The V-Girls South Africa Refuser March is inspired by the growing V-Girls movement sparked by performances of Emotional Creature at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. V-Girls activist and march organizer Busi Mkhumbuzi shares, “The Refuser March will serve to mobilize women and purposefully empower them through the usage of art to revitalize the activism within us all. We commemorate women who have transitioned from domestic housewives in the 50’s, rebels of the 70’s and finally our generation, one which V-Girls believes can put an end to domestic violence, especially in the home.”
The march will take place on October 15, and will feature music, poetry, HIV testing stations, and special guest performances by Rosie Motene, Lebo Mashile, and more. Girls will create and wear skirts from recycled materials emblazoned with the word “mine” inspired by the monologue “My Short Skirt.” The march will begin at 11:00 AM at the Constitutional Court on Kotze Street, Braamfontein and will continue to Mary Fitz Gerald Park on Miriam Makeba Street, Newtown.
V-Girls invites girls anywhere in the world to join the Refuser March by creating their own recycled short skirts and upload photos to the V-Girls Facebook page. Local V-Girls groups are also encouraged to organize their own V-Girls marches, gatherings, and workshops on October 15 in solidarity with their sisters in South Africa and around the world. Download the free V-Girls Book Club Guide and Academic Curriculum, which includes resources to organize a group and ideas for projects.
Read what others submit. Know you’re not alone. Lift your voice up against violence and tell the world.
We want silence and impunity to end. We’re starting here with Facebook, with your stories, with your words.
Thank you for surviving, thriving, and speaking out.
Join us.
V-Report
August 26, 2011
The day DSK was dismissed I sent this out via Twitter: I am so OVER women being put on trial when they get raped, leaving their houses when they get beaten, quitting jobs after they get harassed.
Within seconds, emails, tweets and Facebook responses began to pour in. Women sent me stories about cases reported and unreported.
One woman pressed charges against a younger male student who stalked and attempted to rape her at Seminary school. She wrote to the Dean and a church district Superintendent. She was told no one could help her. She faced much hostility from members of her community. She kept going. Her tale had a happy ending: “I was granted my Order of Protection; I am affecting important change here at my school, the school is stepping up to create better policies.”
A 12-year-old in Missouri is blamed for reporting a rape and forced to write a written apology to the boy who raped her and deliver it personally. She is accused of filing a fake report and thrown out of school. Then, when she returned to school, he sexually assaulted her again. Her mother took her to an advocate and they discovered his DNA on her clothes. Eventually the boy plead guilty.
Women’s activist Monique Wilson from the Philippines writes: “This reminds me of our Filipina girl, Nicole, some years ago raped by a U.S. soldier on our soil. He was actually found guilty in our courts and sentenced but our cowardly government – ever reliant and dependent on the US – bowed to the full might of the US embassy and government who gave him full protection from our jails and laws. In effect they gave him immunity after he had already been tried and sentenced. Meanwhile, Nicole had been vilified by our press and religious groups, because on the night of the rape she was wearing a short skirt and she was dancing at a party like any other young woman would. They made judgments on her because of that. Then the saddest thing of all Nicole could no longer live in the country so steeped in religious righteousness, that demonized her so she took up the U.S. offer of a visa and left for the US. They bought her silence and broke her spirit.”
The list goes on. What happens to women who come forward to press charges against rape and battery? They are often told it’s because of the way they were dressed, they wanted it, they are making it up. Their own histories are put on trial. Forensic evidence: bruised vaginas, semen-stained collars, destroyed souls. Often these are the last things considered. The DSK dismissal outraged women and made us sad, but I think the worst thing it could do is lead women to believe that speaking out and getting justice is too grueling, too shaming, too impossible. It’s a long road. Justice does not come fast or easily. While there are dedicated and innovative prosecutors and officials seeking justice for rape survivors, they are far too few, and the justice systems often appear to work against the victims.
I really do believe there will come a time when rape is understood as rape, where men and justice systems will understand that no one has the right to take a woman, grab a woman, hurt a woman, have sex with a woman against her will. And it doesn’t matter what she is wearing, what she does for a living or even if she has lied or made mistakes in her past or was not a virgin. RAPE IS RAPE. I know this time will come and the only way it will come is for all of us to be super brave and come forward every single time we are raped, molested, beaten or groped. I think the DSK dismissal should be our call to action, not despair.
In the name of justice for women, V-Day is initiating the V-Report, inviting women throughout the world with a story or case to report to do so online – to tell us what happened, to share your story.
