Women and Social Change

The Vagina Monologues At Arizona State and

The V-Day Initiative

V-Day initiatives contributers and organizers, The Vagina Monologue's performers and producers, Rachel Dixon the Producer of the Vagina Monologues on ASU's Campus.

For the V-Day initiative contact: Vday.org, Vday.org/camaigns, events.vday.org.

For The Vagina Monologues on ASU's Campus contact: http://www.asu.edu/clubs/vday/history.html

To buy tickets for the upcoming Vagina Monologue's at ASU:

http://www.asu.edu/clubs/vday/tickets.html

ASU Gamage Hall (location of Play's Spring Performance):

1200 South Forest Avenue

Tempe, AZ 85281

(480) 965-5062

Directions: 202 E to Scottsdale rd, N to University,

E to Mill Avenue, Gammage is between Mill and 10^th street.

The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Initiative

In the late 1990's, Eve Ensler created, published, and performed the Vagina Monologues. From a series of interviews from women on the subject of their bodies and the experience of violence, book turned play write, The Vagina Monologues became a phenomenon with hundreds of theatrical replica performances done around college campuses and theaters nationwide. The play's agenda is based on Eve Ensler and her team's initiative that “bad things are happening to women's vaginas everywhere: 500,000 women are raped every year in the United States; 100 million women have been genitally mutilated worldwide; and the list goes on” (Bahun-Radunović, 120). Throughout the book, Eve Ensler talks about everything from puberty to elderly sexual experience and puts the words of women into an idolized script. From her personal experience with battering and rape, as well as her grassroots and feminist activism, Eve Ensler developed the V-day initiative. It is part of a transformation movement that is supported by drama and every year around the world communities join the project.

V-Day is a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. The movement stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes. Other performances from college campuses alone include, The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, Any One Of Us: Words From Prison, screenings of V-Day's documentary Until The Violence Stops, What I Want My Words To Do To You, as well as Spotlight Teach-Ins and V-Men workshops. V-Day serves as a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day was instrumental in the founding of Karama, a program working in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon that works to build upon and strengthen efforts to end violence against women by bringing together local women's organizations and other civil society groups in collaboration, analysis and advocacy at national, regional and international levels. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation, and sex slavery (V-Day, online). In 2010 alone, over 5,400 V-Day benefit events took place that were produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls.

At the Arizona State campus, The Vagina Monologues has been performed and produced annually for the past eleven years. Rachel Dixon, the 2010 organizer and producer gave her own personal insight on the fight to end violence against women with my partner Gus, and I. When Rachel was asked what people can do to support the Vagina Monologues she ecstatically replied, “See the Play!”. This in turn supports the V-Day initiative which can be further supported by getting involved yourself by organizing an event, going to an event, sharing the V-day initiative with others and theatrical performances. The V-day website shows you how to do all of these things, as well as “becoming a V-Girl” and donating to the incredibly powerful cause.

Works Cited:

Bahun-Radunović, Sanja. "When Theatre Becomes a Crusade Against Violence: The Case of V-Day." Violence and Gender in the Globalized World. Ashgate, 2008. 118-30. Google Books. Apr. 2009. Web. Fall 2010. <http://books.google.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/books?id=nFZINl1SamwC&dq=V-Day+Initiative+Vagina+Monologues&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s>.

 V-Day. "V-Day | V-Day: A Global Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls Worldwide." Home | V-Day: A Global Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls Worldwide. Sept.-Oct. 2000. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. <http://www.vday.org/about/more-about>.