this is my favorite quote from this one:”when we give in the world what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside each of us.”

Photo courtesy of Noel Zia Lee's Flickr Photostream.

by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

As of today, the hymen has a new name.  It is now called the “vaginal corona.” Who authorized this radical change, and why?  The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education explains that the name was born last spring, when the Association published a book about myths surrounding the hymen and virginity.

The breaking of the hymen has been the traditional marker of virginity-loss.  The name, which in Swedish literally means “virginity membrane,” does not help dispel the notion that the hymen is a thin piece of skin.  But the book points out that the hymen is actually made up of many thin folds of skin.  And (something that sounds like it was taken straight from The Vagina Monologues):

Every woman’s corona looks different – just like ear lobes, noses and labia – and differs in size, colour and shape… It is slightly pink, almost transparent, but if it’s thicker it may look a little paler or whitish. It may resemble the petals of a rose or other flower, it may be carnation-shaped, or it may look like a jigsaw piece or half-moon.

But the main point here is that the hymen has little to do with virginity.  Because it’s so elastic, it can never be fully broken.  And as RSFU general secretary Åsa Regnér points out,

“The vaginal corona is a permanent part of a woman’s body throughout her life. It doesn’t disappear after she first has sexual intercourse, and most women don’t bleed the first time. The myths surrounding the hymen were created to control women’s freedom and sexuality. The only way to counteract this is by disseminating knowledge.”

What do you think of the name?  Beer jokes have been proliferating on blogs all over the internets, so I’m not even going to go there.  I do, however, think this would make an excellent vagina fact.  Eve Ensler, take notice!

Each year, college campuses around the country hold productions of Eve Enslers’ The Vagina Monologues, a series of first person monologues delivered by women that focus on a wide variety of topics – love, sexuality, abuse – and has inspired something of a grassroots movement in V-Day, an event held in early February to raise awareness of violence against women.

This year, Temple is hosting its own production, and I’ll be a part of it.  My name is Renee Cree, and I’m a writer in Temple’s communications department.  I have not been on stage in almost 10 years, and that was as a nun in the Sound of Music.  Now I’ll be portraying a Bosnian rape victim, who talks about her attacks at the hands of invading soldiers.

A bit of a switch, I’ll admit.  But I’ll be documenting it here on CherryTArts.  Feel free to follow along as I navigate my way through the theatrical process for the first time in a decade, and try to become a person I know nothing about.

First rehersal is this Sunday night.  Wish me luck!

~ Renee

Wow! that would be one word which summarizes the event. The speakers line up was impressive and the audience were the most riotous I’ve ever seen! Where else would you find CEOs, VPs and students from VIT, IIT etc all gathered at one place, discuss about everything and (gasp!) Jump for rhyming stories like kids!

To start with, I started late . But nevertheless, I did not want to wait for breakfast there, so had a Pongal Vada at Hotchips. This actually helped me in finding a good seat ( it was first come first serve, every time!). I somehow managed to get the same seat till end. This is not the first time I’m going to IIT,  but every time I go, it makes me miss it. Lovely place! The IC & SR auditorium itself is well furnished and world class. I first thought of taking my laptop and doing a live blogging/tweeting of the event. Thank god I did not. It helped me listen.

Then the induction or reception, what ever you would call, was simple and smooth. No hiccups or searching through endless cards. Well organized. Great work guys.

8.40 AM. The auditorium was already filling up. Anil Srinivasan was rehearsing. Little did I imagine what was coming!

9.00 AM sharp! the show did not start!

9.05 AM It has started sometime ago!

Then,

Kiruba was eager to display the video of Chris Anderson explaining the idea behind TED and TEDx. But the problem started here, videos wont play! Sadly these hiccups with softwares continued till the end, and the irritating ‘Stay Offline’ messages in between Satya’s talk. But these were the only negative points. The other think I could think of was lack of seats. Anyone knew why? I thought they sell tickets based on count of seats available. But from now on, I have nothing bad to say, only good and very good things!

I will discuss the first session here. It started with Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan providing us with a breathtaking music combo of Western classical Piano and Carnatic vocal. I could seriously not tell that I am listening to some western instrument. As Anil rightly said, it provided a good frame for the painting called Carnatic music. They were a passionate people, who enjoyed performing as much as the audience. Anil had found his life partner at TED India, so seems like a great place to go next time . Also the performance was preceded by some good talk by Anil, in which he explained about the West and East ‘amalgamation’. Sheer brilliance and passion.

Then came Krupa (Krupalatha Martin Dass) who runs the SUKURUPA home and school in Bangalore for children with distressed parents and broken childhood. Hers is a story of true ‘calling’ one hears often. Another thing which I learnt today and realised perhaps are how women are so strong willed and passionate. Almost most of the rock stars of  the day barring Romulus and Bawa were ‘Five point something’. But their achievements are too tall.

I think it was Sharada who made a documentary film called Shringaram came next. I am not very much knowledgeable or interested in what she was saying, entirely due to my ignorance. I could tell from the crowd that people loved her talk too.

There were a couple of TED Videos interspersed between the talks. Below are them.

Eve Ensler on Security and Insecurity:

Hans Rosling on the best stat’s you’ve ever seen:

The rest I will cover in subsequent posts.

Vagina season is coming.

Preparations have kicked off for V-Day London events, so I showed up at the first meeting this week to get a sneak peek at the plans.

See You Next Tuesday is the title of an exciting new two-week festival surrounding V-Day, masterminded by Emma Jane Richards and Annie Saunders. Londoners are invited to celebrate women and open their eyes to a different world at the New Players Theatre. It’s V-Day on steroids, pumped up with comedy, screenings, theatre, cabaret, workshops and tea time discussions… and, of course, the hilarious and heart-wrenching Vagina Monologues and A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer.

“This festival is like a playground,” Emma Jane explained to us, tapping her red pencil against a notepad that was scribbled with ideas. “It’s somewhere fun where you feel safe and comfortable to enter the doors. It’s all about entertainment with a conscience. You’ve got to open your eyes to what’s around you. We want it to be inviting, engaging to a person on the street, to someone who doesn’t necessarily understand post-feminism or wherever it is we are at right now.”

In other words, anything that celebrates women or highlights violence against women goes. Ideas were tossed around for everything from photo exhibitions to female comedians to lessons in cooking Congolese food.

V-Day creator Eve Ensler has decided that this year’s spotlight remains on the plight of the women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who continue to face incredible amounts of violence, especially rape and the consequences of other war crimes.

So, for a worthy cause and some good laughs, rack your brain and come up with a unique idea or two in order to get involved or simply volunteer a few hours of your time standing in front of a tube station handing out flyers. (Men are more than welcome too!)

