Patents on the soles of your shoes...: VDay 2022

Monday, February 14, 2022

VDay 2022

Each year, on February 14th, since 1996, VDay re-interprets Valentine’s Day, celebrating the foundation of a movement that seeks to end violence against all women and girls worldwide. Arising within the context of Eve Ensler’s famous play The Vagina Monologues, the VDay organization was initially funded on the occasion of a single evening performance of the play that raised $250,000. The Vagina Monologues tell the story of some of the 27,000 women that were raped as a war tactic, in connection to the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, a former part of Yugoslavia, in Central Europe.

Over the course of 26 years, the Vday movement has branched into several projects and action groups, including :

One Billion Rising - a group of one billion women, representing the shocking statistic of 1 in 3 women worldwide who have been victims of violence.

The Solidarity Project - funded by The Rising Fund, a project that seeks to identify artists and grassroots movements, transforming culture, creating art and social change, working on the front lines of activism.

Voices - a new interdisciplinary performance arts project and campaign, grounded in Black women’s stories. According to the group, contributed submissions provide the poems you have been waiting for.

City of Joy - a sanctuary for women, fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a Netflix documentary that tells the story of some of the 1472 women who have graduated from the City of Joy program. Women who found a place to heal, to release their trauma from rape, and to learn skills, enabling them to re-enter life as empowered individuals. The trailer of the documentary is included below.

Call to Men - Dismantle patriarchy and the next generation of manhood – a VDay sponsored competition in high schools in the US, and colleges worldwide, calling for creative thinking on what a new post-patriarchal society might look like, how to achieve it, and with what means.

On the occasion of February 14th, all of the VDay organization groups and programs, mentioned above, organize and schedule special events worldwide, including such items as readings of The Vagina Monologues play, groups flash performing specially-choreographed VDay dances, and drumming events. (Click here for an interactive list of events worldwide.)

According to the Vday organization, in 2022, “the ‘V’ in Vday stands inclusively for : Voice, Victory, Valentine and Vagina”. The VDay movement has also defined itself more clearly as: “an organized response to violence directed at all women and girls, and the planet; a vision, a demand, a spirit, a catalyst, a process, a day; and a fierce, wild, unstoppable movement and community”, with an invitation for everyone to participate.