Re: Snyder's Idea of Hell
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- Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 03:06:41 GMT
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A femi-narcissist conclave. Note that for all the talk about a global------------------------------------------------------------------------------
movement
to end violence against women, not a word about ending violence against
men.
By the way, V-Day stands for Vagina Day.
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
Stopping Violence Against Women: Eve Ensler and Kimberle Crenshaw on
V-Day,
Women in Prisons and Breaking the Silence
We spend the hour looking at the movement to end violence against women--
across
the globe. We spend the hour with playwright and activist Eve Ensler
and
prisoner rights activist Kimberle Crenshaw. Ensler is creator of "The
Vagina
Monologues" - the off-Broadway show that has grown into an
international
movement to end violence against women and girls. She helped kickoff a
two-week
festival last Monday in New York City called "Until the Violence Stops:
NYC."
Events include theater performances, spoken word pieces, art shows and
international panels - all created to bring the issue of violence
against
women
front and center both nationally and internationally. Crenshaw is a
professor of
law at UCLA and Columbia Law School. She specializes in the areas of
civil
rights, Black feminist legal theory and racism. We also play clips of
Rose
Perez
performing "The Vagina Monologues," Glenn Close reading the words of
prisoner
Cynthia Berry, Hazelle Goodman reading the words of Kathy Boudin and
Selma
Hayek
speaking about her own experience with physical and mental abuse.
[includes rush
transcript]
Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright and creator of "The Vagina
Monologues"
which has been translated into over 45 languages and is running in
theaters all
over the world. She is the driving force behind V-Day. Her other plays
include
"Necessary Targets", set in a Bosnian refugee camp and "Extraordinary
Measures."
Eve has just completed a tour of her newest play "The Good Body." "The
Good
Body" addresses why women of all cultures and backgrounds feel
compelled
to
change the way they look in order to fit into society.
Kimberle Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and at Columbia Law School.
She
specializes in the areas of civil rights, Black feminist legal theory,
racism
and the law. She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race
Theory
Workshop, and the co-editor of a volume, Critical Race Theory: Key
Documents
That Shaped the Movement. Kimberle is the Ira Glasser Racial Justice
Fellow at
the ACLU.
Rosie Perez, in a production of the play "The Vagina Monologues" in
Harlem
from
the documentary, "Until the Violence Stops."
Glenn Close, reading the words of Cynthia Berry from the documentary
"What
I
Want My Words to Do to You."
Hazelle Goodman, reading the words of prisoner Kathy Boudin from the
documentary
"What I Want My Words to Do to You."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us
provide
closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast.
Thank
you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour looking at the movement to end
violence
against women across the globe.
ROSIE PEREZ: But seriously, I want to go on a personal note. We did
fight
hard,
because it meant so much to me. When I first met Eve in 1996 -- '95? --
I
was
doing The Vagina Monologues since then. And it wasn't until 2001 at
V-Day,
Madison Square Garden, I finally stood up and admitted that I was
abused.
And I
just want to tell everybody here however long it takes for you to tell
your
story, take your time. Take your time, take your breath, take your
moment.
It's
your story, nobody else's, until you're ready to release it. Then it
becomes the
world's. And I hope all the women's spirits come into our hearts and
into
our
bodies and come up through our stomach, the pit of our stomach, pit of
our
vaginas, and touch every woman as much as the Monologues have touched
me
in my
life.
Tonight, we begin to heal all the women of Harlem, as well as all the
women of
the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Actress Rosie Perez in a production of the play, The
Vagina
Monologues, in Harlem. The clip is from the documentary, Until the
Violence
Stops, which chronicles how The Vagina Monologues has grown from an
off-Broadway
show into an international movement to end violence against women and
girls.
This is Eve Ensler, the creator of The Vagina Monologues, from the same
documentary.
EVE ENSLER: When I first started performing The Vagina Monologues, I
did
it in
these small, little venues all around the world. And after every
performance,
women would literally line up to talk to me. And what they were talking
about
was the fact, usually, that they had been raped or battered or
incested,
and
they really needed to tell someone. It began to be a very daunting
experience.
So in 1997, we got a group of women together in New York, and I said,
"How
could
we use The Vagina Monologues to stop violence against women and to
serve
this?"
And we came up with the idea of V-Day, which is Vagina Day, Valentine's
Day,
Anti-Violence Day, Victory Over Violence Day.
We invited all these great women to come and perform The Vagina
Monologues
to
raise money, and we did this incredible first V-Day, which really blew
the
roof
off the theater. You could feel it was more than a play that night. You
could
feel that something genuinely different had happened in the alchemy of
things,
that there was something being born or trying to be born.
AMY GOODMAN: Eve Ensler, creator of The Vagina Monologues and the
engine
behind
V-Day, the global movement to stop violence against women and girls.