Events kick off on 8^th March 2010, International Women’s Day and run until the 20th.

To pitch an idea, volunteer your time or make a donation, please contact Emma Jane at pitch@vdaylondon.com

For more information on V-Day around the world, check out: http://www.vday.org/

Eve Ensler ‘s Vagina Monologues, does little for the mind; or the vagina for that matter, except liberating the word from the confines of medical dictionary. What it really targets instead is the heart, with a concoction of warm, thick, frothy stories that bring forth bittersweet sexual experiences of every day women. I Am an Emotional Creature (directed by Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal and Kaizaad Kotwaal) is a follow up; like a shadow that trails the light. This time Ensler goes straight for the heart, but gets nowhere instead.

The new set of monologues is carved out of stories Ensler gathered from across the world, thinly veiled as fiction. The play opens with that tiring cliché about liberation – Queen’s I Want To Break Free – crooned live and out-of-tune only to be followed by a chorus of actors lamenting the state of the world in platitudes and asking what it means to be a woman in 2010. The production is tacky and the actors plastic enough to put Barbie to shame. But Ensler sets Barbie up for introspection through one of her characters- a Chinese factory worker, earning a meager wage, who ekes out her relationship with the doll she manufactures.

Initially the playwright is concerned about HIV, teenage pregnancy, sexual repression and the pressures of being thin and pretty. But before you know it, she has left the familiar far behind to hit the harsh terrains of rape, sexual slavery, prostitution and incarceration. By now, shocking is being confused with moving, and reality with truth. There is nothing to be said before the plight of victims here, however mediocre the words that string it. But you do wonder if such extreme human suffering is not gender- unspecific.

The specific crime of rape is perpetrated mostly against women, but the intensity of these monologues focus on the phenomenon of cruelty and pain, which transcends redemption and raises existential questions about human psychology and fate at large. Yes, there are women here who refused to kill people in the name of nationalism, but their voice could as easily have been a man’s, except it isn’t. The experiences women go through and the obvious emotional reactions to those circumstances do not automatically hold the key to their minds and dilemmas. There is nothing in this play about the inner journey of the woman- the battles she fights in her head everyday, the quandary of her unique mental makeup in the man-made world she is keen to inherit or, the dichotomies that sometimes make her, her own worst enemy.

This is an early 20^th century feminist discourse in a post-feminist urban world. Even the second wave of the 60’s feminists were making more subtle cases about psychological and cultural domination.

This is not to say women are just fine now but today their issues need examination at a micro level that propaganda cannot afford. Cultural and religious specificity play an important part here. And that kind of insight is sorely missed while actors (ironically dolled up in the image of ‘beauty’ the play seeks to look beyond), flash their middle fingers and ‘attitude’. The brandished coolth is a little passe for this generation.

Self-expression is introduced with another cliché – dance, translated on stage by uncomfortably choreographed pieces that fail to represent the spirit of abandon. (Why didn’t they just let the girls get on to stage and do their own thing to music rather than hire a choreographer and advertise his ‘Slumdog Millionaire fame’ on the publicity material?). There isn’t much to be said for a play that talks of breaking the moulds, without investing in its own agenda.

The stories fail to touch your heart, functioning only as evidence of some sort. There was an image of the liberalized woman constructed by the post 50’s feminists to counter her regressive portrayal by the conservative old world order. It had to be white, to counter an unrelenting black, but the heart of the evolving woman is multi-hued and its nuances accessible more through poetry than polemic.

(Originally appears in HT Cafe)

November 8th 2009, Mysore

In a climax of compelling speakers, TED India got everyone out of bed (no mean feat when the final night was such a riotous affair) and back into their increasingly delirious brains. A lack of sleep, a lack of food because there was just no time to eat, somehow the intellectual sustenance remained the food for thought. The ability to let us listen to stories. Stories which have the power to transform.

The girl inside

I have to start with Eve Ensler, and her vibrant description of what it means to be a girl in “I am an emotional creature”. She roused the stage with her passionate description of a society which had stolen its girl side, both men and women, and left itself inept and broken by placing value only on those hardened characteristics which associate themselves with male victory. The language that correlates vulnerability and emotion with weakness has been displaced. The language that allows men to sell women and their daughters has been strengthened. The verb “to please” which is encouraged  in women from such a young age that they forget to defy, create, activate has been planted. Eve’s declaration that being a girl is so powerful that the world has had to teach everyone not to be like that struck a strong chord. She talked about the mass rape of women in the DRC, and their use of taboos and traditions to force peace talks onto the table. She talked about the Masai father who was ready to sell his daughter to an old man for some cows and blankets, and disfigure and disempower her with mutilation as part of the bidding, a father who was proud of his daughter when she ran away to seek help and returned a year later, educated and with new ambition, promising never to cut her whilst she promised to fight her father’s corner always.

Soft power and the cellphone revolution

Soft power.

The subject of Shashi Tharoor’s talk, a charismatic compelling political speaker who painted a picture of a world in which India’s ability to use its influence and values to attract others could be a force for good. He described India as a country which works  partly because of its government, and partly in spite of it. A country which has been selling fifteen million mobile phones per month, emerging from a country where the phone was a rare luxury just a couple of decades ago. Who is carrying those cellphones, he asked? The man who climbs a coconut palm to bring down the right number of coconuts, the fisherman out at sea who can get the best price for his wares in the best market, and the farmers (who have been committing suicide in mass droves) who also can find a way to sell their produce more efficiently.

Soft power. The ability of Bollywood and Indian music and television to have the same influence that MTV, Hollywood and McDonalds have had for the United States. The popularity of Indian entertainment, for example, in Afghanistan where the country stands still enough for robbers to know when to strike, as everyone sits down to watch the Indian equivalent of Eastenders. The economic value of Indian restaurants in the UK who now employ more than the coal and mining industries together.  

He talked about Indian influence in the region through its pluralist democracy, in a country which an Italian-origin Roman Catholic woman, Sonia Gandhi, was elected with a Sikh Prime Minister, sworn in by a Muslim President. That, he said, was India being itself, sustained above all else by its pluralist democracy.

He is right, of course, and he used the power to tell stories compellingly. They are all true, although as previous articles will tell you, I fear that India’s ability to propagate is pluralist democracy without coming to terms with its State-sponsored violence and failure to account to itself and its people is also its biggest barrier to progress. You can’t please all the people all of the time, but you have to ensure at the very least that you don’t kill them.

