Eve Ensler: Embrace your inner girl

I received the link to this talk by Eve Ensler from a Goddess list - thanks, Kathy! - and have to share it. Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, and many other works, talks about the girl cell. A grouping of cells in women as well as men, that we have all learned to suppress; that patriarchy has done its best to suppress and eradicate.

I want you to imagine that the girl is a chip in the huge macrocosm of our collective consciousness, and it is essential to balance, to wisdom and to, actually, the future of all of us.

And then I want you to imagine that this girl cell is compassion, and it's empathy, and it's passion itself, and it's vulnerability, and it's openness, and it's intensity, and it's association, and it's relationship, and it is intuitive.

And then, next thing, how compassion informs wisdom, and that vulnerability is our greatest strength, and that emotions have inherent logic which lead to radical appropriate saving action.

And then let's remember that we've been taught the exact opposite by the powers that be:

That compassion clouds your thinking. That it gets in the way.

That vulnerability is weakness.

That emotions are not to be trusted and you're not supposed to take things personally.

Which is one of my favourites.

I think the whole world has essentially been brought up not to be a girl. How do we bring up boys? What does it mean to be a boy?

To be a boy really means not to be a girl.

To be a man means not to be a girl.

To be a woman means not to be a girl.

To be strong means not to be a girl.

To be a leader means not to be a girl.

I actually think that being a girl is so powerful that we've had to train everyone not to be that.

[...]

[T]he verb that's been enforced on girl is the verb "to please." Girls are trained to please. I want to change the verb. I want us all to change the verb. I want the verb to be "educate" or "activate" or "engage" or "confront" or "defy" or "create." If we teach girls to change the verb we will actually enforce the girl inside us and the girl inside them.

Yes. Many of us have been raised, trained and educated to deny and suppress the girl inside. I spent decades trying to do just that; thinking that it was the right way to go about life. No-one ever taught me any other way. I literally tried to annihilate myself in the hope that I might fit in, never knowing that I'm not meant to fit it. I break stereotypes, I defy the norm, and trying to be anything or anyone else will only mean that I diminish myself and my glow. And I'm not better off for it, am I? Are you better off for denying your inner girls? It's time we embrace her, embrace our inner girls and be who we were born to be.

Let's stop pleasing, and instead create, defy, break down barriers and just be the glorious emotional beings that we are.

A Safe World for Women

In preparation of the centenary of the International Women's Day, The Women for A Change network has launched the 2011 campaign A Safe World for Women. The 99 years that have passed have seen great achievements and major progress, but there is still much left to be done.

In 1993 the UN adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women:

States should condemn violence against women and should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination. States should pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating violence against women

17 years later, 1 in 3 women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Why the silence?

Every year, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across borders. 80% are women and girls. Buying and selling women and girls is the fastest growing criminal industry and fast becoming more lucrative than the drugs trade - and just as corrupt. Why don't our governments do more?

Female genital mutilation/cutting affects an estimated 130 million women and girls. Each year 2 million more undergo the practice. Why no action?

Up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners. Why don't people talk about it?

The world spends 300,000 times more on weapons than the UN spends on eliminating violence against women. Why?

It's time to break the circle. It's time to demand that women are valued equally as human beings, rather than commodities.

Together we can make a difference. Together we can build the largest ever movement to abolish all forms of abuse against women & girls:

trafficking, slavery, forced prostitution, rape including marital rape, battering, domestic violence, dowry-related violence, female genital mutilation, sexual abuse and harassment; torture, psychological, physical and sexual violence perpetrated by the State.

A Safe World for Women is a safe world for all. Visit A Safe World for Women, see the video above, react and take action.