Ensler kicked off her two-day campus visit as the Center for Women and Gender's 2008 Visionary in Residence on Monday. The playwright-performer-activist, who authored the highly acclaimed Vagina Monologues, gave a public address last night.
Ensler's message to the relatively small crowd, comprised of mostly women, served both to spread awareness about V-Day and to promote "V to the Tenth," the 2008 celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the movement's progress toward ending worldwide rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery.
Ensler said that 15 years ago, she struggled to first utter the word "vagina" in public. Now, "the most radical word [she's] ever said" has become the catalyst for a global campaign that has raised over $50 million. Her play, the Vagina Monologues, based on interviews with women around the world, has been produced 3,700 times in 1,500 different locations.
Ensler recounted stories of her travels in locations ranging from Islamabad to the bush of the Democratic Republic of Congo. She stressed the importance of ending violence wherever it may occur.
"If we allow violence to happen anywhere, it can happen everywhere," Ensler said.
Ensler pointed to places where violence had been reduced, but emphasized that "the world is still profoundly unsafe for women."
Statistics accentuated her assertion: according to data released by the United Nations, one out of every three women will be abused or beaten in their lifetime, Ensler reported.
A crucial step toward ending violence against women, Ensler said, was labeling it. She proposed the term "femicide" to describe the pattern of systemically harming women world-wide.
Over the past 10 years, the mission of V-Day has been to respond to emergency situations and help heal past victims, Ensler said. In the next 10 years she hopes to get to the root of violence against women, focusing more attention on boys and men, racism and economic justice.
Shifting gears slightly, Ensler refocused on the "V to the Tenth" movement, in particular Superlove, a two-day event of art and activism scheduled to be held in the New Orleans Superdome in April. The event will feature performances and appearances by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Glenn Close, Ellen Degeneres and Jessica Alba.
Each year, V-Day honors and benefits a different group of victimized women. This year the event will honor the "Katrina Warriors," women of New Orleans and the Gulf South.
Ensler concluded by reciting two of her works, "Welcome to the Wetlands," a piece relating New Orleans to the vagina, and "Diving," a passage from her book "Insecure at Last," reflecting her personal abuse and struggle to live for herself, uninhibited by the opinions of others.
When Ensler opened the floor to the audience, she received questions on topics that included female resistance to the V-Day movement, pornography and genital cutting.
The intimacy of the group allowed for intense discussion.
"I was surprised more people weren't here. Only because we've been on this tour where it's just been wild," Ensler told the Dartmouth. "But I loved the people who were there. It just felt like a very deep conversation."
Aviva Lillian '10 said she valued the opportunity to meet a woman whom she considers visionary.
"I think that [Ensler] is the starting point for a big revolution that's going to happen," she said. "It's the responsibility of everyone that processes her message to start making this shift in the way the world sees violence against women.