 The power of children to transform society

Soft power, through Sesame Street, or Galli Galli Sim Sim, changing children’s lives across the sub-continent.  Soft power through the Riverside school in Ahmedabad, set up by Kiran Sethi whose favourite word “contagious”, in these days of swine flu, has inspired her to allow children to make a change, shutting down the city’s main streets once a month to allow it to be transformed into a children’s playground, inspiring children to teach their illiterate parents in rural Rajasthan to read and write, bringing children out onto the streets to demand an end to child poverty by making the pupils roll incense for eight hours so they understand what it feels like.

The power of children and sport, developed by Matthew Spacie who founded Magic Bus, who in searching for a way to engage girls in the slums, developed a football league for their mothers, which led to the grandmothers demanding their won league and ultimately which led to them coaching the very daughters they initially sought to engage.

Ring the bell and end domestic violence

Bell Bajao. An advertising campaign encouraging neighbours to ring the bell when they hear the strains and shouts of domestic violence from the next door house or street. Step in. Help. Don’t leave everything to the State.

Will you change my world?

Change the world, or let the person next to you change it for you, if you are open enough, said  Balasubramanian, an installation artist, painter and sculptor who sought to answer philosophy through sculpture hanging off the walls of a gallery. How do shadows define our sense of self? Where there is dark, must there be light?

And where there is blindness, individuals with passion can bring light to thousands of people in one of the most inspiring talks of the session. Ravilla Thulasiraj whose Aravinda eye hospitals have been inspired by the founder’s philosophy to create a McDonals of eye care, breaking down access barriers to the poor in innovative ways that reduce budgets and costs dramatically, provide transportation where required for hospital treatment and using technology to deliver telemedicine in the most rural places.

The power of serenity

And finally, to His Holiness, the 17^th Gyalwang Karmapa, who brought serenity to our twisting minds at the end of the conference, looking for positivity out of negativity. Talking about the Bamian Buddha statues which had been felled by the Taliban, he talked of looking for the positive, as though the action may bring about some peace between two religious communities helping them to understand each other without the barrier of a physical wall.

He told us that we had taken a million collective breaths this week, and although we may not see coarse changes, we needed to watch out for the subtle changes. The little symbols of happiness in every breathe that we took. He asked us to take the good, the momentum, the positivity of the fortune of such a diverse group of people coming together to form a strong approach, and to plant those qualities in every corner of the world.

And so these are not the articles to consider more deeply the consequences both of what we heard and what we did not hear. This is the place simply to note some of the people who left the biggest footprints this week. It has been an intense learning experience from which I am bound to take the positive.

The future beckons and India is ready to take her place at the front of it. There are people ready to seek creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems that perpetuate and expand poverty, whilst recognising that there is a long way to go. There are people all over the world who seek a common framework of inspiration.

I am not ready to leave, but I am certainly ready to sleep.

I am all for the soft power of new friendships and transforming ideas.  Stories which have the power to transform.

 I am a girl, an emotional creature.

Food for thought, indeed.

Eve Ensler ~ Veterans for Peace Times Square Rally

Eve Ensler performs her poetry at the Veterans for Peace Rally in Times Square on October 13, 2009. Standing with Ms. Ensler are Staff Sgt. Sandra Lee, and Ann Wright.

On October 26^th and 27^th (Hilary Clinton’s Birthday) Maria Shriver’s Sixth Annual Women’s Conference (which sold out in a record-breaking two days!) took place at The Long Beach Convention Center.  In a nutshell – and according to their website -  womensconference.org – “The mission of The Women’s Conference is to inspire, empower and educate women to be Architects of Change in their own lives and in the lives of others.”

The theme this year: Be Who YOU Are – An Architect of Change And Pass It On.

The conference coincides with A Woman’s Nation (http://awomansnation.com/) and The Shriver Report, A Study By Maria Shriver And The Center For American Progress that addresses the new fact that half of American workers are now female.

I could not attend so I sat in my home office from 8AM until 3PM absolutely glued to their website which streamed a live webcast of the day’s events.  It was also streaming live on The White House website!  Yay!!!!!!!

If I had been there, I would have needed a seat belt.

I was, and am, completely and utterly, inspired, motivated, empowered and as Eve Ensler – one of the speaker/performer’s proclaimed “I LOVE LOVE LOVE BEING A GIRL!”

Here are some highlights:

The conference began in a big beautiful ballroom type of setting with attendees sitting at tables. It looked and sounded just like The Academy Awards, dramatic and exciting. The lights dimmed and a woman’s voice boomed out “Ladies and Gentleman! Live!  From Long Beach California! Welcome to the Women’s Conference 2009!”

Young, beautiful and talented Los Angeles Opera Singer Angel Blue (yes that is her name)  was introduced to sing Frances Scott Key’s The Star Spangled Banner. As she sang I couldn’t help think of Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn Of The Republic – you know it…”mine eyes have seen the glory….”.  Both are Civil War songs and I was reminded again of how little we are taught and know about our women’s history.  I am determined to change that.  Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), trailblazing mom, was the very first woman elected in 1908 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Broadcast newswoman and journalist Paula Zahn was the day’s MC.  She looks and sounds JUST LIKE Jane Fonda did years ago!  Freaky. She set the tone talking about how we all want to live more meaningful lives, yet we are trying to live up to our self-imposed unrealistic expectations and how we are exhausted and overwhelmed and need to come together, to be part of a community.  Then came the stats; seventy five percent of all women – and men – are feeling stressed out.  No kidding.  Half of all workers in America are females and two thirds are moms that are either the primary or co-breadwinners in their homes.

This is the big news.  “We are responsible for so much. Yet”, she goes on to say, “women are still afraid to ask their employers for time off to care for their children or their parents.”  No mention of the seventy eight cents to the man’s dollar that women earn or the very real maternal profiling that prevents women from either getting hired or rocking the boat once employed. But these were just the opening remarks and I am happy to report that minimum wage worker’s issues were addressed later in an amazing panel that included Madeline Albright, Claire Shipman, Amy Holmes and Valerie Jarrett hosted by David Gregory.  More on that panel later.

Zahn spoke of her own life – juggling motherhood with career and the guilt she – and so many women feel always.  “Guilt is corrosive and unproductive”. Yes. Zahn now has two shows on the Discovery Channel – and after thirty years, she is her own boss and finally she controls her life.”   Zahn asked us to take an inventory of our lives, to be kind to ourselves, to ask for help, and not be martyrs.  The key phrase was  “Live It, Feel It, Pass It On”.  There was definitely a pep rally feel and I loved it!