Here’s what you need to know. We will listen to your story. We will record it on this site. We will give you the space to say what you need to say and we support your right, your need to say it.
We are going to create a live space for these stories and then down the road we will call a Global Press Charges Day.
There is a sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious force of silencing women that occurs in this ongoing state of patriarchy. Whether it is consciously intentional or not is of no consequence. The mechanism exists. It is a very dangerous thing as the tenuous ground that abused women stand on is already so shaky and fraught. We need many, many more lawyers and prosecutors and courts that want rape to end, that want women to live safely and freely. We need systems where women feel invited, not shamed to report their cases. We need legal structures that actually discourage rapists and take the act as seriously as the woman whose life it destroys. Nafissatou Diallo should have had her day in court. A jury should have decided her fate. She was entitled to that. Women are entitled to that.
In the absence of truth, the public and the media fill the void with their negative projections. Nafi is left after the dismissal attacked and demonized. Now she is another disappeared woman.
Where there is impunity, where there is no accountability, where a woman does not have her day in court, rape and violence spread. Scrape the surface of 1 billion women on the planet (and that is a UN statistic that one out of three women will be raped or beaten during their lifetime) and you will find a story of violence or rape that determined the trajectory of that woman’s life in some fundamental way.
How many of those women never spoke up or out? How many of those women were afraid to press charges?
Let the DSK dismissal be our call to rise. Something has shifted with this case, let’s seize this moment. Let so many of us speak out that it’s a landslide and it turns the tide and the courts and the method of justice.
So, I’ll go first:
My father regularly beat me senseless and sexually abused me. He gave me bloody noses in restaurants and smashed my head against walls and whipped my legs with belts. There was no one to turn to. I am reporting it here and now. He has passed on, but I want it on the record.
V-Day assumes no liability for any statements made by you on this page or that you otherwise submit to V-Day. Please remember that your post is public. Do not post real names, including your own, in association with your story.
Vava Tampa is the founding director of Save the Congo -a not-for-profit and non-political global campaigning organisation working to raise awareness of the human tragedy overwhelming the Congo, and to change social condition that often give rise to wars, poverty, corruption and abuse. Born in the Congo, Vava uses the transformative power of story to challenge, inform, and entertain his audience on many of the key issues of the day.
Growing up, I do not recall having ever thought deeply about equality of the sexes. When friends ask why I work for Save the Congo, I have always responded that I became an activist by accident; and remained one out of necessity. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would become a foot soldier in the cause of justice and human dignity. The fact that men and women were not treated equally did not occur to me as a boy.
Tuesday, August 23, 11AM
100 Centre Street, NYC
Stand up in support of Nafissatou Diallo, a Guinean hotel worker who is pressing charges against a man who sexually assaulted her — former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Join NOW-NYC outside the Manhattan Supreme Courthouse, where an important hearing on Tuesday will decide if this case will go on. We need to make sure the press, the public, and our city leaders take rape seriously. Wear red in solidarity. Questions?contact@nownyc.org | 212-627-9895
TED.com has posted Eve’s latest talk, taped at the recent TED Women event. Here’s the description from TED.com: “Writer, activist Eve Ensler lived in her head. In this powerful talk from TEDWomen, she talks about her lifelong disconnection from her body — and how two shocking events helped her to connect with the reality, the physicality of being human.” Don’t miss this latest from Eve and TED!
On July 22, Save the Congo, a not-for-profit advocacy organization
campaigning for the restoration of peace, security, justice and human
dignity in the Congo, produced a benefit production of The Vagina
Monologues at The Human Rights Action Centre in London. The event was
a huge success, raising awareness about the issue of violence against
women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and funds for the
Save the Congo Campaign and City of Joy in Bukavu.
Filmmaker and V-Man Taylor Krauss, and WireImage photographers Stephen
Lovekin and Gary Gershoff, documented V-Day’s annual NYC fundraiser,
VIVA VEVOLUTION! at the Urban Zen Center at Stephan Weiss studio in
Greenwich Village. The June 8th event featured guest speakers and
attendees including Carole Black, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, Donna Karan,
Pat Mitchell, Thandie Newton, Doris Roberts, Isabella Rossellini,
Kerry Washington, as well as international activists and V-Day
supporters, all joining together to celebrate the organization’s work.
VIVA VEVOLUTION! looked back at the past year, including V-Day’s
College & Community Events, V-Girls, V-Men, the 2011 Spotlight
Campaign on the Women and Girls of Haiti, and the opening of City of
Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The evening also honored NoVo
Foundation President and Co-Chair/V-Day Board Member Jennifer Buffett
with The Stone Award, and ended with a special birthday dance party
celebration for Eve Ensler!
