Yesterday may have been Valentines day (is it just me – or did everyone seem to go completely mad this year?), but February the 14th also marked a different kind of V day, founded by by activist and Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler. It’s fifteen years since she used Valentines day to to raise awareness of the violence faced by women around the world and to mark the anniversary, she asked women to dance in solidarity with the one billion women estimated to be abuse survivors.
One Billion Rising events were staged around the world and included marches in Afghanistan, human chains in Bangladesh and a flash mob/dance in Parliament Square, where campaigners released 109 balloons in memory of the suspected murders of 109 women killed by men last year in the UK.
Eve Ensler is currently writing a new book In the Body of the World, a unflinching account of her battle with cancer and how she connects it to the suffering she sees around the world and the pain she has personally encountered in the past. Ensler’s books and plays are both harrowing and inspiring and this one sounds like a must read.
Thank you for sharing this. It was hard and important to watch. While we debate the perfect shoe or perfume, other women are fighting for their lives or a shred of dignity.