V-Day 2004: Celebrating Vagina Warriors

“Being a Vagina Warrior “means developing the spiritual muscle to enter and
survive the grief that violence brings and, in that dangerous space of
stunned unknowing, inviting the deeper wisdom.” - Eve Ensler

Over the years since V-Day launched at the very first event in 1998, we
have encountered incredible women working to end violence against women and
girls in their communities. These women have often experienced violence
either personally or witnessed it within their communities and dedicated
themselves toward ending such violence through effective, grassroots means.
These women have been the very heart of V-Day since it was conceived as a
worldwide movement to empower and enable local activists to raise awareness
and funds locally through V-Day benefit productions of "The Vagina
Monologues."

This year, V-Day’s 2004 campaign will honor such women around the world
whom Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler has named “Vagina Warriors.” Each
V-Day production will select and honor up to three Vagina Warriors in their
own community.

Examples of a Vagina Warrior:
*Agnes Pareyio was circumcised as a young girl; she has dedicated her life
to eradicating female genital mutilation in the Massai community in Narok, Kenya.
*Marsha Lopez was abused by her husband as a teenager; she left her husband
and launched V-Day in Guatemala to end violence in her community.
*Suzanne Blue Star Boy experienced the murder of her cousin on a
reservation. She is now spending her life working to stop violence in Indian Country.
*Catherine Fannin was physically and sexually abused by her biological
father. Through her efforts as the organizer for the V-Day College Campaign
at Hanover College in Indiana for many years, she has educated, helped and
inspired many women and men to end violence in their own lives and the lives of others.

At the conclusion of the V-Day 2004 season, a page on vday.org will honor
the Vagina Warriors that were celebrated around the world

“Vagina Warriors: An Emerging Paradigm, An Emerging Species” by Eve Ensler

I have sat with women in crowded factories in Juarez, in crumbling shelters
in the back streets of Cairo, in makeshift centers for teenage girls and
women in Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Pine Ridge and Watts, in mansions in
Hollywood, in burnt-out backyards in Kosova and Kabul, in a moving van
after midnight with sex trafficked girls in Paris. Sometimes these meetings
went on for hours; in the case of the 17-year-old Bulgarian sex slave, we
had 35 minutes before her pimp came looking for her. I have heard the
staggering stories of violence - war rapes, gang rapes, date rapes,
licensed rapes, family rapes. I have seen first-hand the scars of brutality
- black eyes, cigarette-hole burns in arms and legs, a melted face,
bruises, slices and broken bones. I have witnessed women living without
what is fundamental - sky, sun, a roof, food, parents, a clitoris, freedom.
I have been there when skulls washed up on riverbanks and naked mutilated
female bodies were discovered in ditches. I have seen the worst. The worst
lives in my body. But in each and every case I was escorted, transformed,
and transported by a guide, a visionary, an activist, an outrageous fighter
and dreamer. I have come to know these women (and sometimes men) as Vagina
Warriors.

It was Zoya who first took me to the muddy Afghan camps in Pakistan; Rada
who translated the stories of women refugees as we traveled through
war-torn Bosnia; Megan who led pro-vagina cheers on a freezing cold campus
in Michigan; Igo who made jokes about land mines as we sped in her jeep
through the post-war roads outside Pristina, Kosova; Esther who took me to
the graves marked with pink crosses in Juarez, Mexico; Agnes who walked me
up the path with dancing and singing Masai girls dressed in red,
celebrating the opening of the first V-Day Safe House for girls fleeing
female genital mutilation (FGM).

At first I thought this was just a rare group of individuals, specific
women who had been violated or witnessed so much suffering they had no
choice but to act. But after five years of traveling, forty countries later
a pattern has emerged, an evolving species. Vagina Warriors are everywhere.
In a time of escalating and explosive violence on the planet, these
Warriors are fostering a new paradigm.

Although Vagina Warriors are highly original, they possess some general
defining characteristics:
They are fierce, obsessed, can’t be stopped, driven.
They are no longer beholden to social customs or inhibited by taboos. They
are not afraid to be alone, not afraid to be ridiculed or attacked. They
are often willing to face anything for the safety and freedom of others.
They love to dance.
They are directed by vision, not ruled by ideology.
They are citizens of the world. They cherish humanity over nationhood.
They have a wicked sense of humor. A Palestinian activist told jokes to an
Israeli soldier who pointed a machine gun at her as she tried to pass the
checkpoints. She literally disarmed him with her humor.

Vagina Warriors know that compassion is the deepest form of memory.

They know that punishment does not make abusive people behave better. They
know that it is more important to provide a space where the best can emerge
rather than “teaching people a lesson.” I met an extraordinary activist in
San Francisco, a former prostitute who had been abused as a child. Working
with the correctional system, she devised a therapeutic workshop where
convicted pimps and johns could confront their loneliness, insecurity and
sorrow.

Vagina Warriors are done being victims. They know no one is coming to
rescue them. They would not want to be rescued.
They have experienced their rage, depression, desire for revenge and they
have transformed them through grieving and service. They have confronted
the depth of their darkness. They live in their bodies.
They are community makers. They bring everyone in.

Vagina Warriors have a keen ability to live with ambiguity. They can hold
two existing, opposite thoughts at the same time. I first recognized this
quality during the Bosnian war. I was interviewing a Muslim woman activist
in a refugee camp whose husband had been decapitated by a Serb. I asked her
if she hated Serbs. She looked at me as if I were crazy. “No, no, I do not
hate Serbs,” she said, “If I were to hate Serbs, then the Serbs would have
won.”

Vagina Warriors know that the process of healing from violence is long and
happens in stages. They give what they need the most, and by giving this
they heal and activate the wounded part inside.

Many Vagina Warriors work primarily on a grassroots level. Because what is
done to women is often done in isolation and remains unreported, Vagina
Warriors work to make the invisible seen. Mary in Chicago fights for the
rights of Women of Color so that they are not disregarded or abused; Nighat
risked stoning and public shaming in Pakistan by producing “The Vagina
Monologues” in Islamabad so that the stories and passions of women would
not go unheard; Esther insists that the hundreds of disappeared girls in
Juarez are honored and not forgotten.

For native people, a warrior is one whose basic responsibility is to
protect and preserve life. The struggle to end violence on this planet is a
battle. Emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical. It requires every bit
of our strength, our courage, our fierceness. It means speaking out when
everyone says to be quiet. It means going the distance to hold perpetrators
accountable for their actions. It means honoring the truth even if it means
losing family, country, and friends. It means developing the spiritual
muscle to enter and survive the grief that violence brings and, in that
dangerous space of stunned unknowing, inviting the deeper wisdom.

Like Vaginas, Warriors are central to human existence, but they still
remain largely unvalued and unseen. This year V-Day celebrates Vagina
Warriors around the world, and by doing so we acknowledge these women and
men and their work. In every community there are humble activists working
every day, beat by beat to undo suffering. They sit by hospital beds, pass
new laws, chant taboo words, write boring proposals, beg for money,
demonstrate and hold vigils in the streets. They are our mothers, our
daughters, our sisters, our aunts, our grandmothers, and our best friends.
Every woman has a warrior inside waiting to be born. In order to guarantee
a world without violence, in a time of danger and escalating madness, we
urge them to come out.

CELEBRATE VAGINA WARRIORS. LET THEM BE HONORED AND SEEN. LET MORE BE BORN.

- Eve Ensler, Founder/Artistic Director, V-Day; playwright, “The Vagina
Monologues”