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Eve Ensler Of 'The Vagina Monologues' On Taking Back Your Power

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“I was worried about vaginas.”

More than twenty years ago in her groundbreaking play The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler stood on stage to talk about something considered fiercely taboo. “I was worried about what we think about vaginas, and even more worried that we don't think about them,” says the actress, playwright and activist. “There is so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them, like the Bermuda Triangle.” Ensler's play was based on hundreds of interviews she conducted with women about sexuality and stigmas surrounding rape, abuse, female genital mutilation and sex slavery.

Joan Marcus

The play had a seismic effect, encouraging women to openly talk about their bodies and sexuality. The Vagina Monologues won Obie and Tony Awards. Witnessing the show’s impact, on Valentine’s Day in 1998, Ensler along with a group of activists created V-Day to help end violence against females. They provided a mechanism for local activists to stage benefit productions of the play on college campuses and in communities across the world. Through the productions, they raised funds for local groups including rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters.

As a result, The Vagina Monologues has been performed in tens of thousands of benefit productions in 48 languages in 200 countries. Everyone from Cheryl Strayed to Jane Fonda to Annie Lennox to The Belgian Minister for Cultural Affairs has performed in productions. V-Day campaigns have transformed communities, changed laws to protect girls and women, and raised more than $100 million for groups working tirelessly to end violence and assist survivors. What’s more, V-Day has helped fund over 13,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in many countries including Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and Afghanistan.

“I am so moved by the 20th Anniversary, especially to see the manifestations of women rising and standing up,” said Ensler who is currently performing in her one-woman show, In the Body of the World at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Based on her memoir, she dissects her life-threatening cancer diagnosis against the backdrop of working with women from the Democratic Republic of Congo who suffered through the horrors of war. “V-Day is based on grassroots activists who have been doing this work for 20 years,” says Ensler. “It is great to see this next wave of female resistance happening here and around the globe.”

Also, doing her play particularly now is especially thrilling. “Theater is magic because people can go on a journey, become one in an audience and experience that sense of oneness,” she explains.

Jeryl Brunner: What inspired you to tell your story in your play In the Body of the World?

Eve Ensler: Writing is always how I come to understand things. I had been through this grueling, transformative mind and body blowing experience. It was all happening on some very unconscious level. When I wrote the memoir I brought it up to a kind of conscious level so I could really integrate and understand it. But I also felt like so much of what I was going through was connected to the world. I was learning so much that I wanted to share.

Diane Paulus, {In The Body of the World’s director}, read the memoir and said, “would you ever consider doing this as a play?” Buried in me I thought of that. Yet, the idea of it was just, whoa. However, when you listen to someone tell their story, don't you feel so honored? You also don’t feel so alone. So many people have come up to me afterwards to say, “This is my story.” Now more than ever we need connection and to know that we are part of each other and the world.

Brunner: Reflecting when you first started your career, what do you wish you could tell your younger self?

Ensler: When I was younger I was very naïve and idealistic in some ways, which I still am to some degree. I don’t believe I knew how persistent and stubborn patriarchy really is. I thought it would be dismantled much sooner than this. Everyone has to be prepared for a long struggle. You have to pace yourself. I was just so driven, I didn’t take care of my body.

All that is going on right now is so amazing. Yet what people have to understand is that until the culture changes, until the mindset and dominator mentally changes in men and women, we will be policing patriarchy forever. But what we have to do is dismantle it.

Brunner: It’s so deep-rooted. How do we do that?

Eve Ensler: We have to create platforms, workshops and venues where men can do real self-exploration. What does it mean to carry a male dominator mode in yourself? And the same with women. A lot of women are caught in that system. We have all been brought up in a patriarchal and capitalist society. We all carry the germs of that in us. It is a virus and we have to take time to really explore and excavate that.

Breaking the silence is critical. But we have to go the next step which is: how do we create dialogue? How do we create nuanced conversations that are going to bring out the best in people and not just punish people? We have to look at transformation over punishment. Punishment leads to more incarcerations and more brutality. I would like to see us move to a level where people start talking about why they think they do what they do. What is at the core of that behavior? And how do we get underneath things so that we can really purge them?

Brunner: You have said that when we give what we want the most we heal our most broken part inside. Can you talk about why that is so?

Ensler: The thing that kept me going and got me out of self-hatred and pity was when I gave back the most. I thought, where can I serve and look out for the people who don’t have the privilege I have? Sometimes when you feel that no one is taking care of you, the best thing to do is care for somebody else. That gets you out of your own mishegoss.

When I was so sick and lying there believing every day that I could easily die, I was in the process of working in collaboration with my sisters in Congo opening the City of Joy. It was the desire to see City of Joy open that really saved my life. I thought, I can’t die. I made a promise. I have to be there to see this through. Even if I die the day after. I would think of women in Congo and their suffering. I wrote a piece during my cancer. I had the privilege of medicine, insurance, amazing doctors. How many of my sisters in Congo don’t even mention the word cancer? They get it and then they’re done.

Also, gratitude is critical. Be grateful if you have someone loving and taking care of you. If you don’t have that, give it to someone else. Because when you do, you will fill that part of yourself and heal.

Joan Marcus

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