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VERENA DOBNIK
NEW YORK – Eve Ensler has just returned from hell.
That’s how the author of “The Vagina Monologues” describes her trip to Congo, where tens of thousands of women have been sexually attacked and mutilated in the African nation’s civil war.
The 54-year-old playwright has joined with the United Nations in a campaign against what a U.N. expert called the worst violence against women in the world.
“In Congo, you’re talking about a situation where Africans are hurting Africans, black people are hurting black people,” Ensler told The Associated Press in an interview from Italy. “And it’s harder to make people care. People say, ‘Oh, it’s just Africa.’ And nobody is held accountable.”
She spent weeks at the Panzi Hospital in the city of Bukavu, in eastern Congo, where Dr. Denis Mukwege is helping to repair the broken bodies of some war victims. The hospital sees about 3,500 women a year suffering fistula and other severe genital injuries.
A U.N. human rights expert said last month that the sexual atrocities in Congo’s volatile province of South Kivu extend “far beyond rape” and include sexual slavery, forced incest and cannibalism.
From Geneva, Yakin Erturk called the situation the worst she had ever seen as the global body’s special investigator for violence against women. She blamed Uganda-backed militias that occupy Congo’s Ituri region, as well as the nation’s armed forces and national police.
Erturk will report her findings in September to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
“How do I tell you of girls as young as 9 raped by gangs of soldiers, of women whose insides were blown apart by rifle blasts and whose bodies now leak uncontrollable streams of urine and feces?” Ensler asks in an article in the September issue of Glamour magazine.
The International Criminal Court in the Hague is now considering indictments in connection with the atrocities. The court’s probe started in 2004, instigated by Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila.
Ensler is asking people to write letters to Kabila, demanding that he take stronger action to stop the attacks. Hundreds of letters already have arrived at the United Nations, which is forwarding them to the African leader, Ensler said.
She is working to raise both awareness and funds for the women through the United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict and through V-Day, a global movement she founded to stop violence against women and girls.
V-Day was inspired by the overwhelming audience response to “The Vagina Monologues,” an award-winning play in which actors share anecdotes about their bodies that reveal heartbreaking and hilarious glimpses of their souls.
The V-Day movement has raised over $40 million in the past decade, funding thousands of community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Kenya, Egypt and Iraq, as well as the United States.
Funds Ensler helps raise for Congo will go to the hospital, as well as to establish a safe haven called “City of Joy.”
Her journey to Congo in May was inspired by a conversation she had with Mukwege last December in New York, where he spoke about his work_ “sewing up women’s vaginas as fast as the mad militiamen are ripping them apart,” as Ensler describes it.
Their friendship “began with my rusty French and his limited English,” she wrote. “It began with the quiet anguish in his bloodshot eyes, eyes that seemed to me to be bleeding from the horrors he’d witnessed.”
___
Letters for Congo president: U.N. Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, P.O. Box 3862, New York, N.Y. 10163
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K. Connie Kang
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs21
jul21,1,1188885.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
Carefully walking up to the podium, Yong-Soo Lee, a former sex slave for the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II, faced American church leaders at Wilshire Presbyterian Church.
She bowed deeply to pay her respects.
Then Lee, immaculate in white Korean attire of ramie, gave a capsule testimony of her abduction during the war, when she was 16, and the unspeakable pain and degradation she suffered.
More than 100 Presbyterian pastors, elders and other church officials attending the July 14 meeting in Los Angeles of the Pacific Presbytery listened with rapt attention. The presbytery is a regional governing body of the 2.3-million-member Presbyterian Church (USA).
“Please help us,” Lee said, speaking through an interpreter. “Please support House Resolution 121,” she added, concluding her remarks with another bow.
HR 121, approved 39-2 by the House Foreign Affairs Committee last month, calls on Japan to formally apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force’s coercion of young women and girls into sexual slavery. It also calls on the Japanese government to pay reparations.
Kevin Iga, an elder from Malibu Presbyterian Church who was at the meeting, said Lee’s visit was helpful because it put a human face on the issue.
Iga, an associate professor of mathematics at Pepperdine University, said he wants the full House to approve the measure.