Next up – Laree Renda, Executive VP of Safeway Inc. who introduced Geena Davis.  Remember she played a president on television?  Well, she spoke about her organization called SeeJane.org http://www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org/ which is all about gender in media and advancing leadership for women and girls. She talked about how underrepresented we are in Government – only two women out of nine on the Supreme Court- – women are only 20% of congress so I of course immediately thought – again – what a great opportunity to bring up some original architects of change – the female trailblazers in government – Victoria Woodhull – first woman to run for president, Elizabeth Cady Stanton who nominated herself to Congress – the first female nomination (she only got twelve votes), Jeanette Rankin – the first gal elected to The House of Representatives – Margaret Chase Smith – first female in the House and the Senate – oh don’t get me started  – but I digress.  Geena Davis had plenty to talk about – specifically  – her study on G rated media targeting girls eleven years of age and under.  Her findings:  kids media is the WORST  – three males for every female character and girls are portrayed as peripheral, undervalued, hyper sexualized.

I loved her presentation – factual and sobering and gently and effectively told using comedy when there is NOTHING funny about this subject.

Robin Roberts, Co-Anchor of Good Morning America hosted the next panel entitled Tough Leadership Decisions in Tough Times.  The panel consisted of Sheila C. Bair who was introduced as the ChairMAN of the FDIC.  Made me laugh of course – ChairMAN – and SIR Richard Branson – of The Virgin Group and The Terminator himself Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (whose wife for the un-informed is Maria Shriver).  First question posed to the group – to whom do you turn for advice?  Arnold said Maria and got a big laugh. Branson discussed his new book “Screw It Just Do It” and advised not to take no for an answer.

Bair talked about courage and how she took a foreclosure workshop and worked on the mortgage restructuring and foreclosure crisis in California. The Governor then talked about California economics and taxes and gave his wife Maria some really beautiful props talking about she changed his way of thinking – praising her determination and calling her “The Determinator”.  More laughs.  Branson told a story about giving a speech in Saudi Arabia – I loved this – to ten thousand men, and right before he was to deliver the speech, he was told that the women were back in the corner behind a screen – as is the custom. So Branson is introduced and comes out and says “I believe when in Rome…. but here you men have taken all the best seats and put the women in the corner”.

He said the men were “deathly silent” but he could hear and see the women screaming from behind the curtain and throwing things in the air.  I loved that story.  Then he spoke about a law in Norway mandating that fifty percent of company board members are required now by law to be women.  This inspired a whole discussion and Sheila Bair’s comment “I am conflicted – I want women to earn it and not be given the jobs and I think fifty percent is a low estimate” resulted  in major applause and a conversation ensued about quotas and mandates.

Branson said men running companies (and most companies are run by men) need to change their mindset to incorporate more flex time and flex hours.

Arnold discussed diversification in the workplace and bragged about the many women on his staff in positions of leadership and power – not because they are women but because they were the right person for the job and I think that’s great but the reality was not addressed. Momsrising.org has all the sad statistics about maternal profiling – I wanted to hear that phrase maternal profiling and I did not.

Roberts asked them – as philanthropists, successful business people and entrepreneurs  -  for practical advice for us, about how to be successful.  Sheila Bair talked about being yourself and using your gifts.   Branson’s advice: “if you’re running a company – make it fun – have a laugh”.  Arnold said “Be willing to fail” and brought up a bunch of his movies that bombed – like Jingle All The Way – and got a lot of laughs but then I was pleased to hear him give specific practical advice which he did discussing how  Green Technology is booming in California and there is money to made there.  He also talked about being courageous.  Branson told another story about giving seed money to a woman in a third world country – can’t remember which one – and how he loaned her $300 for a sewing machine to start a business.   She succeeded and paid him back and hired other women.  It was a very inspirational story.

The issues of self-worth and self-esteem came up next with the awesome Cheryl Saban who is the author and founder of The Women’s Self-Worth Foundation Cheryl Saban, Author and Founder, The Women’s Self Worth Foundation who came on to speak and introduce Eve Ensler.  I loved how she spoke about our cultural mores and how they shape us.  Again, it brought to my mind Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  She spoke and wrote about the same issues over a hundred and fifty years ago and I wish SOMEONE would bring up her groundbreaking The Women’s Bible, in which Stanton accuses religion of keeping women down and describes the Bible  as an historical rather than sacred document.  Talk about courage….

And then came Even Ensler, playwright (The Vagina Monologues), and V-Day Founder  Eve Ensler, Playwright, Performer, V-Day Founder who BLEW THE ROOM AWAY!!!!! “These are dangerous times…” she said and went on:  “We are on the precipice, we need to feed the earth, liberate girls and women”.  She has spent the last twelve years covering the planet and has seen it all.  She talked about pleasing – how we like to please – “the act of pleasing makes everything murky – OK -  rather than real”.   The audience really responded to that.  “Here are some new verbs” she said;  “provoke, question, challenge, dare, engage” and I of course immediately think about my gals – Woodhull, Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Frances Wright (trailblazing reformer and first woman in America to speak in public that no one ever heard of), Eleanor Roosevelt – all called the most dangerous women in America.

They all did provoke, question, challenge, dare, engage and suffered so much – public abuse – familial rejection – all of it.  These courageous trailblazing women  lived exactly the way Eve Ensler was describing.  She has a new book called I Am An Emotional Creature, The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World and went on to say how she had witnessed terrible realities – rape, mutilation, date rapes – and once again came the statistics; one out of three of our American female soldiers are raped – staggering statistics.

She then told an amazing story of a fourteen year old Kenyan girl who knew her sister was mutilated (female circumcision), and knew she would be next and overheard her father discussing with her future husband how she was going to be sold for a cow.  So she ran away.  She walked for two days to a safe house that Eve Ensler’s organization had established and Eve Ensler went with this girl back to her home for a reconciliation and witnessed how, as she said “this fourteen year old girl walked in to that house and was ‘so fierce’ and got her father to change and her family cried and the father promised he would not cut her or her sisters.  Talk about empowerment…..

Ensler’s message; take charge, be braver, be bolder, stand up, resist, along with the message to honor yourself, your femaleness.  She had all these fabulous lines like “terrorists are made, not born” and “one kiss can change your decision making process”…and “you don’t tell the Atlantic Ocean how to behave”.

Then she performed.   A new piece.   From her book I Am An Emotional Creature, The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World.   She stepped out from behind the podium and the light changed – it was theatrical which I love – and the audience just ate her up.  She ended by proclaiming -  at the top of her voice – so so so passionate “I LOVE LOVE LOVE BEING A GIRL!!!  She absolutely brought the house down!!!!!

