V-Day Blog Archive

Vagina Monologues to Open in Taipei

Hungfu Hsueh
http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/Society/2005/03/24/1111629308.htm
Local women’s rights groups will stage the play, “The Vagina Monologues,” in Taipei on Friday and Saturday, as the climax to a series “V-Day” activities that started earlier this month.

“V-Day” is a global movement that was launched in 1998 to stop violence against women and girls. This is the first year that local women’s rights group have joined the worldwide campaign.

The participating local groups include the Garden of Hope Foundation, Taiwan Women’s Link and Taipei Association for the Promotion of Women’s Rights. The proceeds from the show will be donated to local women’s rights groups to support their work in preventing domestic violence.

Chi Hui-jung, executive director of the Garden of Hope Foundation, said she hoped Taiwan’s participation in the “V-Day” campaign will help local women’s rights activists to promote their work in Taiwan in the future.

“This year we launched our “V-Day” activities in Taipei, and I hope this could be a good starting point to promote other activities around the country,” said Chi.

The Cabinet-level Council of Cultural Affairs is one of the co-sponsors of this year’s “V-Day” event.

CCA Chairman Chen Chi-nan (í¬ë¥ìÏ) said that he hopes the “V-Day” campaign will help to heighten female citizens’ awareness of their civil rights.

“The CCA in recent years has been working on a ‘Cultural Citizenship Movement’ to encourage our citizens to develop their understanding of art and culture,” Chen said. “In our society, many women still suffer the burdens of tradition that the society imposes on them, and I wish cultural activities like “V-Day” can help to promote greater awareness and prevent violence against them.”

The letter “V” in “V-Day” stands for “victory,” “valentine,” and “vagina.” Every year, productions of Eve Ensler’s award-winning play “The Vagina Monologues” are staged all over the world to raise money for local anti-violence organizations.

The play will premier in Taiwan with Friday’s performance.

In the past seven years, “The Vagina Monologues” has successfully raised US$25 million toward networking around the globe to prevent domestic violence and to empower women.

The title is representative of the fact that public discussion of the vagina is taboo in many societies worldwide. Feminist activists have encouraged women to explore their own bodies in order to develop a better understanding of themselves and to achieve the objective of a better self-protection.

Ensler’s play adopts the style of monologues by female actresses, delineating women’s life experiences and bringing a deeper level of discussion to gender issues. Before writing the play, Ensler had conducted interviews with more than 200 women about their sexuality, their bodies and their stories of violence and sexual abuse.

Ensler’s work has met with resistance in some countries, particularly those that uphold traditional patriarchal values. The play was banned in Shanghai, China in 2004 and later in Uganda in 2005.

The two performances in Taiwan will be staged at the Red House Theater in Mandarin and English on Friday and Saturday night, respectively. Both performances are sold out.

Dana Wylie, director of the English language performance in Taiwan, said though the play is internationally famous, each local performance will reflect characteristics of the local culture, as the identities of women around the world are definitely different, one from the other.

More than $16,000 Raised in Production of the ‘Vagina Monologues’

Lindsay Pieper

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/index.php?ID=5496

The Virginia Tech V-Day Initiative, in association with the Women’s Center and the Department of Theatre Arts, hosted three sold-out performances of the ‘Vagina Monologues’ on Feb. 4, 5 and 6, raising over $16,000.

The V-Day Initiative was developed four years ago and has incorporated the “Vagina Monologues” as the major fundraiser in three of the years.

Katie Ownby, Virginia Tech V-Day Initiative president, explained that 85 percent of the money earned this year went to the Women’s Resource Center of the New River Valley and an additional 10 percent to the National V-Day Organization. IWiN, International Women in Need, a group aiding women through spotlighting a specific country each year, received the remaining 5 percent.

“IWiN aids women in different countries … from stopping gang rape to gaining an education. This year’s spotlight country is Sudan,” Ownby said.

The three sold-out shows continue to illustrate the popularity of the “Vagina Monologues,” since all nine performances held at Tech have sold-out.