For many attendees, Lee’s appearance gave added meaning to the meeting because Wilshire Presbyterian and Church of Peace, a Korean congregation, were co-hosts. By seeing her, attendees said, they could empathize with the burdens of fellow Korean Christians.
During the three-hour meeting, combining business with worship, attendees sang two hymns in both languages. A Korean American praise and worship group played one song with traditional Korean musical instruments to underscore the importance of the partnership.
The Communion was conducted bilingually, with the Rev. Kee Dae Kim, pastor of Church of Peace, speaking in Korean, and the Rev. Charles Robertson, pastor of Wilshire Presbyterian, speaking in English.
Veterans of presbytery meetings said that they had never seen so many Koreans participating.
Presbytery officials were careful to note, however, that Lee’s visit was initiated by hosting pastors, not the presbytery, which has not taken a formal stand on the resolution. Kim and Robertson are active in social justice issues and are supporters of HR 121.
Even as proponents of the measure are pushing Congress to get the resolution passed, a Japanese group consisting of a dozen parliamentarians and scores of politicians, nationalist intellectuals and historians is urging the House to retract the proposal, claiming that the resolution is based on “wrong information” and contradicts “historical fact.”
In March, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe roused a storm of protest with his denial of allegations of sexual slavery and his contention that the women were professional prostitutes paid for their services.
Under the auspices of a group calling itself the 121 Coalition, Lee flew to Washington, D.C., from Seoul to denounce Abe during his April visit to the White House.
“I did not get paid,” said Lee in an interview after her talk. “How long will Japanese officials continue to lie when witnesses like me are still living?”
Lee is a woman with a mission. At 78, she is among the youngest survivors, so she feels added responsibility to speak out.
Taken to China and Taiwan with a group of teenage girls, Lee was repeatedly raped, beaten and even tortured with electrical cords when she fought back, she said.
Serving an average of five soldiers a day, she was infected with venereal disease and suffered for many years. When the war was over, she returned to her hometown, but told no one — not even her mother — about what happened.
It wasn’t until 1992, after the formation of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan in Seoul, that she dared to speak about her past.
A convert to Catholicism, she is sustained by her faith, she said.
“God is good to me,” she said. “He hears my prayers all the time.”
In April, on the day of the 121 Coalition’s protest against Abe in the nation’s capital, it looked like it might rain.
“So, I prayed to God to help clear the clouds,” she said. “He did,” she said with a big smile, “and very quickly too.”
Her daily routine when she gets up is to stand before a full-length mirror in her apartment.
“I look at the mirror and smile,” she said. “When I see the woman in the mirror smiling, too, I say, ‘Hey Yong-Soo, let’s be joyful today. Let’s make today a joyful day.’ “
She’ll never know this side of heaven why a loving God allowed her and so many other innocent people to suffer, she said.
But she can live with the mystery of what only God knows, she said.
On display in the Wilshire church’s patio, where she was interviewed, was an exhibit of photographs of paintings and drawings by a former sex slave.
One depicted a uniformed soldier pulling a girl with a braid by her hair, with the caption: “It was a day of nightmare. No, it was the beginning of it. I was 15, when I was taken away.”
Another showed a ship filled with girls with sad eyes, with the caption, “No one said where we’re heading.” The exhibit also included rare photographs taken during wartime of the sex slaves.
The artist who did the paintings died three years ago, Lee said. They are another reminder, she said, of why she must carry on. She is not worried about the efforts in Japan to help scuttle the House resolution.
“What is right will prevail,” she said.
Paul M. Yun, a professor of mathematics at El Camino College and a member of the 121 Coalition, said what makes the current campaign different from similar past efforts is the involvement of many religious groups.
“It’s an interfaith effort,” he said, noting that Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists are working on the project.
Yun, a member of St. Francis Korean Catholic Center in Torrance, where Lee spoke on Sunday, said 19 Korean Catholic congregations raised $6,000 to pay for her travel expenses.
Lee, who had not set foot inside an American church until this visit, said she was honored and humbled by the experience.
“How honored I am,” she said. “Imagine telling our story to such a distinguished group and to be allowed to stand where pastors preach. I will always remember.”