A very emotional and heartbreaking speaker came on next. SOMALY MAM Somaly Mam, Founder, AFESIP, President, The Somaly Mam Foundation a survivor of Cambodian brothels.

Her life’s work is helping victims – teenage girls who have been forced into prostitution.  Married with three children, her story was heartbreaking, saying in her halting broken English, “I need mother…no one loved me.”  What a brave and beautiful woman who left with the message “don’t be scared to help the people”.

Katie Couric interviewed Annie Liebowitz  – Annie Leibovitz, Photographer the famed Vanity Fair photojournalist, known for her celebrity photographs.   Katie looked great in a red dress and red heels. They are friends as Annie had photographed Katie years ago.  So the first thing Katie addressed was Liebowitz’s financial woes.  She is being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars and as Vanity Fair’s editor Graydon Carter said  “The mind that can take these extraordinary pictures is not necessarily the same mind that is a perfect money manager.”

Liebowitz could not discuss any specifics due to an ongoing legal battle but I loved this because she answered that she, like many women, did not pay attention to her finances. She just focused on her work and as she put it “left it in other’s hands”.   How many of us can relate?  It was a fabulous interview. Liebowitz, who is the mother of three, is very entertaining, very interesting and is a great storyteller – very human, very personal.   Her photos were put up on a big screen and she discussed them.  There were many of celebrities and many of death from her controversial book “A Photographer’s Life” – including photos of her father (whose death she said was ‘a good death as he died at home, in his bed’ but I had to look way – it was too painful for me.

Her dad would have been horrified, she said  if he were alive to know of her current financial situation as he was always worried about her.   She also had photographed her partner, author and activist Susan Sontag.  She was very honest discussing her photos.  There were photos (and stories)  of Queen Elizabeth, and politicians;  Jimmy Carter, Clinton, Gore, Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, Madeline Albright (who was on a later panel), Sandra Day O’Connor – the first woman elected to the Supreme Court and Ruth Ginsberg – the second woman elected to The Supreme Court and Katie mentioned Sotomayor who Liebowitz had not photographed – yet.  Beautiful photos of the Kennedy’s and Hillary of course, and Colin Powell and The Obamas. Katie tried to get her to gossip but she wouldn’t, saying ”I still have years ahead of me to work”.  The last photo we saw was of Maria and Arnold.

The next panel was fantastic!   How A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything hosted by Meet The Press Moderator David Gregory.  Loved the panel which consisted of the First Female Secretary of State Madeline Albright, (mother and grandmother), single mom Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Senior Advisor, Claire Shipman, ABC’s Senior Correspondent Good Morning America and co-author of Womenomics and Amy Holmes, conservative political analyst  and the only unmarried non-mother panelist.

An unbelievable clip was shown from a 1972 Meet the Press with moderator Lawrence Spivak asking Gloria Steinem the most ridiculous questions about women’s roles in response to her statement about women not being taken seriously, being undervalued, ridiculed, ignored by society, etcetera.  So Spivak makes the statement that white men are virtually controlled by women from birth through puberty and beyond that.  “Why hadn’t you done a better job, if you’re as smart as you say you are “?  So now you can hear the audience of the conference laughing in disbelief in the background watching this clip and Steinem responds by saying “well that is your statement, not mine that women are virtually controlled by men” and goes on spelling out for the poor guy how “she has no real power over her life outside of her home, no power over the politics or economics of her life so I wouldn’t accept the premise of that statement”.

Then Spivak asks her   “Can’t she brainwash the male?  Why doesn’t she do it?” More laughter in the background and again Steinem explains to the poor guy how it’s not about brainwashing but changing – “eliminating the sex and race stereotypes of how women are taught and trained to invest their hopes and dreams in their male children and how their female children are not expected to meet those expectations and so on”.   She was and always is so articulate and intelligent and poised.  I love her so much. Don’t we all?

After the clip, Gregory asks Albright what has changed and would that question be asked today and she says “well I think it has finally been recognized that more than half the population is made up of women” and goes on commenting about the status of women and how women should be politically and economically empowered”.  These were Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s exact sentiments at the very first Women’s Conference at Seneca Falls in 1848!!!   Albright then went on to say “And if that question were to be asked today I think the answer would begin with the letter F.”  Lotsa laughter and applause then.

Albright was brilliant, citing her own trailblazing journey as a journalist, always taking a backseat to her husband and later brought up how much she was criticized – by OTHER MOTHERS for being ambitious and opened up the whole ridiculous mommy wars issue.  I loved it when she said “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other”.  Major applause there too. She spoke about how when she graduated Wellesley in 1959, they were told it was their responsibility to raise smart children (not to pursue a career or use their education).  She went on discussing how business needs to offer daycare etcetera – and hey!  My gals ALL said the same thing – Stanton, Frances Wright – Victoria Woodhull – gosh we are still talking about the same issues!!!   It was a terrific panel addressing infrastructure and support systems and of course balancing motherhood with career, which is what I think a lot of the conference was about.  I loved how Shipman said she sees a “feminization of values”.  The takeaway was “choice” and partnership”.

First Lady Maria Shriver introduces a Once-in-a-Lifetime Conversation: Grief, Healing and Resilience

Finally, the last session of the day was Once-in-a-Lifetime Conversation: Grief, Healing and Resilience with opening remarks by Katie Couric followed by Maria Shriver who then hosted the panel with Susan St. James, who lost her son five years ago; Elizabeth Edwards who lost HER son thirteen years ago and Lisa Niemi, Patrick Swayze’s wife who stepped in for Kelly Preston whose recent loss of her son Jett proved to difficult for her to attend.

I had planned to be at The Conference.  LA Parent Magazine asked me to blog for them as did Air America’s Nicole Sandler, my friend, a single working motherless mom who at the tender age of nineteen lost her own mother thirty Octobers ago.  There are so many of us that needed this panel. I did not attend because I just lost my mother on October 18^th.

Couric talked about her life and loss of her husband and sister.  Then Shriver spoke so movingly and emotionally, and honestly about her mother’s (Eunice Shriver passed on August 15^th) death and the death of her Uncle (Ted Kennedy) who died a few weeks later.  It was very personal.

When all the women came together it was so very powerful, and healing, and helpful and resonated so much with everyone.  Loss is sadly, so universal.

A recurring theme of the conference was about being your own advocate (Amy Holmes’ line) and listening to your own voice.  I grew up hearing my mother say “you can be anything you want, just be the best you can be at whatever you choose”.   I remember my Aunt Pearl, my mother’s older sister – a thoroughly modern woman, telling me about my mom.  She said, “she would have made a great man”.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

This Margaret Mead quote was spoken a few times during the conference.  How appropriate.

