14/02/2013
Time to rise! Time to dance!
Then once we've risen and danced time for the next project!!!
For now I give you some very wise words from Eve Ensler:
'We are rising because we are over some powerful men pretending this deep love of fetuses or babies and life when really it's a guise for their terror of our sexuality and power. If you cared so much about life you would ever consider letting a woman die rather than performing an abortion, you would ask the life givers, the women themselves what they need and want and you would honour their decisions and trust their decisions and believe that they were thought out carefully with depth because that's how women are and you would maybe even worship their vaginas, you would cherish the word vagina and you would know that there was nothing dirty or disgusting about the place where all life comes from.'
http://youtu.be/dFg1NWmSpKQ
Rosario Dawson on why she will be rising:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSXBXdUqL5c
2012 National NOW Conference
'The story of a woman named Jeanne who was raped terribly during the war being fought over minerals, a war fought through the use of women's bodies, fought over Coltane; (the mineral which goes into making our mobile phones, play stations and computers - is taken out of the ground by militia, who go into villages, go into peoples' homes. They rape their children, they get fathers to rape their daughters, sons to rape their mothers, they desecrate family structures, the family flees and the militia take over the town and the mines) Jeanne had already been through a terrible ordeal and lived in a village where this has happened and when she was repaired she went home she got re-raped and she was tied to a tree for two months and she was raped every single day by groups of soldiers. When she arrived back at hospital her body was destroyed, almost completely destroyed, she had nine operations, she is still not repaired. Even Ensler wishes she could tell us this was an abnormal story but in the Congo it is not even an unusual story. Her current strength epitomises the spirit of women around the world who have been battered, who have been raped, who have been undone, who have been criticized, who have been neglected, who have been made to feel like no-one - it is their ability to rise up and return and redirect the world in an entirely different direction.
We haven't yet ended or deconstructed patriarchy, we remain constantly at risk of having our victories reversed, we have not yet been freed nor freed ourselves from the social system in which the male acts as the primary authority figure determining social organisation and where the father maintains authority over women and children. Essentially we still live in a world where men rule and have privilege and women have less and are subordinate and of course violence, coercion, intimidation and terror and the tactics and methology that keep this privilege and authority in place.
One in three women will be beaten or raped in her lifetime - that's one billion plus - a UN statistic.
The violence impacts us in so many ways visible and invisible, it destroys our bodies, our self esteem and our souls, it obliterates confidence and limits our dreams. It's a term that determines how far we can travel and who we can become, so now we must go further and we must go the distance, we must unravel patriarchy and domination and violence once and for all, we must escalate the stakes, push the edges and we must MISBEHAVE.
V-day = dance, rise, strike
NOT RANTING BUT EXPANDING!
The future of the earth is at stake.
The future of the body of the earth and the bodies of women are one and the same.
·
We
are rising to tell religious leaders and governments that the time has come to
direct their energies to feeding, healing, housing the people rather than
obsessing about our vaginas.
·
We
are rising so the marjinalized majorities step into equality, voice and power.
·
We
are rising because we are over the over regulation of women’s health clinics
and women’s bodies and vaginas.
·
We
are rising because we are over brilliant, passionate remarks by women being
called tantrums and outspoken women being called crazy, slut, inappropriate,
and lacking decorum simply because they disagree.
·
We
are over rape culture, rape mentality and rape joks.
·
We
are rising because we are over people not understanding that rape is not a
joke.
·
Over
being told we don’t have a sense of humour when most of the women I know are
really fucking funny.
·
Just
don’t think an uninvited penis up our anus or vagina is a laugh riot.
·
One
in three us military being raped by so-called comrades
·
Are
rising so women can stop being silent about rape because they are made to feel
it is their fault or they did something to make it happen – or it’s really not
that bad!
·
We
are rising so that the violence against women act be finally past, done once
and for all.
·
The
destruction and muting and determining of women is the destruction of life
itself NO WOMEN-NO LIFE-DONE
- · We are rising because we are over some powerful men pretending this deep love of fetuses or babies and life when really it's a guise for their terror of our sexuality and power. If you cared so much about life you would ever consider letting a woman die rather than performing an abortion, you would ask the life givers, the women themselves what they need and want and you would honour their decisions and trust their decisions and believe that they were thought out carefully with depth because that's how women are and you would maybe even worship their vaginas, you would cherish the word vagina and you would know that there was nothing dirty or disgusting about the place where all life comes from.
- · We are rising because we are over people talking about the weight of our bodies rather than the weight of our ideas
- · We are rising and we are calling the good men to rise with us. There are plenty of good men, you live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation and censoring of us?