Read the Remarks of Chairman Lantos on H. Res. 121, regarding Comfort Women here http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/press_display.asp?id=380
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GERALD MCKINSTRY
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=2007705010366
NYACK ‹ Moments before Eve Ensler, the award-winning playwright of “The Vagina Monologues,” went on stage last night, she enthusiastically embraced two 16-year-olds backstage.
“These are my favorite vagina warriors,” Ensler said, hugging the two as they arrived. “These are my heroes. I love these girls.”
The teenagers were Megan Reback and Hannah Levinson, two of the three John Jay High School juniors who were the center of a national controversy in early March after they recited the word “vagina” as part of an open-mic night despite warnings from school administrators.
They were initially suspended for insubordination but later had those rulings rescinded. Their actions ignited a national discussion on censorship, female empowerment and insubordination. The third teen, Elan Stahl, could not be there last night.
“To me these girls are the future. They represent the possibility of a future that is different,” Ensler said of challenging how society views and treats women. “They are smart. They are self-possessed. They are clear. They are kind. They’re standing up for basic human rights. … If the future is this, I could leave the world and go away,” Ensler said.
Reback then responded: “Don’t leave yet; your work is not done.”
Ensler’s work was the point of last night’s conversation at Riverspace Arts in Nyack. The Scarsdale native spoke in front of a few hundred people about her experiences in the theater, traveling the world performing “The Vagina Monologues” and talking about women’s issues.
The conversation, moderated by Gloria Feldt, an author and past president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, covered many topics, including female empowerment, rape and abuse, the importance of knowing one’s body, the sanctity of theater and the global movement created by the play.
Carolyn Fish, executive director of the Rockland Family Shelter, introduced Ensler and spoke of her as a role model and extraordinary woman.
“The Vagina Monologues” was written in 1996 and is based on interviews with more than 200 women about their sexual memories and experiences. It started out in a small theater in lower Manhattan and has been translated into 45 languages and performed all over the world.
The seminal, or ovular, moment, as Ensler said during the stage interview, was when Glenn Close agreed to read the play. “That night was a big turning point,” she said.
“There was a hunger that something bigger was going on,” Ensler told the crowd. “Women should be empowered.”
After publication of “The Vagina Monologues,” Ensler founded V-Day, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence against women.
The play is often performed on college campuses on St. Valentine’s Day, or V-Day, and the proceeds go toward those efforts.
That foundation has raised $45 million and helped start grass-roots movements in 119 countries, Ensler said last night.
Through her travels, Ensler said she’s learned that “revolution is possible.”
“It feels like change is possible,” she said. “What I’ve learned is change is possible. We’re reversing the paradigm. This capacity to be bold is in all of us.”
About a half-hour into the conversation, both Ensler and Feldt invited Reback and Levinson to read “My Short Skirt,” the portion of the play they read at the open mic night that created the recent outcry.
When they were done, the crowd erupted and gave them a standing ovation.
Reback and Levinson spoke of how their decision to say the word “vagina” changed them and the experience has made them more comfortable with themselves and what they say.
“We went up there and did it, and I don’t think we’ve ever been so sure of ourselves,” Levinson said before the reading.
As for Ensler, she said, she never expected this movement to grow the way it has.
“I always say about ‘The Vagina Monologues’ is that it’s a huge accident. I never set out to be the vagina lady,” Ensler said. “I think that the power for women is that it’s in this mystical and political place.”
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Bands stage Va. Tech benefit By Kevin A. Doran
Collegian Staff Writer
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2007/04/04-19-07tdc/04-19-07darts-0…
Just days after the Virginia Tech shootings, two student bands will do their part to start the healing process tonight at Chronic Town, 224 W. College Ave.
The Man, the funk/fusion band that won a spot on the Movin’ On side stage after last week’s Battle of the Bands, will combine efforts with bluegrass band Hay Sugar for a show benefiting V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women, and a Virginia Tech memorial fund.
If you go
What: V-Day/Virginia Tech Benefit Show featuring The Man and Hay Sugar
When: 8 tonight
Where: Chronic Town, 224 W. College Ave.