She
helped
kick off a two-week festival here in New York called "Until the
Violence
Stops:
NYC." Events have included theater performances, spoken word pieces,
art
shows,
international panels, all created to bring the issue of violence
against
women
front and center, both nationally and internationally. Tonight, there
will
be a
major performance of Any One of Us: Words from Prison at Alice Tully
Hall
in New
York.
Eve Ensler joins us now in our Firehouse studio, the award-winning
playwright of
The Vagina Monologues, which has been translated into over 45
languages.
Eve's
other plays include Necessary Targets, which is set in a Bosnian
refugee
camp,
and Extraordinary Measures. She has just completed a tour of her newest
play,
The Good Body. It addresses why women of all cultures and backgrounds
feel
compelled to change the way they look in order to fit into society.
We're also joined by Professor Kimberle Crenshaw. She is Professor of
Law
at
UCLA and Columbia Law School. She specializes in the areas of civil
rights,
Black feminist legal theory, racism in the law; founding coordinator of
the
Critical Race Theory Workshop, and is co-editor of the book, Critical
Race
Theory: Key Documents that Shaped the Movement. Kimberle Crenshaw is
Executive
Director of African American Policy Forum and an Ira Glasser Racial
Justice
Fellow at the ACLU.
And we welcome you both to spend the hour here on Democracy Now! Well,
let's
talk about what is happening here in New York City, but which you are
hoping to
replicate around the country and the world. Talk about the whole V-Day
movement,
Eve.
EVE ENSLER: Well, V-Day began essentially almost nine years ago. When I
started
doing The Vagina Monologues, at the beginning, I kind of was brought to
very
arbitrary places; just brave people would bring me to their
communities. I
performed in these kind of warehouses with light bulbs over my head.
And
what
would happen, invariably, after those performances is, women would line
up
to
talk to me.
And at the beginning, I thought, "Oh, great, they'll be telling me
about
their
wonderful sex lives." And, in fact, what 95% of the women were lining
up
to tell
me was some story of how they had suffered abuse, whether they'd been
raped or
gang-raped or incested or beaten, and they had never told anyone
before.
The
play had kind of opened that up and just kind of released memories and
thoughts.
And after about five cities, I started to think, "I can't do this. I
can't --" I
felt the way a war photographer feels when you're witnessing something
terrible
and doesn't intervene on a person's behalf. So, in '97, I got a whole
group of
activist friends together in New York, and I said, "I have this play.
You
know,
what could we do? How could we use this play?"
AMY GOODMAN: And what was the play based on? Where did you get your
material?
EVE ENSLER: Well, The Vagina Monologues was based on -- I did probably
about 200
interviews with women, and then I would kind of sleep on them and let
them
simmer in me, and then I would write literary pieces that were based on
little
pieces or threads of the interviews I had heard, but I had been
interviewing so
many women, and there would be themes that would connect or ideas that
would
repeat themselves, which would give me an idea for a particular
monologue.
And
when I started to perform those monologues, suddenly women were hearing
their
own stories, and I think that was bringing up memories or times or
thoughts or
feelings they had never shared with anybody.
So when we created the idea of V-Day, we suddenly thought, "We have
this
play.
We have this thing that's obviously churning some kind of political
feeling in
people. What if we did this play and tried to raise money and raise
consciousness around ending violence?" And we thought we would do one
performance in New York City and raise money for local grassroots
groups,
and
that would be it. But we did this performance eight years ago in the
Hammerstein
Ballroom, and 2,500 people showed up, and all these amazing actors,
from
Whoopi
Goldberg to Susan Sarandon to Rosie Perez to Lily Tomlin to Glenn
Close,
and it
really did blow the lid off the theater. And we knew that night that
something
major had been born. You could just feel it. It was just this energy,
this
kind
of movement, this catalyst.
And it has spread, crazily and mysteriously to some degree. I mean,
obviously
there's a political engine that's going through it and a need and an
urgency,
but there's also something else that's at work here I don't fully
understand.
But in eight years, it has spread to 88 countries, which means that
every
year
at a certain time, people in all these countries and cities and
villages
and
towns do productions of The Vagina Monologues to raise money for
grassroots
groups that work to end violence against women.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to be back talking about this movement in a
minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We continue to look at the issue of violence against
women. I
want
to turn to an excerpt from the documentary, What I Want My Words to Do
to
You.
This is actor Glenn Close.
GLENN CLOSE: For every day I think I killed a 71-year-old man, a man
who
couldn't have harmed me, a man I didn't want to harm, a man who, in one
minute,
saw and received all my anger and lost what was not mine to take: his
life. Mom,
the truth is, I'm guilty of my refusal to face myself, to not grow out
of
the
walls of my pain, and all the choices I made. The truth is, I killed
him.
