In 1994, a play called The Vagina Monologues, written by playwright and activist Eve Ensler, broke ground, offering to the world a piece of art like nothing it had seen before. Based on dozen of interviews Ensler conducted with women, the play addressed women's sexuality and the social stigma surrounding rape and abuse, creating a new conversation about and with women. The Vagina Monologues ran Off-Broadway for five years in New York and then toured the United States. After every performance, Ensler found women waiting to share their stories of survival, leading her to see that The Vagina Monologues could be more than a moving work of art on violence; she divined that the performances could be a mechanism for moving people to act to end violence. On Valentine's Day, 1998, Eve, with a group of women in New York City, established V-Day. Set up as a 501(c)(3) and originally staffed by volunteers, the organization's seed money came from a star-studded, sold out benefit performance at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, a show that raised $250,000 in a single evening. It demands that violence against women and girls must end. To do this, once a year, in February, March, and April, Eve allows groups around the world to produce a performance of the play, as well as other works created by V-Day, and use the proceeds for local individual projects and programs that work to end violence against women and girls, often shelters and rape crisis centers. What began as one event in New York City in 1998 today includes over 5,800 V-Day events annually. Performance is just the beginning. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women. V-Day is an organized response against violence toward women. V-Day is a vision: We see a world where women live safely and freely. V-Day is a demand: Rape, incest, battery, genital mutilation and sexual slavery must end now. V-Day is a spirit: We believe women should spend their lives creating and thriving rather than surviving or recovering from terrible atrocities. V-Day is a catalyst: By raising money and consciousness, it will unify and strengthen existing anti-violence efforts. Triggering far-reaching awareness, it will lay the groundwork for new educational, protective, and legislative endeavors throughout the world. V-Day is a process: We will work as long as it takes. We will not stop until the violence stops. V-Day is a day. We proclaim Valentine's Day as V-Day, to celebrate women and end the violence. V-Day is a fierce, wild, unstoppable movement and community. Our work is grounded in four core beliefs:
- Art has the power to transform thinking and inspire people to act
- Lasting social and cultural change is spread by ordinary people doing extraordinary things
- Local women best know what their communities need and can become unstoppable leaders
- One must look at the intersection of race, class, and gender to understand violence against women