“I was expecting to sell-out opening night, and surprised to see a waiting list for Saturday and Sunday,” said “Vagina Monologues” Assistant Director Monique Cooke.

Although ticket sales for this year’s “Vagina Monologues” did not sell as quickly as in the past, Ownby, unlike Cooke, was not surprised with the outcome.

“Every show in the past sold out, it’s a very popular performance,” Ownby said.

Based on Eve Ensler’s interviews with over 200 women, the “Vagina Monologues” touches on a variety of issues, ranging from pubic hair to genital mutilation and sexual slavery. The show interweaves the humorous topics involved with being a woman with the grave issues.

“This show is about giving voice to the voiceless, breaking the silence, speaking the truth, celebrating our humanness, fighting fear, beating back shame … honoring our mothers and grandmothers and paving a way for ourselves,” said Director Susanna Rinehart.

“The ‘Vagina Monologues’ and the V-Day Initiative are inextricably interwoven. The V-Day Initiative involves all of the education, advocacy, community-building and publicity surrounding the show … (while) the ‘Vagina Monologues’ is the centerpiece,” Rinehart said.

Ownby said V-Day is a global movement created to stop violence against women and children. The “V” in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

“Violence against women and children is a real thing, and it does need to be stopped,” Ownby said.

Review of V-Day Documentary Until The Violence Stops

By Wendy Hamacher, Special to Zap2it.com
http://www.zap2it.com/index/dvd/reviews/1,1146,25144,FF.html
V-DAY Until the Violence Stops
STUDIO: Iron Films, V-DAY Productions, New
Video Distributors
RELEASE DATE:Available Now
TIME: 73 mins.
DVD EXTRAS: Additional Scenes, V-DAY Spotlight Campaigns

ZAP2IT RATING: Until recently, the word “vagina” was sparsely spoken aloud, let alone shouted out loud repeatedly in a packed theater full of women and men. Now, thanks to comedian/activist Eve Ensler, it is a word capable of changing the lives of women who have battled sexual abuse and violence.

In the recently-released docudrama “V-Day Until the Violence Stops,” filmmakers treat you to an eye-opening experience into “The Vagina Monologues” and how the ability of words can change the fate of thousands of women.

The DVD presents you with vivid images and follows Ensler as the monologues are produced in cities around the globe. In each segment the introductions of real people and their struggles with sexual violence and physical abuse is shocking, yet their strength and perseverance is intimately captured allowing the audience to share in their pain, but without the usual exploitive nature.

In an efficient way, the documentary gives you time to process heart-wrenching details. Mostly, the film stirs passionate emotions. The thirst for wanting to get involved in this fight against abuse is overwhelming. When seeing Ensler and her accomplishments portrayed so humbling and selflessly, it’s impossible for a person not to feel comforted that she is fighting for women’s rights.

This is not a film to be taken lightly — it is in fact a graphic display of the pain and oppression felt by countless women, even in our liberal times. If interested in snuggling on the couch while munching on popcorn, this is probably not the movie for you. But if you are searching for truth, meaning and a lot of heart this is the perfect choice.

The special features add insightful detail and information on how the monologues continue their campaign against violence. Ultimately, a film insistent on awareness, “V-Day” delivers an uplifting and hopeful outlook.

To purchase “Until the Violence Stops”, visit the docurama web site athttp://www.docurama.com/productdetail.html?productid=NV-NVG-9702. “Until the Violence Stops” is also available for rental at www.netflix.com

For Women, Violence a Universal Threat

Pat Orvis – WeNews commentator
OPINION: Commentary

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2216
As the media buzzed about whether the U.S. would sign onto an important document, women at the actual U.N. meeting focused on violence against women around the world. Last in a seven-part series on the Beijing Platform.

Editor’s Note: The following is a commentary. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women’s eNews.

UNITED NATIONS (WOMENSENEWS)–The first thing a longtime United Nations observer notices at a gathering like Beijing Plus +10 is the presence of actual women.

