Topic: Eve Ensler

V-Day events set to climax in New Orleans

By Debbie Boen | March 10, 2008 |

VDay events for 2008 will culminate this year in New Orleans.  Eve Ensler calls New Orleans the Vagina of America and she has chosen the New Orleans Arena to host the V-day event of the decade. V to the Tenth will be in New Orleans on April 11 and 12th, 2008. In one of her Vagina Monologues Ensler says about the fertile New Orleans: We brag about her music, the way she moves, we beg to get inside her, but disown her later when she has needs… We (can) change her story and the story of women.

This New Orleans celebration of two performances of the award winning Vagina Monologues will feature Salma Hayek, Oprah Winfrey, Faith Hill, Jane Fonda, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Hudson, Glenn Close, Julia Stiles, Ali Larter, Sally Field, Marisa Tomei, Calpernia Addams, Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, and musicians Common, Eve, and Charmaine Neville. See details and get tickets at: http://v10.vday.org/

Ensler has a big picture for vaginas. V-Day is a vision to see a world where women live safely and freely. The monologues speak openly about vagina stories that were collected from women. Ending violence against women is the driving force behind the production. Women don’t talk about their own sexuality; they don’t talk about what pleases them, and when raped, they don’t talk about that either. Most of the time, they think it was their fault that they were attacked and they walk around with the hidden fear and shame of it. «Read the rest of this article»

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APSU to host Ensler’s Vagina Monologues

By Debbie Boen | February 21, 2008 |

The Vagina Monologues will be presented at APSU Clement Auditorium on Feb. 26-27 at 7 p.m. Admission is $5.00.

One in three women are raped, mutilated and/or assaulted, says Eve Ensler, creator of The Vagina Monologues. If that’s the case, why don’t we hear about it all the time, everyday, every hour? Because women have a tendency to think that it’s their fault.

Dr. Jill Eichhorn, Coordinator of APSU’s Women’s Studies Program, teaches The Vagina Monologues class, a class whose students participate in The Vagina Monologues production. This is the 7th year The Vagina Monologues has been presented at Austin Peay State University. Eichhorn hopes to help women claim control over their lives, their bodies and their voices. She wants women to release the shame that comes from sexual abuse, including the abuse that women and girls experience daily when they see women objectified on the media.

Dr. Eichhorn (left) with Eve Ensler at Vanderbilt University

Women think that the horrible feeling they have after being assaulted somehow belongs to them. Being invaded or touched inappropriately invalidates them incredibly. It makes them feel as if their own body is disgusting, that their body has betrayed them; they hate it for that. They think that they have become the nasty, fear-based, controlling, invasive feeling that they are left with. It makes them feel so low down that they cannot speak up. «Read the rest of this article»

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APSU hosts ‘V-Day: Until the Violence Stops’

By Debbie Boen | February 1, 2008 |

The V Monologues are coming. The Vagina Monologues. Vagina. Vagina. The first time I saw the play I kept worrying that someone would see how freaked out I was. I sat stiff as a board in my chair, laughing, but uncomfortably.

The next time I saw the monologues I was at least over the shock of it. I’ve seen them probably seven times, right here in Clarksville. Usually I either love certain monologues or hate them. I figured out that seeing the monologues pushes every button my mother ever had. I’m in my 50’s and my mother never, ever said the V word, or the S word for that matter. I think she would die if she was made to watch the monologues and so too, almost did I. That’s why they are so damned important. «Read the rest of this article»

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