I wish this conference could have streamed live on monitors placed in every Girls Room and Ladies Room in America but it was only available to watch on a computer.  The good news…you can still see it.  Just click here http://www.californiawomen.org/.

So yes. I feel empowered, inspired, comforted, supported and excited.  About being a woman.  In this, a woman’s nation.  Great job Maria.  All the gals would be proud of you.  From Mary Wollstonecraft to Anne Hutchinson, to Frances Wright to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Victoria Woodhull to all the Margarets;  Fuller, Sanger, Meade, Mitchell, Chase, to Eleanor Roosevelt.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  We HAVE come a long way baby and we have a long way yet to go.

But – as Claire Shipman so aptly put it, with “a feminization of values” coming, I am hopeful we will get there.

The PEN American Center hosted a night with writers – Ishmael Beah, Eve Ensler, Don DeLillo – reading correspondence from Gitmo detainees. Here’s Jonathan Ames. It’s pretty chilling to hear, and Ames’ leisurely cadence renders the letter’s most frequently used word – “Censored” – strangely normal.

(Via The Rumpus)

Eve Ensler, playwright and founder of V-Day, was named one of America’s Best Leaders in 2009 by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School and U.S. News Media Group.  The full list is available on-line and will be published in U.S. News & World Report which will be available on Tuesday, October, 27.

Ms. Ensler’s extraordinary leadership during 2009 includes getting California’s Governator Schwarzennegger to back down on shuttering domestic violence shelters.  The V-Day protest scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled because the Governator signed legislation which will provide $16.3 million to keep the shelters open.  Bravo to everyone who answered Ms. Ensler’s V-Day call to action!

Congratulations, Eve!  Well deserved!  Bravo!

Here’s the article by Alex Kingsbury about Ms. Ensler’s award which will be published by U.S. News & World Report:

Eve Ensler: Vagina Monologues Playwright Tackles Violence Against Women

Through her words and deeds, she earned a spot as one of America’s Best Leaders

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Sarah Palin has many faces: hockey mom, fundamentalist Christian, sex symbol, Republican ideologue, fashion icon, “maverick” populist. But, above all, Palin has become one thing: an American obsession that just won’t go away. Edited by two senior editors at The Nation magazine, this sharp, smart, up-to-the-minute book examines Palin’s quirky origins in Wasilla, Alaska, her spectacular rise to the effective leadership of the Republican Party, and the nightmarish prospect of her continuing to dominate the nation’s political scene.

With contributions by: Max Blumenthal, Joe Conason, Eve Ensler, Michelle Goldberg, Jane Hamsher, Christopher Hayes, Jim Hightower, Linda Hirshman, Naomi Klein, Dahlia Lithwick, Amanda Marcotte, Shannyn Moore, John Nichols, Katha Pollitt, Hanna Rosin, Matt Taibbi, Michael Tomasky, Rebecca Traister, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jessica Valenti, Patricia Williams, JoAnn Wypijewski and Gary Younge.

Publication: November 17th, 2009
Price: $16 paperback; $10 e-book
240 pages with 20 b/w illustrations

Maria Shriver was on the Today Show this morning promoting the Shriver Report about the changing role of women in America.  It is hard to reconcile how this feminist First Lady can keep silent while her Governator husband Arnold Schwarzenegger is closing domestic violence shelters in California.  Eve Ensler took him to school in the Huffington Post.

In response, California State Senator Leland Yee introduced a bill which was unanimously passed to restore $16.3 million of the $20.4 million budget for domestic violence shelters in the state.  The bill is awaiting Gov. Schwarzenegger’s signature.

Eve Ensler is asking everyone to call the governor at 916-445-2841 to ask him to sign this bill.

If he fails to do so, a protest will be held on Friday, October 23 at LA City Hall.  Eve Ensler plans to be there.

Pilot Program:  Pro Bono Legal Services for DV Survivors

Barbara Bentley, author of A Dance with the Devil:  A True Story of Marriage to a Psychopath, tipped me off this morning to an article in the Los Angeles Times:  “California Gives the Poor a New Legal Right” by Carol J. Williams.  This very well-researched article cites a myriad of examples of how the legal system can be manipulated as an instrument of abuse.  In a nutshell, California will be conducting a pilot program of granting the same right to counsel in civil cases that criminals get under the U.S. Constitution:

The program is the first in the nation to recognize a right to representation in key civil cases and provide it for people fighting eviction, loss of child custody, domestic abuse or neglect of the elderly or disabled.

. . .levels the legal playing field and gives underprivileged litigants a better shot at attaining justice against unscrupulous landlords, abusive spouses, predatory lenders and other foes.

Wow!

This is great news for people in California who are experiencing litigation abuse.  I hope it will be successful and will be replicated in other states.

Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler  author, activist, and playwright of the Vagina Monologues, creator of V-day and tireless advocate of women of the Congo raped in war, will speak at the press conference for Military Rape Awareness Week at the Times Square military recruiting station, Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 10:30am.

Eve created a special monologue for women raped in the military for the Vagina Monologues presented in Austin, Texas, in February, 2008.

For more information on Military Rape Awareness Week, view our Events page, or visit the Veterans for Peace web site by clicking here.

I love that I have a best friend who helps women write their stories – stories of abuse, stories of ridicule, stories of physical strength, stories that heal – every year and produces them on V-Day.

I love being able to call a friend and say, “Help me find a place to stay in SF!” and she finds me not one but 8 places to stay! And when I ask coyly, “Now how about a date…” she comes up with that, too.

I love having a Roller Derby queen for a friend who went with me to get my tattoo and talked to the woman tattoo artist the entire time while I concentrated on my breathing. And I love that I can call this same woman and ask her for a bikini waxing reference.

I love having a friend in Ohio who I’ve never met who writes me long emails about her and me and our kids and our exes and our spiritual paths and our heart longing. She reminds me of the scene in “Julie and Julia” when Julia and Simone are at the train station in Boston awaiting pick up from Julia’s best friend and Julia admits they’ve never met – just been long, fast pen pals. And that’s all that really matters.

I love knowing B. out in LA who meets with Major Media Moguls but does so with complete humble goodness and a vision for how we can use media to make the lives of women and girls better.

I love having a friend just down the block who is more than willing to come over with a  mirror and speculum to check me out if need be. And that I could call this same Kick Ass Gyrl when another friend was having domestic violence issues.

I love having another friend down my block who can lend me frocks and lace and lipstick and pour through Anthropolgie catalogues with me and tread in the world of all things lovely. And it somehow pleases me all the more that her partner is a she and that gender politics work in such deliriously unexpected, sweet ways.