More than a playwright, she’s an activist on a mission. By Kate Sidley
V… v … va …va … They just couldn’t say it: vagina. In company. On TV. On the stage. In families. In bed. It just wasn’t done. It wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t … polite.
Vagina was a word for the doctor’s office, and even there, it would be issued with a stammer and a blush. And then, in 1996, along came Eve Ensler, with her play The Vagina Monologues, saying the word loud and proud and without shame on a New York stage. And women responded: they found the breaking of this taboo exhilarating, profound, powerful, transforming.
More than a playwright, Ensler is an activist. In conversation with SAFM’s Karabo Kgoleng at The Market Theatre, she moved the audience (and herself) to tears on occasion. And made us laugh, too. With her close-cropped hair and red lipstick, she looks young for her 57 years, with an energy and emotional intensity that draws others to her. After a brief meeting, you want to invite her to dinner or tell her your deepest secrets.
Her activism, she says, goes back to her abusive father: “His rule of law, his domination – it was either succumb to it or resist it. Fighting for my survival, for my own self and dignity, I became an activist. You weren’t allowed to speak back, but I always did and I paid a huge price for it. I realised if I continued to do that, even if I was being choked or punched, at least I had me.”
Although her own life has had its challenges – divorce, a battle against addiction in her 20s and against uterine cancer just last year – she’s chosen to go into battle on behalf of others.
“In fifth grade I was very unpopular because I was so desperate for friends, but I remember organising all the unpopular girls to come to my house, so we’d have solidarity.”
She laughs, although it must have been a painful time. “It was unsuccessful, because they were all these social misfits with no desire to be in a group at all. Still, it was an attempt.”
Her subsequent attempts have been spectacularly successful. On the strength of The Vagina Monologues, Ensler founded V-Day, a worldwide movement to end violence against women. Community groups are encouraged to put on the play to raise money for the cause of women.
Says Ensler: “You can be a street sweeper, a model, anybody. You follow the script and you just do it. When I travel, people come up to me and they don’t say ‘I’ve seen your play’, they say ‘I’ve been in your play.'”
When you consider that there were well over 5000 productions of The Vagina Monologues last year alone, there are a lot of “anybodies” out there who have been in Ensler’s play, and millions more who have seen it.
The V-Day movement has raised more than $80- million.
One of V-Day’s finest achievements is City of Joy in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In one of the poorest and most dangerous places on Earth, where brutal mass rape is endemic, V-Day has worked with women and international donors to create a centre where rape survivors have a place to heal and empower themselves.
Ensler has travelled the world – Downing Street, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the White House – to talk about what was happening in the Congo. “It is staggering, at this time, this century, the lack of true will to end violence against women.”
EVE is in SA developing and, for the first time, sharing a performance of her new work, I am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World. It is based on her book of the same name.
She says: “As I’ve been travelling for the last 14 years I couldn’t help but notice what’s going on with girls. (I had) real hope that I could write a piece that would help liberate the horrible obsession of girls, which is essentially to please; to please your boyfriend or the fashion editors or your father.”
I’m an Emotional Creature inspires girls to question, to stand up and be heard, to be authentic, to own their power. But this is no simple girl-power ra-ra, the stories are sobering: a Masai girl narrowly escapes female genital mutilation; the cult of popularity spreads fear and misery in a high school. There’s an anorexic, a pregnant teen considering her options, a Chinese factory worker making Barbie dolls.
“You can say it’s much worse to be a sex slave than to have an eating disorder, but everyone has different circumstances and struggles,” Ensler says.
She says she still feels 15 in some spiritual sense, and perhaps it’s this that has given her a deep understanding of and empathy for adolescent girls. The work has touched a chord with them, and readings have spurred girls to start V-Girls, a global network of girl activists and advocates, empowering themselves and one another.
Once the commercial production of I am an Emotional Creature has run its course, like The Vagina Monologues it will be given away to activists. She would like to see those productions fund a global education fund, raising money for girls to go to school.
Ensler is blown away by the girls she’s met in South Africa, both the ones in her play and those who attended a workshop she organised: “They’re so energetic, and just wildly talented. They’re organising speakers at the schools, a march, and all this with no adults telling them what to do. With the lightest wind at their back, they’ll just go.”