And
for the rest of my life, that truth will haunt me. I will never believe
there is
an explanation or reason for what I've done, until my last breath
leaves
my
body -- like my victims did.
AMY GOODMAN: Actor Glenn Close, reading the words of Cynthia Berry, a
prisoner
at the Bedford Hills correctional facility. Glenn Close was performing
at
the
prison. The clip is from the documentary, What I Want My Words to Do to
You,
which goes inside a writing workshop at Bedford Hills that is led by
our
guest
today, Eve Ensler. The workshop is made up of 15 women, most of whom
were
convicted of murder. This is another clip from the documentary.
Prisoner
Betsy
Ramos reading her own work.
BETSY RAMOS: What I want my words to do to you. I want my words to
touch
you in
ways you never knew existed, for one minute, to put yourself in my
shoes,
to see
me as a human being who truly made an error in judgment, who thought
with
her
heart instead of her head and is now paying with her life. See me as
the
daughter who yearns to be with her mother, the woman who dreams of
having
a
child grow in her womb. I wish with my words to give you glimpses of
the
life
I've lived, of the life I am living, so that you will know me, and
therefore, be
able to judge me on the merit of who I truly am.
AMY GOODMAN: Betsy Ramos, in her own words. Next in the documentary is
actress
Hazelle Goodman reading the work of prisoner, Pamela Smart. We will go
to
that
in a minute. But before we do, Eve Ensler, talk about this workshop at
the
prison, Bedford Hills.
EVE ENSLER: Well, I went to prison about -- I went to Bedford Hills
about
eight
years ago. I went there initially because Glenn Close had invited me to
do
a
movie about an extraordinary woman named Sister Elaine Roulet. I don't
know if
you know who she is, but she was really one of the first pioneers who
believed
that women should be with their children in prison, and she created
programs
that allowed women who were incarcerated to have their babies with them
and to
have relationships with their children in prison.
And when I went to interview the women, I became completely -- I just
became
obsessed. I couldn't believe these women. I couldn't believe how smart
they were
and how hungry they were for a way to process what they had done and
what
had
been done to them. And so, we started a writing group, which I thought,
again,
would go on for a few months and has literally lasted eight years. And
during
the process of that group, what I very quickly discovered is that most
of
the
women in the group had at some point in their life been radically
abused -- not
a little abused, radically abused -- and that violence had had a
complete,
direct impact on the violence they eventually caused or perpetrated.
And in the course of the writing, what began to happen was this process
where
women were able to begin to articulate their guilt and thinking and
just
all the
complicated stuff that was around their crimes, but also, the history
of
that,
the story of that, like when that crime really began, how far back it
went
in
their own history, in their own family, in their own community, in
their
own
story, and in the course of it, we decided we would do a performance,
so I
asked
all these actors to come and perform their work for the women in
prison.
And there was a wonderful superintendent there who was very progressive
thinking, and I said, "Why don't we do a performance for the whole
prison?" And
I remember they had never turned the lights out in the prison before,
and
I
said, "You cannot do theater without turning out the lights," and we
actually
got her to agree to turn out the lights in a maximum security prison
for
800
prisoners, and they did this performance, these great actors, and it
was
amazing. And a woman came and saw it and said, "We need to film this
process,"
which led to the filming of the group and the documenting of it.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, this is actor Hazelle Goodman reading the work of
prisoner,
Pamela Smart.
HAZELLE GOODMAN: I want my words to make the past go away. My past
hovers
over
me, fangs bared, skulking in and out of my vision. It lurks, waiting
for
openings to pounce like a jackal. I am its prey.
I want my words to make the past go away, the deaths unforeseen,
unwanted,
the
anguish left behind.
I want my words to make my past go away, so that I don't spend the
present
looking back over my shoulder, asking myself over and over again
questions
that
strike me over and over, like darts flying rapidly on a video game.
I want my words to make my past go away, to erase the moment when I
said,
"Yes,
I will go," instead of "No," to wipe out the sounds when guns began to
shoot, to
bring back those who died.
I want my words to make the past go away. I want my words to be a herd
of
horses
tramping over the past, so that it is buried under the parched autumn
leaves,
then buried deeper by the ice of winter, so that the past will be like
the
earth
made over each spring, raked and hoed, made ready for new planting.
AMY GOODMAN: Actor Hazelle Goodman reading the words of Bedford Hills
prisoner,
Pamela Smart, and this is all from the documentary, What I Want My
Words
to Do
to You. Eve Ensler has led the workshop at Bedford Hills for years.
We're
also
joined by Kimberle Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law
School,
Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellow at the ACLU. It's very good to have
you
with
us, Professor Crenshaw.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the connection between violence and
women
in
prison, something you've been doing a lot of work on?