I love my friend K. and her Q. and her amulet of Love and her Faith.

I love my friend C. and our Power Circle of Divorcing Mamadom — you take my kids today; I’ll take yours tomorrow. You cry on my shoulder today; I’ll cry on yours tomorrow. So looking forward to the burn…

I love knowing that capes WILL be made – thanks to the enthusiasm of S. and M. and others who will be coming into our circle – I feel your movement and the swish swish of yards of red material!

I love that I have therapist friends – so many of them – who are helping women live their dreams every day and dig down deep into themselves for strength.

I love the opportunity to be part of dreams and planning via a group of international women, starting today!

I love that my dear old friend in Brooklyn is nursing her baby this morning and still getting the hang of the baby thing, and that when I told her that if she “just got through the first 8 weeks,” she’d be fine, she moaned in utter exasperation:  EIGHT WEEKS?!

I love that my new friend J. in LA is seeing auras and becoming curious about the world beyond.

I love my friend E. who is traveling with her dear dear partner, husband, and lover S. as he sips in these last beautiful fall days of his life. (I do, however, completely, utterly loathe cancer for taking him.)

I love my daughter, who at eight, is discovering personhood and womanhood in her tiny, yet ever-expanding orbit.

I love my friends who are midwives and doulas, who crouch and instruct and massage and breathe and catch the babies and believe in the  mamas and bring LIFE forth!

I love the yogis in my life who practice with me and open their bodies and spirits again and again to the joyful play that has helped me become a grown up like few other practices in my life. Thank you for Tuesday heart opening with R. and E. and the talk that extends afterward, talks that started back in junior high when we first met.

I love me and my goddess self and her fearless depths, even in the face of financial stipulations and tax returns and lost library books. She who is limitless in love.  She who has been here all along and will see me through.

If you have twenty minutes and need to dive more deeply into the goddess power, watch Eve Ensler’s TED talk. I’ve watched it so many times and am still riveted.

Mackenzie Phillips

Young girls and women who experience incest, sexual molestation, and sexual harassment carry scars that never, ever quite heal.  We tell ourselves that the sex was consensual because we can’t bear to say out loud that we were raped. . .often by someone we admired and respected. . .until he stole our innocence.  On CNN, therapist Debra Laino described the damage:

Their sexual selves are damaged.  Their emotional selves are damaged, because “who do I trust?”  My father did this.  My mother did this.  Who can I trust if I can’t trust my family?

By definition, incest, sexual molestation, and sexual harassment are not consensual.  There is no real choice.  Someone who has power and control over our destiny compels us to become docile and submissive or face the consequences.

The sad trajectory of Mackenzie Phillips’ life post-incest with her father John Phillips is typical.  Eve Ensler in a Huffington Post article about Roman Polanski on September 30 observed:

. . .rape is a legal crime and a crime against the soul.  As a survivor, I can attest to the fact that rape forever changes your life, robbing you of dignity, self-worth, agency over your body, and comfortability with intimacy and trust, while also escalating a pervasive sense of isolation and shame.

After 11 years of traveling the world and meeting with rape survivors across the planet I can say that the long-term consequences are multiple and far-reaching, ranging from homelessness, drug abuse, and eating disorders, to imprisonment, suicide, and early death.

I am as incensed as Ms. Ensler that entertainment celebrities appear to be able to abuse the power of their positions to rape women and girls with impunity.

I was appalled last night to hear the audience at David Letterman’s show laugh and clap as he announced that he had sexually harassed women on his staff.  I’m sure there are details to this story that would stop those audience members cold if the object of his illegal behavior had been their beloved daughters.

Letterman and Birkitt

Stephanie Birkitt, Letterman’s long-time assistant, for example, has come forward about her relationship with him.  She was also involved with Robert “Joe” Halderman, a 48 Hours (CBS) producer.  Ms. Birkitt is 34.  Letterman is 62.  Halderman is 51.

Dave Letterman, some reports allege, is paying for her law school education.  They claim their relationship ended in 2003 before Letterman’s marriage.  Ms. Birkitt’s relationship with Halderman is also over.  What I’d like to know is how and why he came into possession of her diaries, correspondence, and photographs from a relationship that ended at least six years ago when Ms. Birkitt was 28 and Letterman was 56?

Letterman and his attorney have engaged in brilliant damage control.  Yet, the fact that they met with Halderman three times and Letterman characterized his own conduct as “creepy” tell me that perhaps that Halderman ~ in his own misguided way ~ was seeking back-door damages for a young woman so traumatized that she is unable to maintain healthy relationships.  With the way Letterman’s team has spun this news, I can imagine how his legal team would have ground Ms. Birkitt’s career to dust if she dared file a claim for sexual harassment.

Letterman is playing the role of the “menaced” victim seeking to protect his family and his job.  Right.  The real victim in this sad case is Ms. Birkitt and the other women on Letterman’s Worldwide Pants payroll.  I think it is very interesting that the illegal behavior of sexual harassment is not against company policy.

And, then, we have creepy Roman Polanski.  He admitted drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl in 1977.  Because he’s a highly successful movie mogul, he evaded prison time by fleeing to France the night before he was to be sentenced.  His creepy buddies like Woodie Allen are protesting that we should give the old man a break.  Paul Petersen opined that many of Hollywood’s elite are afraid to speak out against Polanski because:

They are afraid of the Hollywood power structure that is tilted distinctly to the left and plays favorites.

Polanski also appears to have evaded paying a $500,000 settlement to Samantha Geimer, the young woman who says Polanski gave her champagne and quaaludes during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson’s Hollywood Hills home.

BJ at FreeUSNow thinks it is time for a boycott.  I agree.  The misogyny that is rampant in the entertainment industry isn’t going to stop until it bites the wallets of these creepy bastards.

Evening with Sussan Deyhim @ Le Poisson Rouge

Doors were supposed to open  @ 11 and the show was to start at 1130, but for some reason, they opened doors at 12 the concert starting just 10 minutes after. Which was good for me – I was right on time, meeting my role-model for the second time  for more music and a couple of drinks

An Evening with Sussan Deyhim w/ Richard Horowitz, Karsh Kale, Alan Kushan, Hernan Romero (acoustic guitar), Eve Ensler, DJ Payam, special guests , Babak Khiavchi , Hassan Hakmoun and Salman Ahmad. Well that was something! Sussan Deyhim has the most expressive voice, it was incredible. Great musicians, and very touching music. But the night involved a lot of guest artists giving long political talks about Iran (in the middle of the concert), which kind of killed the energy of the show itself.  Playwright and women’s rights activist Eve Ensler’s  (apparently the author of the Vagina monologues as well) performance was quite interesting, though.  Never seen that kind of thing actually.