Thirty years ago–when the first U.N. World Conference on Women was held in Mexico–it was mostly men who came, especially from the more tradition-bound “third-world” cultures, to debate the issues for women.

But for the past two weeks here, conference rooms have been filled to standing-room capacity with women.

Among them: African women, Asian women, Nordic women, Indigenous women. Women nursing their feet in new white tennis shoes. Women making the smallest bowl of soup do for a meal because without help from some sponsor they could not have come.

Every one of them “a mover and shaker in her own country,” as an official from the International Labor Organization expressed it, “or they wouldn’t be here.”

They gathered for “Beijing Plus 10,” the decade-later meeting to assess and reaffirm the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, in 1995 in the Chinese capital, that wide-ranging document identifies 12 critical areas of concern including poverty, education, violence and mass media and is widely regarded as the strongest policy statement in support of women’s rights ever made by the international community.

Discussion Replaces Silence
The Beijing Declaration was affirmed, even by the U.S. delegation, which backed off its widely reported ringer amendment on abortion after that caused an immediate outcry from more than 150 organizations worldwide.

But while affirmation of the declaration–and what the United States was going to do about it–was the main discussion that this event received in the mass media, the women inside the actual meetings were focused on talking about something else.

Sometimes shy and hesitant, these women openly discussed topics from how to acquire property rights which, though often theirs on paper, were not granted to how more female doctors could increase opportunities for entering fields like surgery, instead of always getting steered into gynecology. And they broke centuries-old taboos by talking about the violence and sexual abuse of females, which had been shielded in their cultures as too personal for public airing.

The event was sprawling and mammoth, hard to sum up, with overall attendance recorded by the U.N. Department of Public Information at just over 2,600, including a sprinkling of men. Some were from the more than 6,000 nongovernmental organizations registered. Another 1,847 came with delegations from the 165 member states of the U.N. More than 150 registered from U.N. agencies and intergovernmental organizations.

Streep, Ensler and Tutu
Altogether, participants spoke out at press conferences, strategy sessions and panel discussions that attracted names as well-known as actress Meryl Streep, Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler and South Africa’s Desmond Tutu.

Streep, who chaired a press briefing for the New York-based women’s rights organization Equality Now, said she was there–not because it was an “exotic” thing to do–but because her grandmother raised three children, was the smartest person she had ever met, yet could not vote in her own lifetime.

Ensler chose to launch one of her V-Day Violence V-Campaigns; events designed to end violence against women and girls. This one pressed for recognition of and solidarity with the 200,000 Korean “comfort women” who were conscripted into service as sexual slaves by Japan’s military during World War II.

Ensler’s opening-night event, on Feb. 28, proved an appropriate start to two weeks of presentations in which rape and sexual abuse were major themes.

Universal Threat is Violence
According to the talented individuals who keep the women’s movement going, the biggest universal threat to women is violence, from the trafficking of women and girls by gangs of men and boys to the spousal abuse that costs the City of New York alone $500 million a year, according to the U.N. Development Fund for Women.

In the United States, some of that cost includes emergency-room visits, court action and law enforcement, as well as the money lost to employers from reduced productivity and absenteeism.

Across the United States, according to UNIFEM’s executive director, Noeleen Heyzer–a women’s rights leader in her own Southeast Asia–women and girls are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted routinely–some 15 percent of those before reaching age 17.

Worldwide, according to the studies, 1 out of every 3 women has been beaten, forced to have sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime, usually by someone known to her.

Those figures of reported cases of abuse–never mind all the cases that never get reported–include “dowry murders” in India, where wives are sometimes killed, often by burning, so that husbands and in-law families can extract a dowry from the next wife.

They include “honor killings,” most common in Muslim countries, where women and even young girls are killed–more than 1,000 each year just in Pakistan–or otherwise punished to atone for the offenses of their own male family members against women or for such non-crimes as having been raped.

The figure also includes women who have been raped in war, which was recently made a crime by the International Criminal Court.

