V-Day Blog Archive

How Are Vaginas Doing Fifteen Years After “The Vagina Monologues?” (The Huffington Post)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samara-oshea/vagina-monologues_b_1149929.h…

By Samara O’Shea

As a 22-year-old cocktail waitress, I envied one of my fellow female servers for two reasons: 1. Her boyfriend, and 2. The ease with which she used the word vagina. She jumped up on the bar one day and said, “I hope my vagina isn’t showing.” Obviously I recognized the word, I had just never heard it used so casually.

Ten years later, I too can say the word in any context — clinically, sarcastically, nonchalantly, or sitting on a bar. I’m not sure if that’s a result of me becoming more comfortable with myself or we, Americans collectively, becoming more comfortable with the V-word. It was fifteen years ago this past October when we were confronted with the word, whether we wanted to be or not, as Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking play “The Vagina Monologues” hit the Off Broadway Westside Theater.

Now we say “vagina” here, there and everywhere. Some argue this is not a good thing. In an article for the New York Times, Neil Genzlinger says calling genitals by name has ruined the sitcom. He mentions a recent episode of “New Girl,” in which Zooey Dechanel’s character says the word penis nine times, and an episode of “2 Broke Girls” where it takes Kat Dennings less than one minute into the show to say the word vagina. Genzlinger laments that this seems like “a clumsy celebration of the fact that the censors who used to keep words like ‘vagina’ and ‘penis’ out of prime time have apparently all died. We can say this, therefore we’re going to say it over and over.”

While speaking openly about genitals may not be good for sitcoms, it is good for the rest of us. When a society is too strict with sex talk, people suffer. In a rigid world, children and teenagers are afraid to ask body-related questions or be open about something they may have seen or heard — and we don’t want them to be! Adults, too, can be afraid to open up about sexual fears or problems and they subsequently suffer in silence.

I recently encountered something I never thought I’d see: A 66-year-old woman who spends most of her days talking, tweeting, and blogging about vaginas. Olga Cohen went into early menopause at the age of 43. This reaped havoc on her body and she ended up on a mission to restore her vagina to its pre-menopausal days. Having created the product that works best for her, a remedy called Vaginal Renewal Complex, she now advises women dealing with hot flashes and vaginal dryness. Needless to say, Olga is thrilled that the word vagina is no longer taboo, but she thinks women still need to be more open about some of the aging vagina’s problems. Her message is simple: “If you can’t talk about the problem, there is no hope of solving it.” Olga says whenever she is speaking with a shy woman, she tells the story of her own vagina first, which instantly puts her listener at ease.

Joan Price, also 66-years-old and author of “Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex,” couldn’t agree more, “Society’s view of older people as sexless or as pathetic or icky if they are enjoying sex is wrong.” She declares it’s also wrong is for older people to expect sex to be what it was when they were in their 20s and 30s. Joan believes if people are willing to open up about issues such as erectile dysfunction, vaginal pain, and sex after cancer then they can have an active sex-life that is different but no less fulfilling than what they had when they were younger.

It seems to me that vaginas are doing incredibly well 15 years after the monologues. They have taken over prime-time and are enjoying sex well into old age. We should tip ours hats to Eve Ensler for helping to establish a world where two 66-year-olds and a 32-year-old can speak openly and honestly about their vaginas. I’m glad to see there’s no age limit on genital speak. It was less than 10 years ago I became comfortable with saying the word vagina, and I don’t ever want someone telling me I’m too old to say it.

NEW Designs Available! Give A Holiday V-Card!

V-Day is offering two designs for this year’s Holiday V-Cards. A V-Card supports the worldwide movement to end violence against women and girls and is the perfect gift for the Holidays!

Make a donation to V-Day on behalf of your friends and loved ones. V-Day will send a specially designed 2011 holiday V-Card letting them know of their unique gift.

The V-Gift will be used to address the most critical issues of violence against women and girls around the world.

Click Here To Give This Gift >

To send a V-Card on the donate page*, check the box next to “Donate on behalf of a loved one?” labeled “Yes, I would like to send a V-Day e-card” and fill in the rest of the information to finish designing your gift.

*December 31st is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2011 tax return. 86 cents of every dollar you give goes straight to ending violence against women and girls.