Eve Ensler guest performance

Another interesting part of the night was when a Iranian indie-rock band took the stage as guest artists. Sounded like Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave at times Was cool to see how Sussan joined them for one of their songs. Sussan seems to be able to sing anything, she’s so expressive it gave me the creeps at times. It made me think that there seems to be so much less real passion in most Western music. I’m glad I heard that show. Was definitely very different from the regular stuff that I’ve been seeing.

Iranian indie rock

Looking cool with those glasses

Check out my article about Hillary’s trip to eastern Congo below, or read it at Women’s eNews here.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, women’s rights and safety activists in Congo and Uganda reflect on the hope she leaves behind in one of the world’s worst rape zones.

KAMPALA, Uganda (WOMENSENEWS)–Sarah Assimwe, 13, is far from her family’s former home in Bunia, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Now she lives here in Kampala with her mother, as members of the city’s urban refugee population.

Assimwe is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s been seven years since she crossed the Congolese border, but memories of her father’s death often cross her mind in painful flashbacks.

“The memories come three times a day,” she said, at Butabika Hospital, a mental-health facility here supported by the World Bank and the Ugandan Ministry of Health. “They frighten me very much.”

When Assimwe was 6, Congolese rebels attacked her family’s neighborhood in Bunia and burned houses there to the ground. When rebels entered her own home, Assimwe watched them kill her father and brother with machetes and rape her mother before going on to slaughter her neighbors.

Assimwe’s mother, Jacqueline Kabonesa, carried her daughter on her back as they fled to Uganda, which borders eastern Congo.

Assimwe may not have known about U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to her native country.

But the kinds of suffering she has endured have a lot to do with Clinton’s August 11 mission to Goma, a city in the eastern Congo at the epicenter of a massive epidemic of rape. The sexual violence that Assimwe’s mother once endured there is suffered by hundreds of women and men on a daily basis.

More than 4,000 rapes have been reported in the eastern Congo this year; few assailants, usually soldiers or members of militias, have been convicted.

U.S. Funding for Rape Survivors

As widely reported, Clinton on August 10 announced $17 million in new U.S. funding to train doctors; supply rape survivors with mobile phones and cameras to document violence, and train a special female police force to protect women in the eastern Congo.

The United States has a potentially larger role to play in the Congo’s peace and reconciliation process by providing foreign aid and regulating U.S. mining companies accused of working with rebel groups. It also can continue to finance Uganda’s military operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army now based in eastern Congo.

“I feel that Hillary’s trip to the Congo was a turning point,” Eve Ensler, the playwright and political organizer, said in a phone interview with Women’s eNews. “I think it’s fantastic that a Secretary of State said that rape as a strategy, as a weapon of war, is a central issue. I think that’s historical.”

In Goma, part of an 11-day tour of seven African countries, Clinton visited a hospital and had a private meeting with two rape victims.

One woman told Clinton about being raped when she was eight-months pregnant, the Washington Post reported. Then she miscarried. There was no hospital nearby, she said, so people in her village cut out the fetus with a razor blade.

“The United States condemns these attacks, and all those who commit them and abet them,” Clinton said in a roundtable with activists in Goma, according to the Secretary of State’s Web site.

V-Day Leads U.S. Activism

A growing movement of U.S. activists, spearheaded by Ensler’s anti-violence organization, V-Day, have been working with counterparts in the Congo and in the United States to end the rape and sexual violence that women in eastern Congo endure.

This week, V-Day launched construction in eastern Congo of what Ensler calls the City of Joy. It will be a leadership and development center, as well as a source of refuge for women survivors of rape and torture. The City of Joy will provide the survivors with educational and income-generating opportunities, activism training and leadership skills.

“It will support Congolese women who have suffered atrocities to become the future leaders,” Ensler said.

During her visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Clinton had a testy exchange with a male Congolese student at a forum in Kinshasa.

The student’s question went through a translator and that has since raised the possibility of misinterpretation. But the student was represented as asking the Secretary of State what “Mr. Clinton” thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?” Clinton said, according to widespread news accounts. “My husband is not Secretary of State, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

While the international press focused on Clinton’s retort, it was largely ignored in Uganda.

When asked about the incident, May Sengendo, a professor at Kampala-based Makerere University’s Women and Gender Studies Department, said Clinton had her sympathy. Sengendo said the student’s question reminded her of how the Ugandan first lady, Janet Museveni, has had a hard time moving out of her husband’s shadow, despite her own professional accomplishments.

‘Her Own Identity’

“I think Clinton was very brave and professional to say that’s my husband, and to distinguish her role as Secretary of State,” said Sengendo. “She has her own identity.”

Sengendo was particularly stunned that the student asked the question during a forum that focused on Congolese women. “Congolese culture is very patriarchal; it’s the Secretary of State, but to the student, this was still a woman. This represents power relations, not only in Congo, but everywhere.”

Uganda’s December military operation last year against the Lord’s Resistance Army has been criticized for making life in the Congo worse, since it triggered reprisal attacks on citizens, including abductions of children and women as soldiers and sex slaves.

“They always regard girls as sex slaves, tools of war, and fighters,” said Felix M. Kulayigye, spokesman for the Ugandan People’s Defence Force, in an exclusive interview with Women’s eNews, referring to the rebel group.

Since December, Kulayigye has defended the U.S.-funded Ugandan mission to the Congo as a necessary attack on a rebel army that was regrouping and had refused to sign onto the latest round of peace agreements.

“Unfortunately, sexual violence has become a weapon of war and when matters or conflicts go ethnic, sexual violence is used to dehumanize the adversary,” he said.

Resolve Uganda, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group points out that while she talked about the sexual assaults by the region’s roving groups of armed men, Clinton did not mention the violence that the Lord’s Resistance Army has inflicted on eastern Congo in recent months. Resolve Uganda says rebel forces have killed at least 1,200 Congolese civilians since September 2008, abducted over 500 children and displaced 321,000 civilians from their homes.

“We were disappointed that Secretary Clinton failed to mention LRA violence in northeastern Congo during her recent trip to the region,” said Paul Ronan, senior policy analyst and co-founder of Resolve Uganda, “especially given that she emphasized the need to address sexual violence.”

Rebecca Harshbarger is a journalist based in Kampala, Uganda.

Women’s eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.

For more information:

Resolve Uganda
http://www.resolveuganda.org/

Note: Women’s eNews is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites and the contents of Web pages we link to may change without notice.