Details: Admission is $3
Madison Flego, a member of Hay Sugar and former singer in The Man, said the proceeds from the benefit would be split between the two charitable causes. The show was originally meant to benefit V-Day, but after Monday’s events, Flego decided to expand the benefit.
“As soon as it happened, I know a lot of universities were trying to do something, you know, pay their respects, do what they could,” Flego said.
She said she has friends at the school and though none of them were injured in the shooting, she said the effects of the day linger on.
“I do have friends who go there,” Flego said. “Thankfully they’re OK, but I know that they’re just traumatized by the events.”
Ben Rothbart, bassist for The Man, said the band looks forward to benefit shows.
“We try to play benefit shows whenever our schedule allows us,” Rothbart said. “We started doing those pretty much when we started. We usually try to do whatever shows we can when people ask us.”
Hay Sugar, a relatively new band, also has experience playing benefit shows, having played benefits for Eco-Action, Flego said. The band is relatively new to the scene, but its unique style separates it from most bands in the area.
“We’re not strictly bluegrass,” she said. “We play a lot of southern rock covers, kind of all over the place.”
Flego said she could revive her experience with The Man, but the schedule for the benefit is wide open.
“We’re probably going to have an hour set each, maybe talk about the causes that we’re donating to,” Flego said. “It’s not going to be a very regimented thing.”
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2007/04/04-19-07tdc/04-19-07darts-0…
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Diana Costello and Susan Elan
http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070306/NEWS02/…
CROSS RIVER – Saying the word “vagina” during a reading at a John Jay High School open mic session has resulted in suspension for three female students and has sparked a debate about censorship throughout the community.
School administrators had warned the girls it would be inappropriate to say the word while reading a selection from Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” but the students were willing to suffer the consequences.
Now Ensler, a playwright and feminist who grew up in Scarsdale, has offered to visit the Katonah-Lewisboro school district to discuss the matter.
Juniors Megan Reback, Elan Stahl and Hannah Levinson will each serve separate one-day, in-school suspensions this week, Reback said.
“When I was able to say the word ‘vagina’ and be proud to say it — and it wasn’t crude and it wasn’t inappropriate and it was very real and very pure, it was important to me,” Reback said yesterday. “We were willing and ready to take whatever came.”
The administrators’ decision to suspend the girls has caused an uproar within the school, with students making T-shirts and posters to protest the punishment. A group opposed to the suspension has been created on Facebook.com, a popular Internet networking site, and had attracted more than 350 members yesterday.
The move has prompted parents to write to the Board of Education and circulate e-mails calling the suspension a “blatant attempt at censorship.”
School board President Peter Breslin said the decision to suspend the students was not about censorship, but rather about insubordination. He said school administrators had been concerned about the use of the word because young children would be at the open mic session, and the girls had agreed not to say it.
“I think the students need to understand that if you make an agreement with the administration to do something, and then you don’t do it, there’s going to be consequences for that,” he said. “We are very committed to free expression and we do not tolerate censorship in our district.”
“The Vagina Monologues” is a book based on interviews with more than 200 women about their experiences of sexuality. Since being written in 1996 as a response to the guilt and embarrassment many women still connect with their bodies, the book has been translated into 45 languages and been performed in cities throughout the world.
The piece has also led to the founding of “V-Day,” an international grass-roots movement dedicated to stopping violence against women. It is celebrated Feb. 14 with people performing “The Vagina Monologues” and raising money for the cause.
Ensler offered yesterday to take part in a public meeting to discuss with students, parents and educators why it was important for girls of high school age to feel comfortable saying the word “vagina.”
The author said much of the violence that happens to women in the United States occurs because they are “disempowered by lack of education.”
“What is wrong about the word ‘vagina,’ which is the correct biological term for a body part?” Ensler asked. “It is not slang. It is not dirty or racy. The fact that it was censored is an indication of exactly what is going on in American schools, where girls and boys are not being educated about their bodies in a healthy way. We’re pushing everything into the closet.
“We need open, healthy sex education where girls know and love their bodies,” said Ensler, who addressed the United Nations yesterday during an international conference dedicated to stopping rape as a weapon in conflict.
The controversy in Cross River centers around the verse: “My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country.”