NEW: Eve Ensler featured in the “International Herald Tribune” & “The Guardian”

Eve Ensler recently took part in the International Herald Tribune‘s “Turning Points: Global Agenda 2012” series, joining Ai Weiwei, Christiane Amanpour, Christopher Buckley, Paul Farmer, Michael Ignatieff, and Vitaly Komar for the “Big Question” feature which asked: Do the lives of Gandhi, Solzhenitsyn and Mandela tell us more about the future than those of Stalin, Hitler and Mao?

READ Eve’s response re: Passion Versus Politics >

In addition, Eve sat down with The Guardian to talk about the City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and discuss what drives the global feminist movement, and why more men should have gender equality at the forefront of their minds.

WATCH here >

TAKE ACTION: Support The Violence Against Women Act

On November 30th, nearly 20 years after the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was first signed into law, U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced legislation (S.1925) to further strengthen and improve the programs authorized under the landmark law to assist survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

This is an important step forward for VAWA and we hope to get even more improvements as the bill moves forward!

What’s most important now is to get ALL legislators to support VAWA’s reauthorization! The National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence has put together a great TOOL KIT that features talking points, sample letters, and detailed information about VAWA to help you TAKE ACTION to help get VAWA reauthorized!

LEARN more & TAKE ACTION >

Get the NCDSV Tool Kit >

LAUNCHED: V-Girls Launch Fresh New Look and Exciting New Features on V-Girls.org!

V-Girls is thrilled to launch the new and improved website which includes a fresh new look and new ways to connect girl activists, educators, and advocates! Through V-Girls Flash Monologues, V-Girls can perform selections from I Am an Emotional Creature and share videos in the online gallery. Using the Share Your Emotions feature, all you V-Girls out there can upload and share what’s on your mind, and learn what other Emotional Creatures are saying about issues facing girls. Sign up to start an Emotional Creature Club in your school or community, download V-Girls Academic curriculum, join the V-Girls Network, read the V-Girls blog, meet the V-Girls Action Team, and learn more about how you can incorporate V-Girls into your V-Week activities this year!

CHECK IT OUT! >

V-Girls Report from Occupy Wall Street

Girl activists share their perspectives and involvement in the movement that has risen from Occupy Wall Street. V-Girls Reporters share their blogs and videos from New York City, Tulsa, Santa Fe, Charleston, and Berkeley. V-Girls Occupy blog series kicks off today with a report from 16 year old Mesiah Hameed in New York City!

I am the 99%. Though my age may surprise some, I take advantage of it. I make a statement. I inspire youth of all ages to be more independent and learn things on their own. We must get our youth to the protest and tell them what is happening.

CONTINUE reading >

GIVE A V-Day Holiday V-Card!

Photo Credit: Paula Allen

A V-Card supports the worldwide movement to end violence against women and girls and is the perfect gift for the Holidays!

Make a donation to V-Day on behalf of your friends and loved ones. V-Day will send a specially designed 2011 holiday V-Card letting them know of their unique gift.

The V-Gift will be used to address the most critical issues of violence against women and girls around the world.

Click Here To Give This Gift >

To send a V-Card on the donate page, check the box next to “Donate on behalf of a loved one?” labeled “Yes, I would like to send a V-Day e-card” and fill in the rest of the information to finish designing your gift.

*December 31st is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2011 tax return. 86 cents of every dollar you give goes straight to ending violence against women and girls.

With Thanks, We Announce our 2011 Annual Report – Viva Vevolution!

Dear Activists, Friends, and Supporters,

As the holiday season begins, we are so thankful for the incredible gift of V-Day, this uncontainable force for good made up of people like you across this planet who continue to fight to end all forms of violence against women and girls.

At this time of year-end thanks and reflection, we are also so pleased to share with you Viva Vevolution!, V-Day’s annual report, which documents an incredible and unique year in our movement.

In an effort to be more sustainable, we are offering the report in an interactive online format. We hope you enjoy it.

CLICK HERE for the 2011 Annual Report – Viva Vevolution! >

he 2010-2011 year was a time of great transformation for our team at V-Day as well as for our activists and supporters globally. When we look back at this year, we see a deepening of our collective commitment to ending violence against women and girls and a renewed clarity about our work and the path ahead.

Here is what we know: We are a global change movement. We have no interest in patching up this system as it is. We support women leaders and visionaries in grassroots communities who are changing the traditions, structures, norms, givens, politics, laws, and religious imperatives of those communities. We believe in all-out change and revolution and we know nothing less will suffice if we want to end violence and save the planet.