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: Yes, well, you know, one of the things that's so
remarkable
about this event and what Eve is bringing to our attention is the
relationship
between violence and incarceration. I like to call this a tale of two
movements,
because, frankly, there's been an anti-violence movement that really
hasn't
dealt with the consequences of violence for women who are incarcerated
or
how
incarceration is often a precursor to violence, so that whole
relationship
hasn't been explored. There's also an anti-incarceration movement that
more or
less just focuses pretty much on men, how men wind up being
incarcerated,
some
of the consequences.
So this is an opportunity to actually look at women who fall between
the
cracks
of both movements, who are the women who are both victims of violence,
but
also
are victims of state violence, namely, because they have been subject
to
rape,
battery, incest, a whole range of other things that happen to women in
society,
are more likely to be incarcerated, right? And once they are
incarcerated,
they're subject to a whole range of consequences that are sometimes
particular
to women, so this is bringing attention to women, to issues that really
haven't
come up on the agenda of either the anti-violence movement or the
anti-incarceration movement, so it's a dramatic radicalization of both
of
these
movements.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about women who murder and their own backgrounds?
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: Yes, well, a lot of the statistics tell us a couple
things.
Women who are incarcerated for murdering men, 90% of those women have
been
victimized by those men in the past, so this is basically the last step
in
a
very long process leading up to the particular act that led those women
to
prison. But even more broadly than that, most women who are
incarcerated,
not
simply for homicide, but for any other kind of crime, have been subject
to
violence in the past.
You add to that that the majority of women who are incarcerated are,
number one,
primary caretakers for children; number two, most of them have had some
history
of not only violence, but drug abuse of some sort. What we're beginning
to
see
is a whole picture of all the ways that women are subject to a whole
range
of
violent factors in society, and this is the final step for them, or at
least the
step that leads them into prison.
Part of what Eve is doing in the writer's workshop is making sure that
that's
not the final step, that they can come to terms with the ways that
they've
been
subject to a whole range of things before they go to prison, but that
prison
isn't simply another violent movement for them, that they can come out
of
that
experience, recognizing how they've been situated, and also taking
responsibility for what has happened to them.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the racial dimension of who goes to prison?
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: The racial dimension is just incredible. First of
all,
we
have eight times as many women in prison today as we had in 1980. It is
the
fastest growing group of people who are incarcerated. You wouldn't know
this
just by listening to the anti-incarceration movement. So that's one of
the
things we really want to draw attention to. But then the rate of
increase
for
African American women, 888% increase in the rate of incarceration of
African
American women in the last 15 years. So it's a huge, huge thing. We
know
in the
anti-incarceration movement that there are racial effects, but we don't
know how
those racial effects distribute across gender. So part of what we're
trying to
do is bring women to that conversation, understand what are the
particular
ways
that women are caught up in the war on drugs.
AMY GOODMAN: The war on drugs and how women end up in prison. In New
York,
where
we're broadcasting from, there's the Rockefeller Drug Laws. It's what
brought me
to Bedford Hills, as well, to talk to women who had been imprisoned
for --
what? -- 25 to life, some of them plea-bargaining because they were
terrified
that this is the kind of sentence they'd end up with, though believing
at
that
time -- not knowing if they would get out or not, and often people who
were
innocent. Eve?
EVE ENSLER: Well, also I have two women in my group, one of whom just
got
out
who was there for 16 years under the Rockefeller. And I think one of
the
things
that we're really seeing and that really disturbs me is, I think we're
living in
a country now that has really come to accept these high, high amounts
of
time
for drug crimes. I mean, what do we have? 2.1 million prisoners now in
America,
the highest prison population in the world. It's a small country. We're
talking
about a small country is virtually in prison.
And people in this country have some idea -- it's again back to that
whole
kind
of black-and-white thinking, you know, that people are kind of born
murderers or
born killers. You know, there's a long journey, there's a descent that
brings
one to prison that's very connected to poverty and racism. We can
just --
and
sexism, and really about violence. And I think part of what we're
trying
to do
in this evening is to say, "No, no. We're all in this together. We're
all
connected to that process. It's any one of us. Any one of us."
And, you know, we were reading yesterday the script of the women, and
we
were
just, you know, pruning it, and I can't -- you can only publish a piece
of
each
woman's story. It's too painful. You can't tell the whole story. You
can't
tell
the multiple violence, the multiple abuses, whether it's, you know,
you're
raped
by your father while you're living in a house that has no water. You
know,
we
can just go on down. How many multiple layers of humiliations and
degradations
can you take before something snaps in you? And I think we are trying
to
look
and say, "Let's bring light to this." It's not accidental. Women don't
accidentally end up in prison, do you know?
AMY GOODMAN: One of the things I noticed when watching these sessions
at
Bedford
Hills that you have been facilitating is the horror of the women trying
to
live
with their own actions, and then as they go back and they peel off the
layers,
how to live with the original violence against them, and the mourning
over
what
they've done.