The words were part of a longer selection, which the three girls had divided among themselves.
Leading up to the performance, the girls had debated whether to say the word that they knew would get them into trouble. One idea they discussed was to not actually say the word, but rather hold up a sign with the word written on it.
Ultimately, however, they decided to say “vagina” because they did not feel they had the liberty to change a work of art.
All three girls read the final line together, as a sign of unity.
“I think almost everyone can agree it’s important to uphold the integrity of literature and not change or alter it,” Reback said.
School administrators did not return requests for comment yesterday, but Breslin, the board president, pointed to the district’s stance against censorship during a debate over Nadine Gordimer’s “July’s People.” The book is part of the 10th-grade curriculum, despite parents’ criticism about its sexual and racial content.
As for a student’s right to free expression, the U.S. Supreme Court has said students “do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Public school officials, however, may regulate student expression that substantially disrupts the school environment or that infringes on the rights of others. Many courts have held that school officials can restrict student speech that is lewd, The First Amendment Center said.
Allen Hershkowitz, a 51-year-old environmental scientist with two children in the high school, said suspending the students was not only a form of censorship, but was also bad educating. He would like to see the administrators apologize for making a mistake.
“No one should be embarrassed to use the word ‘vagina,’ ” said Hershkowitz, a former Lewisboro town councilman. “It’s exactly the opposite message we should be teaching our children. … That’s when problems arise, when they’re not informed and not feeling comfortable referring to their bodies.”
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Rachel Bonham Carter
http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_38552.html
NEW YORK, USA, 5 March 2007 – Impassioned pleas to end the use of sexual violence against women during armed conflict were heard at United Nations headquarters in New York this afternoon. They came as part of a panel discussion kicking off a new multi-agency initiative to investigate and intensify the UN’s response to sexual violence in war.
“What is it about women getting raped that isn’t grabbing people’s imagination, isn’t seizing people’s conscience or isn’t getting people to stand up?” asked writer and activist Eve Ensler, creator of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.
“Part of it, I think, is that rape is so institutional at this point,” she added. “It’s so ordinary and people just expect it to happen.”
Ms. Ensler read an essay she had written in 1994 in response to news of the atrocities committed at ‘sex camps’ in Yugoslavia during the Bosnian war. She appealed to “the powers that be” to move away from bureaucratic terms and focus on the individual stories of the victims.
The panel on sexual violence also featured remarks from Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court; the UN Force Commander in Liberia and Sierra Leone, General Daniel Opande; and the Director of the Forum for Women, Law and Development, Sapana Pradhan Malla.
The discussion was moderated by CNN anchor Isha Sesay, and the new UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, made closing comments.
“I have been impressed and moved by the emotional messages heard here today,” said Mr. Holmes. “Particularly as a father of three girls, I was shocked to discover the extent of the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war.” He promised to do his best to lead the humanitarian community in fighting this outrage.
Taking joint action
The new joint initiative – known as ‘Stop Rape Now: UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict’ – involves 10 UN agencies, including UNICEF. Representatives of the agencies asked the audience assembled for this afternoon’s panel to stand with their arms crossed on their chests to show support for the effort.
This pose has been adopted as the symbol of the initiative.
“I think all these UN agencies coming together on a campaign is a fantastically good sign that everyone understands the emergency of it, and that everyone needs to work cooperatively,” Ms. Ensler said in an interview after the panel.
At a separate panel earlier in the day, women’s and children’s rights advocates came together for a dialogue on the inter-connectedness of their work.
Speakers included the Vice-Chair of the UN Committee on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Ambassador Moushira Khattab; a member of the UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Shanti Dariam; and Senior Advisor on International Programmes Rangita de Silva de Alwis of the Wellesley Centres for Women, which organized the event with UNICEF.
In opening remarks, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah acknowledged the fears of some women’s rights advocates, who feel that “integrating women’s and children’s rights will restrict women to the role of caregiver of children.
“On the other hand,” continued Ms. Salah, “for the children’s rights advocates, this integration will put the focus only on the rights of the girls – thus resulting in the boy child being left out.”