The figure also includes the trafficking in women and girls across borders for sale into prostitution and slave labor.

A World Bank report has placed violence against women on a par with cancer as a global cause of incapacity and death among women of reproductive age, calling it a greater cause of ill-health than traffic accidents and malaria combined.

Certainly, it was a subject that needed airing. And with hope, at the next big convention on women, there will be major progress to report, from every part of the world.

Pat Orvis is a U.N. correspondent who has traveled extensively on assignment in all the developing regions.

For more information:

The United Nations–
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/

More `Vagina Warriors’ Needed to Help End Abuse

Marsha Ibos
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Columns/200503062
“What exactly is a `Vagina Warrior’?” John Johnson asked when approached with the news that he had been selected to be a “Vagina Warrior” to recognize the work he does to help keep women safe from their abusers. John is the facilitator for the YWCA Resolve Family Abuse Program’s Perpetrator Intervention Program – a 32 week educational program, often court-ordered, that attempts to teach perpetrators to be accountable and accept responsibility for their abusive behavior.

The committee wanted to recognize John’s courage as a facilitator for these group sessions for batterers, which have the goal of reducing the violence toward the women in their lives. It also hopes that bringing attention to John’s willingness to work in the field of domestic violence will encourage other men to take a proactive role in this challenging field. In these weekly group sessions, John has exhibited a great deal of courage in confronting male perpetrators about how they minimize, trivialize and make excuses for their violent relationships with loved ones.

John’s philosophy is “Anything that can be learned can be unlearned,” and his stellar work with the RFAP’s Perpetrator Intervention Program was the impetus for the award of “Vagina Warrior.” The organizers of the international “V-Day movement sparked by “The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler’s Obie-award winning play, has encouraged the communities presenting the play to select outstanding persons to recognize as “Warriors.”

Through V-Day campaigns throughout the world, local volunteers produce annual benefit performances to raise awareness and funds for their community’s anti-violence groups. Now translated into 35 languages, “The Vagina Monologues” continues to be the highlight of an international movement that educates millions about the cruelties against women and girls throughout the world.

“The Vagina Monologues” and V-Day celebrations also serve as a venue for creative events to bring attention to existing local anti-violence organizations, such as the YWCA’s Resolve Family Abuse Program (RFAP) and the Family Service of Kanawha Valley REACH (Rape, Education, Awareness, Counseling and Healing) Program. These programs will share the proceeds from “The Vagina Monologues” performances at 7:30 p.m. today and Tuesday at the West Virginia State University Capitol Center Theater, at 123 Summers Street, Charleston.

Social services agencies such as RFAP and REACH use the V-Day celebrations in the spring to ask our communities to focus on what each of us can do to stop violence against women and girls. We are grateful for the many volunteers and contributors who are making this event a success and for the many courageous warriors, such as John Johnson, who help us as we strive to end violence against women and girls every day of the year.

Marsha Ibos is the director of the YWCA Resolve Family Abuse Program.

UN Reports that Afghanistan Could Easily Slip Back Into Chaos

http://www.feministmajority.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8914
The United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) first ever Afghanistan Human Development Report found that while the country has made progress since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan could easily fall back into chaos. According to the UNDP, the basic human needs of the Afghan people, including access to jobs, health, education, dignity, income, and opportunities for participation must be met or else the country will once again collapse into an “insecure state, a threat to its own people as well as to the international community.”

According to the UNDP, “years of discrimination and poverty have relegated Afghan women to some of the worst social indicators in the world,” citing poverty, violence, inadequate health care, exclusion from public life, rape, illiteracy and forced marriage. The Gender Development Index places Afghanistan above only two countries: Niger and Burkina Faso.

The report also found that reconstruction projects sponsored by the US military, known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), are inadequate and dangerous, citing that they blur the lines between civilians and soldiers, making aid workers targets for militants, reports the Associated Press . Afghanistan ranked 173 out of 178 countries in the United Nations 2004 Human Development Index. The average life expectancy for Afghans is only 44.5 years, 20 years lower than the life expectancy for people in neighboring countries.

