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I said in my post Practicing Presence at V-Day that “I saw .. Eve Ensler weeping in the hallway, carrying a burden …” If you saw what she’s seen, heard what she’s heard, and have been where she's been, then you would know why this is so, that she walks sometimes and weeps.
Last night I attended the culminating event of V-Day, the performance of V TO THE TENTH: THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, featuring a star-studded cast, even the wondrous Jane Fonda, who I’d seen close up the day before at V-Day: Superdome/Superlove. (Fonda pictured). Oprah Winfrey was supposed to perform as well, but did not. Ensler announced that Oprah had taken ill and not arrived. Perhaps that’s why Gayle King shot up from her seat during the finale of Swimming Upstream: The Katrina Monologues the night before, which was April 11, and rushed past me in her yellow dress with the plunging neckline.
Back to what’s really important
V TO THE TENTH was the 10th anniversary benefit performance of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, produced to raise money to help end violence against women around the world. In between monologue performances by Fonda, Doris Roberts, Jennifer Beals, Shirley Knight, Christine Lahti, Liz Mikel, Ali Larter, Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, and others, the big screens high above us in the New Orleans Arena showed videos from around the world that told us about violence against women in the world. The images astounded, humbled and horrified us.
Do you understand that in some places in the world violence against women is systemic?
The day before at the Superdome I met three women activists, who are pictured here left to right: Rada Boric of the former Yugoslavia (Croatia), Danijela Dugandzic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is Co-Founder and Manageress at Foundation CURE, and Sandra Ljubinkovice of Serbia. They have been working with V-Day and with performances of The Vagina Monologue and say they are creating a vagina triangle of power in their part of the world.
Boric was among the international activists who joined Eve Ensler on stage at the end of the show. I heard her speak at the Superdome on Friday where she said that the former Yugoslavia is a nation of male dominance and fascism and women routinely are the victims of war crimes such as rape.
Dugandzic, at center of the photo, said she wears the T-shirt that says "This is what a feminist looks like" to help dispel stereotypes. She said others in her country wore the shirts and showed that feminists come in all shapes, sizes, and looks. You know we have stereotypes here in America also of what feminists look like. Despite Gloria Steinem being so vocal and visible, people still don’t think of feminists as willowy, attractive women who easily attract male attention should they wish to do so.
During THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES performance, Rosario Dawson performed a monologue with Kristina Krepela of Zagreb about violence in the region of the world from which my three woman activist friends come.
The piece, “My Vagina was My Village,” tells the story of a young girl who says:
My Vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing boyfriend
resting sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blond straw. (from The Vagina Monologues)
Soldiers came and tortured her and no longer could she touch herself:
Not since the soldiers the soldiers put a long thick rifle inside me.
So cold the steel rod cancelling my heart. Don’t know whether they’re
going to fire it or shove it through my spinning brain. Six of them,
monstrous doctors with black masks shoving bottles up me too. There
were sticks and the end of a broom. (from The Vagina Monologues)
The New Orleans Metaphor and Violence Against Women in the Congo
Saturday, bathed in the bright morning sun, Eve Ensler led a parade, an entertainment staple and cleansing ritual in New Orleans, from Congo Square in that city back to the Superdome/Superlove. I