Tension and dialogue
The tension between these two positions was apparent in a discussion over the provision of free anti-retroviral treatment only to pregnant HIV-positive women. Ms. Dariam said this was an example of motherhood sidelining all other roles a woman might choose, while Ambassador Khattab countered that motherhood should be embraced as an opportunity to seize rights for all women.
The panellists said they valued the opportunity to increase dialogue and regretted that there had not been more time to take the discussion further. Despite their differences, they agreed that they hold much more in common.
Both panels held today were part of the ongoing 51st Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which wraps up later this week.
To watch the interview with Eve please click here
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Kelly Clisham Weekender Correspondent
Popular stage production celebrates women and tackles women’s issues
“Them is always different than us. Them has no face.” Sadly, in today’s fast-paced, hustle and bustle, high-tech society, this is all too true. Something horrific may be happening to “them,” but we’re busy. Domestic violence. Incest. Murder. Rape. Honor killings. Female genital mutilation. All of these terrible things happen to someone else. We hear the news and we change the channel. We read the stories and we turn the page. As long as bad things are happening to “them,” we can look away.
Sadly, there are those who can’t look away, including the women who live with violence and fear every day. Thankfully, there as those who refuse to look away, including workers and volunteers who devote themselves to helping women overcome violent situations by providing education, shelter, escape and an alternative. There are also those that provide victims with a voice, including internationally recognized playwright Eve Ensler, who created “The Vagina Monologues” and began the V-Day movement, and local dynamos Christine E. Rock and Kimmie Wrazien, the forces behind V-Day Wilkes-Barre and V-Day Scranton.
“The Vagina Monologues” began as a one-woman show written and performed by Ensler off-Broadway in 1996. The script was born out of interviews she conducted with over two hundred women of all ages, races and backgrounds. “The Vagina Monologues” celebrates female sexuality, exposes violence in its many forms, and revels in the hope that violence can and will be stopped. Before long, Ensler realized that her work had the power to raise funds as well as awareness, so in 1998, the first V-Day celebration was held in New York City. Since then, V-Day has been held in cities and towns all over the world, to date raising more than $30 Million to combat violence against women and girls. The first NEPA celebration arrived courtesy of V-Day Scranton in 2002, and a few years later, Wilkes-Barre joined in the fun, launching its own V-Day in 2005.
V-Day Wilkes-Barre will beat her big sister to the stage this year, with a performance scheduled for Feb. 3. Rock is directing, organizing and performing for the third year running. Though the production is one night only, planning takes months, with approval coming from V-Day Worldwide in October and countless meetings, phone calls and letter writing campaigns to secure donations of funds, goods or services in the following weeks. Add to all the administrative tasks the normal things needed to mount a show – auditions, rehearsals, designing – and the list seems endless. Though V-Day is a great deal of work, Rock can’t imagine not being a part of the celebration.
“Doing V-Day is one of the most empowering and remarkable experiences,” she says. “The lives we have touched with the performance itself, and the awareness and the money we raise. Stopping violence is a requirement for the human race to continue – and as a member of the human race, how can I not help?”
Notice that Rock refers to the human race, and not just women. Says Rock, “For violence to stop, and to reclaim peace, everyone needs to help.” While many may think of “The Vagina Monologues” as the ultimate chick fest, Rock emphasizes that VDay is not about bashing men. In fact, this year for the first time, men have a more visible presence during V-Day Wilkes-Barre. Co-organizer Alan Waclawski has adapted activist Jackson Katz’s “10 Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence” for the stage and has invited 12 men from the community to read it to open the show.
After the men of V-Day Wilkes-Barre do their part, a cast of 25 women ranging in age from 15 to 70 will take the stage. While some are local actresses, V-Day encourages women from all walks of life to participate, so many will be on stage for the first time. Also, at the request of V-Day Worldwide, the women do not memorize their monologues. Since they’re meant to tell stories, not to transform into other characters, the VDay cast will be reading from index cards. According to Rock, “This allows the performer to connect with the audience, rather than worry about knowing her lines. It’s not about being an actor – it’s about being a woman.”