In addition, recent reports from on the ground reflect that Afghanistan’s severe winter has claimed the lives of hundreds of people in villages in the country. The snow and lack of roads makes many areas inaccessible to assistance. Even in Kabul, where there is little electricity to provide heat and there is much homelessness, people are dying from the cold and from starvation.

To read the UNDP press release and report, click here
http://www.undp.org/dpa/pressrelease/releases/2005/february/pr21feb05.ht…

Iraqi Authorities Must Protect Women, Change Discriminatory Legislation, Amnesty International Urges

(New York) – Iraqi authorities must take effective measures to protect women and change discriminatory legislation that encourages violence against women, Amnesty International said today in a new report, Iraq: Decades of Suffering. The report focuses on the disproportionate effect of government repression and armed conflict on women and girls in Iraq, documenting how women in Iraq have been targets of violence because of gender discrimination in society and the lawlessness that followed the U.S.-led invasion, which has resulted in the restriction of their freedom of movement. This report is part of Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign.

“Iraqi authorities must introduce concrete measures to protect women,”said Abdel Salam Sidahmed, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International. “They must send a clear message that violence against women will not be tolerated. This can be done by investigating all allegations of abuse against women and by bringingthose responsible to justice, no matter what their affiliation.”

According to the report, members of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq allegedly have received threats related to their advocacy for women’s rights. Chairperson Yanar Mohammed reported that in January and February 2004 she received several death threats by e-mail from an Islamist group known as the Army of Sahaba. She asked US officials for protection, but reportedly was told they had more urgent matters to address.

The current lack of security has restricted severely the participation of women in civil society, particularly in education, employment and political decision-making and constitutes a major obstacle to the advancement of their rights. Since the 2003 war, armed groups have targeted and killed several female political leaders and women’s rights activists.

The report also demonstrates how gender discrimination in Iraqi laws contributes to the persistence of violence against women. Women remain at risk of death or injury from male relatives if they are accused of behavior determined to have brought dishonor on the family.

“Iraqi authorities must review discriminatory legislation against women and bring it into line with international human rights standards. Mostimportantly, they must ensure that the new constitution and all Iraqi legislation contain prohibitions to redress all forms of discrimination and gender-based violence against women,” said Abdel Salam Sidahmed.

Amnesty International has repeatedly called on armed groups to immediately end the violence against women, including harassment, death threats, violent attacks, kidnapping and killing. Amnesty International equally calls on the U.S.-led multinational forces to investigate promptly all allegations of violence against women, including sexual attacks by their forces or other agents and improve safeguards for women in detention.

“Women must be at the heart of the political decision-making process in Iraq, particularly when dealing with issues directly pertaining to women,” concluded Sheila Dauer, Director of Amnesty International USA’s Women’s Human Rights Program. “Women should be represented at all levels to protect women’s interests. Women in the next government must take the lead in ensuring that Iraqi legislation is in line with international standards that protect women against violence and discrimination.” To read the report, click here:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=9E865CC4FD535B2880256F7300…

‘Monologues’ on Campus Under Fire

A group that promotes conservative values at Catholic universities and colleges is targeting several Maryland schools in its nationwide protest against the controversial play The Vagina Monologues.

A full-page advertisement in Tuesday’s USA Today is headlined: “Scandal! Notre Dame, Georgetown, Boston College, Holy Cross, Loyola, DePaul and 24 more Catholic colleges to host X-rated ‘play’ that glorifies child seduction and other horrors.”

The advertisement also criticizes by name secular colleges it says are planning productions of the Monologues by Eve Ensler in the next four to six weeks, including the Johns Hopkins University, Towson University and University of Maryland. The ad lists the addresses and phone numbers of school administrators, and urges parents and alumni to write, call or e-mail in protest.

The Vagina Monologues is a collection of interviews by Ensler with women of varying ages and ethnicity. The women use explicit language to discuss their own experiences of sexual-abuse, self-pleasure and sexual awakening. Productions typically are staged as benefits for local organizations combating violence against women and children; the organization’s Web site (www.vday.org) claims that $20 million has been raised for these community groups.

