention to the issue, and in ending the climate of impunity that aids and abets campaigns of sexual violence wherever they occur.
Mercy, another survivor, ended her testimony starkly:
The rape has changed my life forever. I am no longer happy. I am separated from my children. I do not know where my husband is, and I am afraid to return to Zimbabwe.
Your V-Gift will be put to work to end violence against women and girls, addressing the most critical issues facing women around the world.
A V-Card is the perfect gift. V-Cards arrive on time AND you will know that your gift is needed and will be well-used.
(click to see full sized card)
V-Day distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls around the world. Violence against women affects one in three women in the U.S and the world, your tax deductible donation of $25, $50, $100, $500, or more will help V-Day end violence against women!
Click here to give this gift!
PLEASE NOTE: V-Cards are sent by email immediately. Click on the link above to send your v-card on the same day you would like it to be received.
Give the gift of V-Day – Your gift, in honor of your loVed one, will be put to work through V-Day’s program partners who are working on-the-ground to address the most critical issues facing women around the world.
Contact:
Brian McLendon
(212) 572-2681
January 20, 1998
The Vagina Monologues to be published by Random House
by Eve Ensler
Foreword by Gloria Steinem
“The value of The Vagina Monologues goes beyond purging
negative attitudes of the past. It offers a personal,
grounded-in-the-body way of moving towards the
future….With the help of outrageous voices like those in
this book, I believe the grandmothers, mothers, and
daughters of the future can mend ourselves. And weave a
world.”
Gloria Steinem, from the Foreword
Originally written as individual performance pieces, Eve
Ensler’s Obie Award-winning one-woman show, The Vagina
Monologues (Villard/Trade Paperback/Publication Date:
February 4, 1998), centers around one simple word: vagina.
These monologues grew out of interviews Eve had with more
than three hundred women ages six to seventy-six from around
the world, discussing the same forbidden subject — “down
there.”
The results are stunning, with soliloquies ranging from an
older woman’s memory of her first experience with her own
sexuality to an account of rape by a Bosnian refugee to the
birth of Eve’s own grandchild. Ensler’s stories, facts, and
words give testimony to the power and vulnerability of
gender and womanhood in our society today.
As a play, The Vagina Monologues has been performed (and
sold-out) in such cities as New York, Los Angeles, Oklahoma
City, Baltimore, and Dallas. Now, published for the first
time, Ensler’s vivid and diverse collage of the strengths,
fears, hopes and needs of women everywhere will transport
readers to a world we’ve never dared to know, guaranteeing
that no one who reads The Vagina Monologues will ever look
at a woman’s body the same way again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eve Ensler is an award-winning playwright, poet, activist,
and screen-writer whose many works for the stage include The
Depot, Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man, Extraordinary
Measures, Lemonade, Ladies, and, most recently, Necessary
Targets, which was performed on Broadway to benefit Bosnian
women refugees.
She has presented her off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues
(winner of the 1997 Obie Award) at theaters and universities
around the United States, as well as in Jerusalem, London,
and Zagreb. She is currently writing a screenplay on women
in prison for Glenn Close at Miramax and a new play for the
Music Theater Group. An instructor in the graduate Dramatic
Writing Program at New York University, she lives in New
York City with her partner, Ariel Orr Jordan.
The Vagina Monologues
Eve Ensler
Villard
Trade Paperback/$12.00/144 Pages
Publication Date: February 4, 1998
ISBN: 0-375-75052-5
Be sure to visit the Random House website.
On Monday, August 6th, 2001 — V-Day announced our plans for V-Day 2002, an annual campaign of activities that will take place worldwide between February 8 – March 8, 2002. Click here to read about all our new 2002 events.