With just a few days left before the big night, Rock is busy tending to last-minute details and thinking about the future. V-Day Worldwide recommends that organizers only hold their positions for two years because of the enormous amount of work involved, and Rock has now put in three, so she’ll be stepping down at the end of V-Day 2007.
“I hope that the next organizer will be blessed with the most remarkable experiences, like I have been,” she says. But for right now, the future is Feb. 3, when the women of V-Day Wilkes-Barre take to the stage to reclaim peace, hopefully supported by an enormous audience ready to help with the task.
“Let the violence that happens to women and children every day and in every town offend you,” says Rock, “not the word ‘vagina.’ Everyone knows someone who has been touched by violence. Honor them and buy a ticket. V-Day Wilkes-Barre allows the men and women of NEPA to make a difference by being part of a voice that says the violence must stop.”
Less than a week later, the women of V-Day Scranton will take to the stage at the Northeast Theatre under the direction of Kimmie Wrazien. Wrazien has been involved with V-Day Scranton since the beginning, and she’s done everything from handing out programs to serving on planning committees to performing to chairing. Several years ago, Wrazien heard the rumor that V-Day was coming to Scranton. She read a copy of “The Vagina Monologues” and loved it, so she went to the first planning meeting and hasn’t been able to stay away since.
“It’s humbling and amazing knowing that you are doing something that benefits locally and is done globally, to know that you are standing up and doing the same thing that over 2,700 communities, cities and towns all over the world are doing,” says Wrazien,
After months of behind-the-scenes work, Wrazien is thrilled to finally have a cast and is enjoying seeing the women coming together, having fun, supporting and encouraging each other. Though V-Day Scranton is performing at a new venue and features a lot of new faces in the cast, there will also be, as Wrazien puts it, “voices of V-Days past,” including Alicia Grega-Pikul, Phoebe Sharp and Barb Maxwell, who, along with Wrazien, will be performing Ensler’s newest monologue, “What Happened to Peace?”
Though Wrazien finds directing and organizing to be somewhat daunting, she’s back in charge for a second year because she wanted to see the tradition of V-Day Scranton continue. Like Rock, she’ll be stepping aside following V-Day 2007, but hopes that someone will step into her shoes and help V-Day Scranton grow. But for now, she’s looking forward to Feb. 9 and hoping that the community comes out for V-Day Scranton, whether they’re newcomers or returning fans.
“If you’ve seen it before, it may be the same monologues but it’s not the same show! We have a different cast with their own personalities that they bring to it and thus their own spin. If you’ve never seen it, you will be wowed! It’s not a feminist movement or a guy basing evening. Just give it a chance. What do you have to lose? Promise you will love it, and if not, it’s a different night out and you are helping a great cause.”
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“This is a cry for an end to sexual violence against women in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo…”
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Jackson Katz
In the many hours devoted to analyzing the recent school shootings, once again we see that as a society we seem constitutionally unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge a simple but disturbing fact: these shootings are an extreme manifestation of one of contemporary American society’s biggest problems — the ongoing crisis of men’s violence against women.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so let’s take a good hard look at these latest horrific cases of violence on the domestic front. On September 27, a heavily armed 53-year-old man walked into a Colorado high school classroom, forced male students to leave, and took a group of girls hostage. He then proceeded to terrorize the girls for several hours, killing one and allegedly sexually assaulting some or all of the others before killing himself.
Less than a week later, a heavily armed 32-year-old man walked into an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and ordered about 15 boys to leave the room, along with a pregnant woman and three women with infants. He forced the remaining girls, aged 6 to 13, to line up against a blackboard, where he tied their feet together. He then methodically executed five of the girls with shots to the head and critically wounded several others before taking his own life.
Just after the Amish schoolhouse massacre, Pennsylvania Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said in an emotional press conference, “It seems as though (the perpetrator) wanted to attack young, female victims.”
How did mainstream media cover these unspeakable acts of gender violence? The New York Times ran an editorial that identified the “most important” cause as the easy access to guns in our society.
NPR did a show which focused on problems in rural America. Forensic psychologists and criminal profilers filled the airwaves with talk about how difficult it is to predict when a “person” will snap. And countless exasperated commentators — from fundamentalist preachers to secular social critics — abandoned any pretense toward logic and reason in their rush to weigh in with metaphysical musings on the incomprehensibility of “evil.”