EVE ENSLER: It's excruciating. I always say, the bravest -- in terms of
reflection and being willing to face your kind of inner darkness, being
involved
in the process with women in my group has been the most incredible
process
I've
ever been involved in. I mean, the depth of honesty, the willingness to
face the
truth, and it's grueling. I mean, I've sat there -- I remember the
group
where
Cynthia Berry came to terms with stabbing her john 22 times and having
no
memory
of it after the first two times. And literally going -
AMY GOODMAN: She was a prostitute. Then she --
EVE ENSLER: She was a prostitute. She had been raped when she was
younger
by, I
think, every man in her life. She had been beaten; she had been abused;
she
had -- and finally, one day she was with a john who humiliated her and
insulted
her, and then she snapped. And her journey in prison, her willingness
to
encounter the darkness and her self-hatred and the -- I mean, just
witnessing
that has changed me forever.
That is not to say I celebrate people committing crimes or celebrate
people
perpetrating murder, but I do think that if you look at somebody's
journey
and
you look at humiliation upon humiliation upon humiliation and
degradation,
on
every level, whether it's racial or economic, what do we think people
are
going
to do eventually? Just sit there and take it and take it and take it,
until
they're diminished? You know, something's going to happen eventually.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, it goes to the resources also, Kimberly Crenshaw, in
society.
Women who have murdered, so often having murdered someone who abused
them,
how
often are they reaching out? How often are they turning to the police
or
reporting what's happened, and yet not been helped?
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: And for all of these women who eventually wind up
behind
bars, there's usually a very long record of them reaching out to the
authorities, either the police or social services and not being well
served. And
this is one of the things that contributes to who the women are who are
behind
bars, because while it's true that all women are particularly
vulnerable
to
gender violence, the reality is that some women have less access to
services and
resources and are more available to police for surveillance and,
ultimately,
incarceration.
So, for example, a majority of women who are homeless have had a
history
of
violence, and then being homeless makes you vulnerable to violence. It
also
makes you vulnerable to the police, so the police encounter you far
more
often
when you are violent and as a -- when you're a victim of violence, and
more
consequently of that, they end up being in jail.
More particularly, when women get out, the consequences, the collateral
consequences of having been incarcerated are profound. Women who've
been
incarcerated because of drug crimes, for example, can no longer get any
other
kind of public benefit. They can't get public housing. They can't get
education
grants. They can't get resources to raise their children. So we're
basically
marking them with, like, a permanent letter that says, "You can no
longer
contribute to society anymore."
These are issues that need to be talked about, and we need to
understand
the
consequences to them as women and also, quite frankly, because they are
women,
that's one of the reasons that they come under criminal surveillance
and
don't
have information to negotiate. I mean, a lot of these women who are
incarcerated
played very, very small roles in drug conspiracies. Sometimes the
kingpins
end
up negotiating down their sentences, and they go to prison for far less
time
than the women who were basically the mules or the women who didn't
pass
on a
phone call or something like that.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, how often the police make the deal that say if you
turn
over
someone, so the higher level person will turn over people that perhaps
were set
up and didn't even know what was happening.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: And the men will many times turn over the women, and
the
women will not turn over the men, either because they don't have any
information, or women just don't tend to do that, right?
EVE ENSLER: They're loyal. They're loyal, yeah. I also just want to
say,
in
terms of that, too, like, I always laugh about this term "correctional"
facility, you know? "Correctional." That does sound look a verb, like
we're
doing something to change, and my impression of correctional facilities
is
that
they're hardening facilities. You know, they're places that freeze
people
and
keep people exactly who they were or worse than when they came in.
And I think we all have to be looking at a prison system that is now
holding 2.1
million people. What do we want our prisons to be doing? Do we want
them
to be
offering programs and resources to people to transform their realities,
to
examine the realities, to reflect on their lives, to get education, so
that when
they come out, they can function and serve and have productive lives,
or
do we
want to punish people and hold them until we release them in exactly
the
same
state or much worse because of all the brutality and violence they've
incurred
in prison?
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Eve Ensler, award-winning author of the
play
The
Vagina Monologues, among others. Kimberly Crenshaw, Professor of Law at
both
UCLA and Columbia Law School. I don't know how you do it, both coasts.
But
we
will be back with them in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our discussion of violence against women,
this
is
actor Salma Hayek from the documentary, Until the Violence Stops.
SALMA HAYEK: Fear and guilt are the two strongest weapons to take away
your
power and your spirit, and I think this is why it's so important for me
to
do
this, because I come from that place and because I have come a long,
long
way,
of physical abuse, mental abuse, and spiritual abuse, which is the
worst
kind.
