VDay 2022

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

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.

References

Call to men - Dismantle Patriarchy 
https://www.acalltomen.org 
City of joy
https://www.vday.org/city-of-joy/about-city-of-joy/  
One Billion rising 
https://www.vday.org/one-billion-rising/what-is-one-billion-rising/ 

One Billion Rising - Find and event

https://www.onebillionrising.org/events/#!/0/0/1/

Ensler, E. (2008 campaigns) The Vagina Monologues (official script)

http://web.mit.edu/dvp/Public/TVMScript2008.pdf

Eve Ensler (website)

https://www.eveensler.org/

Solidarity Project

https://www.vday.org/solidarity-projects/rising-art-artists-rising/ 
VDay.org 
https://www.vday.org/
Voices
https://voices.vday.org/ 

VDay 2020

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

What is Vday?

Today is VDay, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, targeting rape, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery. The February 14 re-interpretation of Valentine’s Day arises out of Eve Ensler’s famous play The Vagina Monologues. A play, which tells the story of one woman refugee, and through her, all the women in Bosnia and Kosovo, 27,000 of which were raped as a war tactic, in connection to the events surrounding the March 5-1998- June 11, 1999, Kosovo (former part of Yugoslavia) War, in Central Europe.

The Vagina Monologues play opened in NYC, in 1996. On VDay 1998, the play raised 250,000 dollars in a single benefit evening, which funded the VDay nonprofit organization. The rest is history. More than 100 million dollars have been raised for this cause. The Vagina Monologues, and spinoff versions, are performed each year, in celebration of Vday, on campuses worldwide, including here at SJSU.

 The organization One Billion Rising, founded in 2012 to the beat of the song and dance Break the Chain, represents the one billion women (1 in 3) who experience violence worldwide, during their lifetime.

The City of Hope, a sanctuary funded by the Vday nonprofit organization, opened in Bukaru, Democratic Republic of Congo, for women survivors of violence. A sanctuary, which is the topic of the Netflix documentary, The City of Hope. 

  

Tune in and rise! Happy VDay to all!

References

Eve Ensler

https://www.eveensler.org/

The Vagina Monologues (SJSU Shows & Benefit)

http://www.sjsu.edu/genec/events/vday/index.html
The Vagina Monologues (official script)
http://web.mit.edu/dvp/Public/TVMScript2008.pdf

Vday 2020 (Splash page)

https://www.vday.org/

VDay (website)

https://www.vday.org/homepage.html

One Billion Rising

https://www.onebillionrising.org/

City of Joy in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (Splash page)

https://www.cityofjoycongo.org/splash/

CityofJoy.org (website)

https://cityofjoycongo.org/

City of Joy (Official Trailer for the Netflix documentary 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNy0MG_iy0Y

Rise 2018

https://youtu.be/v48YPrcCgoU

Happy V-day! RISE RESIST UNITE

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

"Twenty years ago, Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues gave birth to V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming). 

Since 1998, The Vagina Monologues and other works have been performed across the world by local V-Day activists, raising over $100 million dollars for grassroots anti-violence groups, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and safe houses in places like Kenya and Afghanistan. V-Day supports and launched the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has graduated over 1000 women leaders. 

Activists look at the intersection of class, race, gender, environmental destruction, imperialism, militarism, patriarchy, poverty, and war, as women face abuse and exploitation across layers of systematic and societal oppression, with the most marginalized and excluded often facing increased levels of violence. 

In 2013, V-Day gave birth to One Billion Rising - the largest mass action to demand an end to violence against women in history. V-Day and One Billion Rising are a crucial part of the global fight to stop gender-based violence through attacking the silence — public and private — that allows violence against women to continue. 

With ingenuity and determination, V-Day activists around the world are tirelessly working to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery." [Extracted from www.VDay.org - RISE, RESIST, UNITE]

References
Eve Ensler
http://www.eveensler.org/

The Vagina Monologues

http://web.mit.edu/dvp/Public/TVMScript2008.pdf

Unitl the Violence Stops

 https://vimeo.com/vday 

One Billion Rising

https://www.onebillionrising.org/
#OnebillionRising
https://twitter.com/hashtag/1billionrising?lang=en 
VDay Sacramento.org - Rise Resist unite
http://www.vdaysacramento.org/ 

Happy V-Day to all!

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Today is V-Day 2015 – A global movement to end violence against women and girls, that is, a movement targeting rape, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery, arising out of Eve Ensler’s famous play The Vagina Monologues.

The V-Day non-profit organization was founded, in 1998, in NYC, following a benefit performance of the play that raised 250,000 USD in a single evening!

The rest is history! Every year, performances of the play are staged on February 14^th, with proceeds benefitting shelters, and anti-violence programs, for women and girls, survivors of violence. The organization has raised more than 100 million USD, in 200 countries, in 48 languages, benefitting more than 13,000 organizations against violence –using the play (Royalty free) and other creative and artistic performances as a catalyst for action and organization.

In 2015, the VDay movement includes a dance, drum and rise movement launched in 2003: The One Billion Rising -- 4 Revolution, 4Justice, 4Women’s Rights, depending on location, in the bid to stop violence again women and girls, and through them, the harshest inequities of the world.  The One Billion number stands for a shocking statistic: one billion women will experience violence in the world during their life time, that is, 1 in 3 women worldwide.

Check out your local area for events to break the chain of violence, to Dance! Drum! and Rise!
Below, the official video of the One Billion Rising song and choreography performed worldwide that will perhaps inspire you!

Maldives (official) http://youtu.be/F2uTqLQVFko

And One Billion Rising around the world..… !!....

In San Francisco http://youtu.be/WufjSyE_rK8

 In Bhutan: http://youtu.be/QcVqRIJFjK4

In Chicago: http://youtu.be/WEsKjqGBdk8

In Kinshasa (Congo) http://youtu.be/u4YJZ2NB4Vk

References

Eve Ensler http://www.eveensler.org/

Ensler, E. (2014) O.P.C (Obsessive Political Correctness). Directed by Pesha Rudnick.

Ensler, E. (2011) Emotional Creature: The secret lives of girls around the world. New York, NY Villard Books.

Ensler, E. (2007) Insecure at last: A political memoir. New York, NY: Villard Books.

Ensler, E. (2005) The Good Body. New York, NY: Villard Books

Ensler, E. (2001) The Vagina Monologues. New York, NY: Villard Books.

Epstein, A. and V. Farrel (2003) V-Day: Until the violence stops. Lifetime Television. 73 minutes.
Vday : http://www.vday.org/
Onbillionrising: http://www.onebillionrising.org/

Breaking the male code: After Steubenville, a call to action: http://www.vday.org/node/3054.html#.VN-Y2PnF_ts