Incredibly, few if any prominent voices in the broadcast or print media have called the incidents what they are: hate crimes perpetrated by angry white men against defenseless young girls, who – whatever the twisted motives of the shooters — were targeted for sexual assault and murder precisely because they are girls.
What is it going to take for our society to deal honestly with the extent and depth of this problem? How many more young girls have to die before decision-makers in media and other influential institutions stop averting their eyes from the lethal mix of deep misogyny and violent masculinity at work here?
In response to the recent spate of shootings, the White House announced plans to bring together experts in education and law enforcement. The goal was to discuss “the nature of the problem” and federal action that can assist communities with violence prevention.
This approach is misdirected. Instead of convening a group of experts on “school safety,” the president should catalyze a long-overdue national conversation about sexism, masculinity, and men’s violence against women.
For us to have any hope of truly preventing not only extreme acts of gender violence, but also the incidents of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence that are a daily part of millions of women’s and girls’ lives, we need to have this conversation. And we need many more men to participate. Men from every level of society need to recognize that violence against women is a men’s issue.
A similar incident to the Amish schoolhouse massacre took place in Canada in 1989. A heavily armed 25-year-old man walked into a classroom at the University of Montreal. He forced the men out of the classroom at gunpoint, and then opened fire on the women. He killed fourteen women and injured many more, before committing suicide.
In response to this atrocity, in 1991 a number of Canadian men created the White Ribbon Campaign. The idea was for men to wear a white ribbon as a way of making a visible and public pledge “never to commit, condone, nor remain silent about violence against women.” The White Ribbon Campaign has since become a part of Canadian culture, and it has been adapted in dozens of countries.
After the horrors in this country over the past two weeks, the challenge for American men is clear: will we respond to these recent tragedies by averting our eyes and pretending that none of this happened? Or will we at long last break our complicit silence and work together with women to turn these tragedies into a transformative cultural moment?
Jackson Katz is the author of “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help” (Sourcebooks, 2006).
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UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Violence against women is “severe and pervasive” worldwide with
one in three women subjected to intimate partner abuse during her lifetime, according to
a UN report.
“There is compelling evidence that violence against women is severe and pervasive
throughout the world,” said UN chief Kofi Annan’s report, titled “Ending Violence
Against Women: from Words to Action.”
The study cited surveys on violence against women conducted in at least 71 countries
showing “a significant proportion of women suffer physical, sexual or psychological
violence…On average, at least one in three women is subjected to intimate partner
violence in the course of her lifetime.”
A World Health Organization study in 11 countries found that the percentage of women
subjected to sexual violence by an intimate partner ranged between six percent in Japan
and Serbia and Montenegro, and 59 percent in Ethiopia.
Murders of women often involve sexual violence, with between 40 and 70 percent of
female murder victims killed by husbands or boyfriends in Australia, Canada, Israel,
South Africa and the United States, Annan’s report said.
It noted that more than 130 million girls are victims of female genital mutilation, a
practice most prevalent in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries but also found in
immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia.
Female infanticide, prenatal sex selection and systematic neglect of girls were said to
be widespread in South Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.
The study also highlighted the fact that women experience sexual harassment throughout
their lives, with between 40 and 50 percent of women in the European Union reporting
some form of sexual harassment.
“The majority of the hundreds of thousands of women trafficked each year are women and
children and many are trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation,” it added.
It also focused on the phenomenon, including sexual violence, in armed conflicts,
noting that between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide in
Rwanda while between 20,000 and 50,000 suffered the same fate during the conflict in
Bosnia in the early 1990s.
In Europe, North America and Australia, more than half of women with disabilities have
experienced physical abuse, compared with one third of non-disabled women, it said.
The study noted that women subjected to violence were more likely to abuse alcohol and
drugs and to report sexual dysfunction, suicide attempts, post-traumatic stress and
central nervous system disorders.
And it concluded that despite progress in recent decades, “violence against women has
not yet received the priority required to enable significant change.”
“A more cohesive and strategic approach is needed from all actors, including
governments, the international community and civil society,” the report said.