My short skirt, it's about discovering the power of my lower calves,
about
cool
autumn air traveling up my inner thighs, about allowing everything I
see
or pass
or feel to live inside. My short skirt is initiation, appreciation,
excitation.
But mainly, my short skirt and everything under it is mine. Mine! Mio!
ROSARIO DAWSON: What we need is to adopt a new standard for ourselves
that
we
choose, that we've given voice to, and I think it's really hard to find
that in
yourself sometimes, because you're not even taught how to do that.
YVETTE DAVILA: Culturally, we're just victimized. How do you get out of
that
cycle? How do you capture the power? You don't know you have it.
HAZELLE GOODMAN: The price you pay is such an extraordinary price. It
is
only
now, and we are in 2002, it is only now that women are finally taking
that
power, because for so long, because of the church and because of the
arranged
marriages in our societies, in our cultures, in our governments, we
couldn't
speak. So now we are beginning to.
AMY GOODMAN: A clip from a Harlem discussion. Eve Ensler, can you
describe
after
Salma Hayek spoke, what this discussion was about?
EVE ENSLER: When we did V-Day Harlem, there was a real desire to bring
a
lot of
different women from the community and actors and artists together to
talk
about
this issue. So, as we were doing the process of the show, there was a
real
attempt to really look at the issues it was uncovering, and Salma Hayek
and
Yvette Davila and Rosario Dawson and Susan Taylor were all there with a
whole
group of women, talking about violence. It was a really fantastic
discussion,
which we ended up filming.
And what was really wonderful -- I was actually in Harlem last night,
because
they're part of the festival, and they were doing a screening of a new
film
about children who suffer from violence, and the Manhattan Borough
President,
Scott Stringer, was there talking about violence and really making
domestic
violence a central part of his new office. And it was very moving to be
back in
Harlem. You know, we really have a V-Day presence in Harlem that has
been
building and building.
Kim was part of the first event. She did her famous -- well, what is
it?
It's
called "Respect." But we all call it "My Black Vagina," because -- its
subtitle,
which she actually did Monday night. And Kim and Salma and Rosario are
all
major
women in the V-Day effort and have been for quite some time. Salma
actually was
with us in Juarez when we did a huge event in Mexico City for the women
in
Juarez.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of women in Juarez, in Mexico, immigrants here in
this
country, Kimberle Crenshaw, can you talk about immigrants, women and
violence?
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: In fact, one of the -- what we're doing tonight is
we're
providing a whole range of narratives about women to try to put some of
these
statistics in a context. You know, all the frame, people tell us -- you
can tell
people all the statistics you want, but you have to put it in a story.
One of the stories is about immigrant women, and it focuses on the fact
that
immigrant women are among the most vulnerable to violence, in large
part
because
women who come here, particularly those who come here to marry American
citizens, have to stay properly married to them for two years before
they
can
petition for permanent residency status. Many of these women are
subject
to
violence. The last thing these women want to do is call the authorities
in,
because they're very concerned that they'll lose any opportunity
whatsoever to
make the United States their permanent home. So we found many women
were
severely abused, and some were even killed, because of the double
effect
of the
sort of anti-immigration laws and policies that really put people in a
position
of vulnerability and because of the violence that they experience at
home.
So I call this the intersection of oppression. You've got one thing,
you've got
another thing. And when movements aren't aware of how these things come
together, when the immigration movement doesn't really think about,
"Well,
some
of these people are women, and some of these people are subject to
violence,"
and the anti-violence movement doesn't think, "Well, some of the women
who
are
victimized by violence are also immigrants," the particular way that
they
end up
being caught between these two different forms of discrimination isn't
often
recognized. So they're more or less falling between the cracks.
One of the best things coming out of this is we can tell stories like
this
to
make people understand that there are some women who are falling
between
the
cracks, so that our interventions, our policies, the things we advocate
for
include all the women who are subject to these issues, not just the few
that we
can immediately think about.
EVE ENSLER: And in relationship to that, you know, people say all the
time, "Why
focus on violence against women?" I think the reason is that it's the
center of
everything. If you really look at what's happening to women's bodies
and
what's
happening to women who are the resource of life, you can't but look at
poverty,
AIDS, racism, immigration, empire-building. You know, even the
environment. All
these things come together that are really enacted on women's bodies.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about war. I want to talk about Iraq for a minute
and talk
about violence. One of the women you had coming -- and by the way, for
tonight's
events, one of the women who will be speaking is Kathy Boudin, who
earlier
when
we heard Hazelle Goodman, she was actually reading the words of Kathy
Boudin, is
that right?
EVE ENSLER: Yes, and her work will be read tonight. She's not actually
speaking
there.
AMY GOODMAN: Ah, she's not.
EVE ENSLER: Yeah, her work is going to be read.
AMY GOODMAN: Her own experience.