This past year, V-Day was brought to new communities with more women and men involved at a grassroots level than ever before. Our work in Haiti met critical needs for women survivors of violence, while in the Congo we opened the City of Joy, already a catalyst for our global movement. We saw V-Day touch new groups as V-Girls was ignited and V-Men gained momentum through a burgeoning male-driven effort. Our inspiring, taboo-breaking college and community activists went even further this year, organizing over 5,000 V-Day events in all 50 United States and Puerto Rico and in more than 60 countries.

While our work has had great success, the political, economic, and social climate has gotten worse in many ways. The Occupy Wall Street movement has illuminated the clear and direct connections between economic hardship and the struggles of women trapped in violent situations around the world, while scandals such as the one that took place at Penn State University have reminded us that true and meaningful conversations about gender, power, and abuse are urgently needed.

There is much work to be done, and what is required now is visionary and strategic action. As V-Day approaches its 15th anniversary in February 2013, we need you more than ever to be with us, to give your time and resources and love to the work of ending violence.

There is nothing more important.

With our deepest gratitude and V-love and wishes for a very happy Thanksgiving to you all,

CLICK HERE for the 2011 Annual Report, Viva Vevolution! >

REQUEST a paper copy of the Annual Report >

DONATE to V-Day* >

*December 31st is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2010 tax return. 86 cents of every dollar you give goes to ending violence against women and girls.

A CALL TO MEN Release Statement: Breaking the Silence

Breaking the Silence

By – Co-founders – A CALL TO MEN

“There’s a code of silence that we don’t dare speak, There’s a wall between and the river’s deep…” – Bruce Springsteen “Code of Silence“

In the recent tragedy at Penn State it is reported that trusted Coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts related to allegations of sexual abuse of eight young boys over a 15-year period. This allegedly occurred while other coaches looked on and kept silent about what they saw, what they knew and perhaps even tried to cover up for their colleague and “the program”.

As men we have a long history invested in collusion with other men and codes of silence. Also known as codes of honor, vows of silence, the blue curtain of silence with names like “the family” or “the brotherhood”. Many of us in our youth and adulthood have participated in defining violators of the code of silence as haters, suckers, punks, rats, snitches, weasels, a snake and much worse.

This pervasive silence among men in our culture to protect the status quo, to win at any cost, and never tell on your brother is a glaring example of how destructive the current model and definition of manhood operates to demean, diminish and oppress anyone who is not considered a “real man” in our society. Our fear of being perceived as less than a man or weak, keeps us in line with these codes, regardless of right and wrong. This fear is running ramped and dominating our sense of righteousness. Dare we be a “whistleblower”, when most of us as boys have been told “don’t be a tattle tale”.

This code protects men from confronting or challenging other men about their behavior, no matter how violent or inappropriate. This agreement has at its foundation the belief that men have more value and should receive entitlements and benefits, even if it compromises the rights and humanity of anyone else and therefore should be given priority, protection and the benefit of the doubt in cases of any wrong doing. These social and cultural norms that have been established by men for the benefit of men are steeped in our history, laws and tradition and we continue to pass this belief system down to our sons and boys.

While all of the perpetrators of the Penn State incident need to be held accountable and dealt with swiftly by the law, it does not let the rest of us off the hook. What happened at Penn State is “a cough in the cold”, a symptom of the illness. While clearly, there are specific individuals involved and responsible, we believe that this is not just an individual ill but a social ill requiring a social response.

As men, we must join the growing movement of men and women, willing to challenge these age old notions and norms defining manhood. We must be willing to escape the fear of being viewed as less than a man and branded an outcast or traitor of the unit, the organization , the team. We must be willing to step outside of what we at A CALL TO MEN call “The Man Box”. We must be willing to break the code of silence which continues to restrict us and compromise our humanity… “We keep pretending that there’s nothing wrong, But there’s a code of silence and it can’t go on” – Bruce Springsteen “Code of Silence“

Co-founders – A CALL TO MEN

READ New “Huffington Post” Essay from Eve “OVER IT!”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/over-it_b_1089013.html

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.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don’t have a sense of humor, and women don’t have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don’t think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called “comrades.”

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I’m over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somali women being raped at the Dadaab in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it’s their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime – the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters – film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes – while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?

You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape.

And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5 years old.

And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.

And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It’s been too long now, we have been too understanding.

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine – once and for all – what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need you to let our rage and our compassion connect us together so we can change the paradigm of global rape.

There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.

ONE BILLION WOMEN.

The time is now. Prepare for the escalation.

Today it begins, moving toward February 14, 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.

Because we are over it.

Follow Eve Ensler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eveensler