The Cardinal Newman Society, a Falls Church, Va.-based advocacy group, seems to especially object to a scene in the Monologues in which a teen-age girl recounts her seduction at the hands of an older woman.

“I am appalled and embarrassed that any Catholic institution would present this play, especially in the midst of the clergy sex abuse scandal,” Patrick J. Reilly, the society’s president, said in a statement. “Whether the perpetrator is a lesbian woman or a wayward priest, seduction of a minor is no one’s ‘salvation.’ ” (The society’s Web site is at www.cardinalnewmansociety.org.)

Ensler’s organization says that the monologue merely reflects the actual experience of one of the women interviewed by the playwright, and should not be interpreted as endorsing sexual relationships between adults and teens.

The Newman Society protested presentations of Ensler’s work last year. It also has lobbied against commencement speakers who support abortion rights, including former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell and U.S. Congresswomen (and sisters) Linda and Loretta Sanchez of California.

Loyola College has received a handful of protests from alumni and parents of students in response to the advertisement. But it has no plans to cancel the production, scheduled for March 10-11 on the campus at 4501 N. Charles St.

The Rev. Harold Ridley, Loyola’s president, conceded that the Monologues are “in questionable taste” and that the work “is not the vehicle I would have chosen” to raise awareness of domestic violence.

But, after talking to female students, professors and administrators, he decided that the piece raises legitimate issues that should be heard. “The concerns of our students who are producing this play deserve our attention,” he said.

Proceeds from the production will benefit the House of Ruth, a Baltimore shelter for abused women.

Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun

Uganda bans ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ Threatens to Arrest Play Organizers

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050218/lf_afp/afplifestyl…
KAMPALA (AFP) – Ugandan authorities have banned the internationally acclaimed women’s rights play “The Vagina Monologues” as an affront to public morality and threatened to arrest organizers if they follow through on plans to stage benefit performances, officials said.

Information minister Nsaba Buturo said the play had been deemed offensive and vulgar and would corrupt public morals if performed in Uganda.

“As government we have agreed that this play should not be staged in the country because the language used is offensive, vulgar and not according to the country’s culture,” he told AFP.

Written by US playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, “The Vagina Monologues” is based on several hundred interviews with women around the world and celebrates female sexuality and focuses on the abuses women suffer.

Three Ugandan rights groups had planned to stage the play beginning on Saturday to raise funds for war-torn northern Uganda and to promote their campaign against violence against women in the country.

Buturo, however, maintained that only a small part of the script deals with violence against women.

“The rest is a promotion of homosexuality, lesbianism and worship of the female sexual organ,” he said, noting that Uganda’s censorship board, the Media Council, had also objected to “The Vagina Monologues.”

“To the extent that the play promotes illegal, unnatural sexual acts, homosexuality and prostitution, it should be and is hereby banned,” the council said in a ruling this week.

The council said the play could only be staged if the portions it deemed offensive were removed, an option the organizers rejected on Friday and cancelled the performances.

“This play needs to be performed in its entirety or not at all,” they said in a statement.

One of the organizers, Sarah Mukasa, program manager for the Akina Mama wa Afrika, told AFP the group was considering legal action to overturn the ban.

However she took solace in the fact that the controversy had highlighted their problem of violence against women in Uganda.

“Although the play has been banned, our point has been made,” she said. “Our major concern was to raise issues about violence against women and sexual harassment.”

The play has been performed in over 39* countries since 1996, including Iraq (news – web sites), sometimes with major stars such as Cate Blanchett (news), Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon and Whoopi Goldberg (news).

But it has not been without controversy.

Last year, authorities in China banned two productions of “The Vagina Monologues” — one in Beijing and one in Shanghai — and a repeat performance of the play was banned in Malaysia in 2002 after complaints about its content.