EVE ENSLER: Yeah. Yeah. And words from her. Actually, there's a new
piece
by her
that's really quite wonderful about having been out of prison and what
that's
been like.
But, you know, it is really interesting. We just did a panel on Tuesday
last
week of women in conflict and post-conflict zones, and we were
scheduled
to
bring women here from New Orleans, because I absolutely see New Orleans
as
a
conflict zone. If you look at any of the definitions of a conflict
zone,
whether
it's humanitarian crisis or ethnic cleansing, it is exactly everything
that's
going on in New Orleans today.
We were also trying to bring a woman, Hannah Ibrahim, from Iraq, who's
an
extraordinary woman who is doing very outspoken work to try to keep
women
alive
and keep women together and fighting for women's rights
constitutionally
in all
kinds of ways, and is very outspoken against the war, obviously. The
bombs
are
dropping on her head. She went to Damascus to try to get a visa into
this
country, and she actually wrote in her email that she was treated by
the
masters
like a slave, humiliated once again, degraded once again, and made to
feel
horrible for even asking for a visa. And they told her to come back
like
the day
before she needed the visa, which would have made it absolutely
impossible
for
her to come into America. We are talking now about a country which is
essentially not allowing in people who disagree with our foreign
policy.
And
when that happens, you know, where are we? You know, where are we?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wanted to read from an explosive U.S. government
document
about the situation in Iraq that was recently leaked to the Washington
Post.
It's an internal memo from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad that describes
the
situation in the Iraqi capital.
This is from a subsection titled, "Women's Rights," and it says, "Two
of
our
three female employees report stepped-up harassment beginning in
mid-May.
One, a
Shia who favors Western clothing was advised by an unknown woman in her
Baghdad
neighborhood to wear a veil and not to drive her own car. She said some
groups
are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran,
even
at
its most conservative. Another, a Sunni, said people in her
neighborhood
are
harassing women and telling them to cover up and stop using cell
phones.
She
said the taxi driver who brings her every day to the Green Zone has
told
her he
cannot let her ride unless she wears a head cover. A female in the
cultural
section" -- this is in the U.S. cultural section -- "is now wearing a
full
abaya
after receiving direct threats.
"The women say they cannot identify the groups pressuring them. The
cautions
come from other women, sometimes from men who could be Sunni or Shia,
but
appear
conservative. Some ministries, notably the Sadrist-controlled Ministry
of
Transportation, have been forcing females to wear the hijab at work."
Now, again, that's from an internal memo from the U.S. embassy in
Baghdad,
and
at the end of the memo, it's the name of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq,
Khalilzad.
Your response. You have gone to Afghanistan repeatedly. In fact, we
last
spoke
to you on a mountain in Afghanistan. But can you talk about this?
EVE ENSLER: Well, we have been supporting women -- Yanar Mohammed,
we've
been
supporting, who's running the women's organization in Baghdad. We have
been in
touch with women now for the last three years, and everything we're
hearing
about the situation of the women in Baghdad is just -- it is shocking,
and
it
actually really mirrors what happened in Afghanistan. It is the
Talibanization
of Iraq. And if we look at the fact that sex trafficking has escalated,
honor
killings have escalated, women's security is abysmal, we are talking
about
the
reversal of women's rights, in terms of Sharia law being reintroduced
into
the
constitution.
What most people forget is the status of women in Iraq during Saddam
Hussein was
actually far better off than many women throughout the region. It has
now
been
completely undermined. And we have this illusion in this country that
we
have
freed women in Afghanistan and freed women in Iraq. Every report we're
getting
now from Afghanistan is that the situation is terrible and that
warlords
are
everywhere, and the Taliban is completely present.
As a matter of fact, Sarah Chayes, who is in Kandahar, who I think you
may
have
had on, recently wrote to me that there is so much activity happening
with
the
Taliban that 74% of the people living in Kandahar actually believe that
the U.S.
and the Taliban are in cahoots. So we are seeing no real security
having
happened for women and them being absolutely used to justify this war,
used to
say we need to go and free the women of Afghanistan, when, in fact,
that
is not
happening.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you see will end the violence? And do you have
hope?
You've
been doing this now for years, Eve. You've been studying this for a
very
long
time, Professor Crenshaw. Where do you see the hope?
EVE ENSLER: Well, we had 2,700 productions of The Vagina Monologues
last
year in
1,150 places. I have seen shelters open, you know, and houses open in
Africa to
stop FGM, and girls are literally not being cut.
AMY GOODMAN: Female genital mutilation.
EVE ENSLER: Yeah, I've seen the rate of rape be reduced in all kinds of
places.