She says: “When we give what we need the most, we heal ourselves. Seeing those girls stepping into their power and being funny and outrageous and sorrowful, I don’t know a time when I’ve ever been happier.”
The Theatrical Journey of Emotional Creature Begins in South Africa – Workshop Production Opens to Sold-Out Crowds!
Over the last few weeks, girls from South Africa, the United States, and Zimbabwe have come together for a workshop production of Eve’s best-selling new work Emotional Creature in Johannesburg. Witnessing this process has been a unique and moving experience for V-Day, and has made clear the fierce power of V-Girls! V-Day is producing this workshop production as the first stage in the theatrical journey of the play.
Directed by Obie Award-winning director Jo Bonney, the South African production features an eclectic mix of international and local youth, including five undiscovered young actors hailing from high schools across Johannesburg. The cast, including Charmian Bonnet, Molly Houlahan, Antoinette Kayembe, Samukelisiwe Khumalo, Ratanang Mogotsi, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, and Karabo Tshikubu, opened with a sold-out first performance on Friday, July 15th. Standing ovations abounded!
“…Eve Ensler’s [Emotional Creature]…has come together so well with powerful and exciting performances from the girls and Ensler’s strong text…. The seven girls, five of whom are South African…make the show what it is. With their raw talent they take Ensler’s text and make it their own. They sincerely embody the joy and complexities of being a teen and that makes the experience organic…this is a celebration of a girl revolution in flight.” – Kgomotso Moncho, The Mercury
Emotional Creature, which is based off of I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World, published by Villard in 2010, is running through July 27th in Johannesburg, before moving on to Paris’s Cine 13 Theatre in September. The world premiere of Emotional Creature is planned for 2012 at California’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
DON’T MISS OUT! JOIN US in Johannesburg! Tickets are on sale now and available at www.computicket.com
Eve Ensler’s I Am An Emotional Creature, running at the Market Theatre Lab, is a workshopped production, but it seems ready. It has come together so well with powerful and exciting performances from the girls and Ensler’s strong text.
Based on the book of the same name, the play is a composition of fictional monologues and anecdotes informed by girls all over the world and touching on issues from eating disorders to genital mutilation. These stories give girls a voice and encourage them to question their situations instead of succumbing to pleasing everybody.
Walking into the Lab, you are met with a circular stage, parts of it adorned by brightly coloured graffiti representing a youthful spirit. Behind is a screen depicting girl facts such as: “Most five-year-olds would rather break an arm than be fat” or “Barbie is inspired by a German doll called Lolli which was used by men as a sex toy”.
The music, directed by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder, is a mix of soft pop and dance, which reflects and matches the energy of its target audience. There were several high school pupils and teens at the sold-out show. Some came with their parents and the play can be the ice-breaker between parents and teens who struggle to communicate. The minister of health recently revealed that some teens have about three abortions in six months, so more of them should see this show.
The direction uses the sounds and images that flow through and around teens every day to tap into the personalities of the performers. And this is exactly what was in American director Jo Bonney’s vision when they started working on the production.
But it’s the seven girls, five of whom are South African, who make the show what it is. Zimbabwean Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa and American Molly Houlahan were pre-cast. Antoinette Kayembe, Samukelisiwe Khumalo, Ratanang Mogotsi, Charmian Bonnet and Karabo Tshikudu were cast from high schools in Gauteng with the help of Gina Shmukler, who’s one of the producers of this South African production.
With their raw talent they take Ensler’s text and make it their own. They sincerely embody the joy and complexities of being a teen and that makes the experience organic.
The allure of an Ensler script is that no matter how provocative and bold, it always carries a celebratory tone. And this is a celebration of a girl revolution in flight.
I Am An Emotional Creature is at the Market Theatre Lab until July 29.
The V-Girls South Africa Refuser March is inspired by the growing V-Girls movement sparked by performances of Emotional Creature at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. V-Girls activist and march organizer Busi Mkhumbuzi shares, “The Refuser March will serve to mobilize women and purposefully empower them through the usage of art to revitalize the activism within us all. We commemorate women who have transitioned from domestic housewives in the 50’s, rebels of the 70’s and finally our generation, one which V-Girls believes can put an end to domestic violence, especially in the home.” 
Vava Tampa is the founding director of Save the Congo -a not-for-profit and non-political global campaigning organisation working to raise awareness of the human tragedy overwhelming the Congo, and to change social condition that often give rise to wars, poverty, corruption and abuse. Born in the Congo, Vava uses the transformative power of story to challenge, inform, and entertain his audience on many of the key issues of the day.