*V-Day Correction: “The Vagina Monologues” has been performed in over 76
countries to date

Eve Ensler and V-Day at Notre Dame University Today for Their V-Day Event

Kamaria Porter

Can you say it? Vagina.

Every year around this time, that curiously absent anatomical word floats across campus like a fad, a discovery and then disappears into the cave of annual campus events. However, this is the exact opposite of the mission of the Vagina Monologues and V-Day. Talking to Notre Dame’s diverse group of Vagina Warriors, one sees beyond the clouded debate and controversy to find an energizing play, a socially vital movement and a beloved community of sisters working for a better world.

The Vagina Monologues sprang from the depths of the unspoken. Discussions surrounding female bodies, sexuality and rape are deemed either inappropriate for open discussion or unimportant. We lack spaces for discussion for these issues and for V-Day activists; this is a serious problem. The statistics are appalling – one in three women worldwide will be victims of some form of violence (battering, rape and harassment to name a few), one of four college women will experience sexual assault – attempted or completed – and more than half of these violations go unreported. V-Day Student organizer junior Kaitlyn Redfield comments, “After three years of being involved, I’ve come to understand that being silent on this issue is perpetuating the problem.” By denying the pervasiveness of sexual assault, we isolate the victims and fail to combat the problem.

At Notre Dame, our illusions of being a “family”, parietals and rules against pre-marital intercourse seem to erase from our consciousness issues of sexuality in general and sexual assault specifically. Junior Halle Kiefer sees the Monologues as a forum for victims, friends and all people concerned with violence against women to find healing and seek answers. She says, “People say rape and assault doesn’t happen here, but it does, behind closed doors and people have to deal with it.” It is the women and men (one of seven men experience a sexual assault) suffering in silence the Monologues aims to console and give a voice for their pain and frustration. Redfield sees Notre Dame as having a strong “culture of silence” around these issues. The Vagina Warriors in response plan awareness events, fundraisers for local sexual assault response centers and the Vagina Monologues to combat that silence and aid victims.

V-Day also is a celebration of femininity and builds solidarity among the people involved. It is completely student planned and based. Redfield was inspired seeing “college women taking action” to end sexual assault. The community created through performing the show and planning events sustains its members. Kiefer and others find a chance to meet new friends, connect more with current ones and build a positive community around important issues. V-Day meetings are chalk full of laughter, camaraderie and support, which in such a diverse group of women is revolutionary. We can learn much from the model of the vagina warriors. As they endeavor to make themselves into a focused community of respect and peace, they remake the world around them and battle a grave injustice.

To their critics, V-Day participants speak respectfully and seriously. Their mission, to end violence against women and girls worldwide, has been misconstrued in outrageous ways. Some associate their purpose with pro-choice groups. To this, Redfield says we must “divorce discussions of violence against women and abortion debates. Just because they both deal with women, it does not equate them.” Notre Dame’s Vagina Warriors have nothing to do with any pro-choice groups, for they are sponsored by University departments and the money they raise goes to SOS and YWCA in their ministries to victims of rape and domestic abuse. Junior Jackie Clark sees the binding of V-Day and abortion issues as a major problem. For her, “The goal of the Monologues is to promote awareness. It’s a shame they are associated inappropriately”.

The recurrent attacks on V-Day seem to be rooted in general misconceptions of feminism. The struggle for equality and dignity for women in public and private relationships continues. Redfield believes the boundaries between orthodox Catholicism and feminism wrongly hinder finding shared values. She holds that, “At the heart, feminism and Catholicism both share the common goal of fostering peace and promoting the recognition of dignity of women and men.” Women in the movement assert their dignity through celebrating their gendered identity, releasing frustration over shared oppression and inviting men and other women to know their joys and pains.

Now, can you say it?

The Vagina Monologues are here to educate, liberate and agitate us all to be more proactive actors in the fight to end violence against women and girls. As sophomore Casey Stanton wrote in poetic verse, “we are all responsible, we all must take up the fight, it’s time to defend, a Female’s Right to Life.” See the show and engage the issues until the violence stops.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.