I'm insanely hopeful, in spite of an insanely crazy world. And I think
it
comes
from the transformation of consciousness. It comes from us all
understanding
that ending violence is possible. We could actually do it, if we keep
going. And
that doesn't mean things aren't terrible, because they are. But the
more
women
and the more men who actually begin to change this paradigm and this
way
of
thinking, the more possible it is to actually end the violence.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: And I guess I want to say something about the
importance of
Eve's work and organizations like V-Day, because in reality, we
wouldn't
know
most of what's happening to women in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in other
places, if
we had to rely on the commercial media, and if we had to rely on
government. So
we need organizations like V-Day that can reach into these various
contexts,
reach women, and tell us what's happening.
We know that the most important ways that movements actually grow is
from
knowing that what's experienced here, what's happening to me, is not
just
about
me. It's about who I am, and it's related to what's happening to women
all
over
the world. So it takes an organization like V-Day. It also takes
organizations -- we're doing this tonight, together with the ACLU, that
have the
stature, the status, the reach, the clout, the political access across
the
board
to tell these stories. So that's what's going to happen tonight.
AMY GOODMAN: Is this happening outside of New York?
EVE ENSLER: Well, what's really exciting is we've created this whole
festival,
and the dream was that it would be replicated, just like V-Days are.
And
I'm
very proud to say that Mary Morton, a wonderful organizer in Chicago --
they
wanted to bring it there, and that the governor -- I believe it's the
governor -- has just allocated half a million dollars to make Illinois
the
first
safe state in the world for women and girls. And a woman was here from
Paris and
is going to bring it to Paris. We already are getting really many
requests
to
replicate the festival. So our hope is within the next, you know, two
to
five
years, this festival will spread just like The Vagina Monologues, so
V-Day
will
be happening all the time, every day.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about the price of women speaking out. I
mean,
you
have famous women, like we played excerpts of Salma Hayek or Rosie
Perez.
And
Rosie said she was in The Vagina Monologues back to 1997, but it took
until 2001
for her to talk about her own experience, to speak out. What about the
price of
the famous women and the not-so-famous, when they do acknowledge what
has
happened?
EVE ENSLER: Well, you know, Jody Williams was in our event Monday
night,
the
Nobel Peace Prize winner, and she told a story of having been
gang-raped
by an
El Salvadorian death squad. And she had never told that story publicly
before.
And I called her last night, and I said, "How are you doing?" She said,
"I'm
good, Eve. I'm good. It's done. Now I can go and help other women by
telling
this story."
And I think, you know, we have a word in v-world which is vagina
warrior.
It's a
woman or man who has suffered enormous violence or witnessed it, and
rather than
getting an AK-47 or a weapon of mass destruction, they transform it,
they
grieve
it, and then they allow it to drive them to devote their lives to
making
sure it
doesn't happen to anybody else. I think when you can speak out and talk
about
what's happened to you, it's the beginning of your life. And it
actually,
in
many cases, fuels women to become extraordinary activists who are
unstoppable
after that.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: And if I can just add one of the consequences for
women
of
color of speaking out is, often they're told that they're traitors. I
mean, do
we remember what happened to Anita Hill when she spoke out? One of the
worst
things that happened to her was many people in the African American
community
felt that she was being a traitor. So a lot of women of color have to
deal
with
the fact that, when they're speaking about violence, they're largely
speaking
about violence that has occurred from somebody in our own community. So
we've
got an additional obstacle to overcome, but it's important to do it,
because we
realize the consequences of violence in our community, not only to the
women,
but to children, to families, to the well-being of the overall
community.
EVE ENSLER: And that women have to stand by women. It was the same
thing
that
just happened in South Africa that, you know, we all have to make what
happens
to women as important as any other issue, and not the last thing we
think
about.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Any One of Us: Words from Prison is going to be
performed
tonight at Alice Tully Hall in New York. And we'll see how many other
places in
the country and the world will follow this movement. If people want to
get
more
information, where can they go on the web?
EVE ENSLER: Well, they can go to www.vday.org. The tickets are sold out
tonight,
but if they come, there probably will be a few leftover tickets, and
there's
many more -- there's a wonderful event that's going to be an evening of
Def
Poetry at the Brooklyn Museum, which will be listed on the website.
AMY GOODMAN: And we will certainly link to all of that. So, Eve Ensler
and
Kimberle Crenshaw, I want to thank you very much for being with us.
There are evil men. But when looking at this I often wonder about the
responsibility women have for CHOOSING (and women DO the choosing, men
really don't) men like that. Additionally, if you examine the lives of
these
women, they seem to repeat the same choices over and over. And here is
another issue to chew on when considering this issue. Why is it that MANY
of
these men, more than half, go on to relationships with other women in
which
there is NO violence? Do you know why? I don't. But it is a FORBIDDEN
SUBJECT for research as fanatic women's groups oppose it.
IF this society has ANY interest - and I mean any REAL interest at all,
why
not study all aspects of family violence? Why view it through a vaginal
prism?
Female narcissism.
Indeed!
.
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