Eve Ensler Urges One Billion Rise for Global Day of Action to End Violence Against Women

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It’s not very British is it, asking people to get up and dance? And not just for a bop either,
but as part of a mass protest movement organised for next Valentine’s Day. But the
cause couldn’t be any more important – a call to end violence against women and girls.
Violence that affects 70% of women around the world, according to the UN.

It is perhaps no surprise that it took an American and an unusually global one at that,
to come up with this scheme. Eve Ensler, a writer and activist who founded a movement
with a play about the vagina and launched V-Day, an international day of action to end
violence against women, is aiming big. She wants to mark the day’s 15th anniversary in
2013 with a far larger project to get a billion of us to leave our homes, our workplaces,
whatever we are doing, and dance. Women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape
and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria, according
to the World Bank.

It sounds crazy doesn’t it, but watch this video on the onebillionrising.org launching today
to see how empowering the idea can be. As well as unions and charities and campaigners,
we have filmed celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Rosario Dawson and Ruby
Wax as well as inspirational role models including boxer Nicola Adams, politician Stella
Creasy and powerbroker Fatou Bensada to speak out against such injustice.

Of course naysayers will suggest it will change nothing, violence against the physically
weaker sex will continue. But surely creating a talking point, discussing the issue and
celebrating our own physical power is better than doing nothing.

Robert Redford: ‘This is not a women’s issue, it’s a global crisis’ Link to this video
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We at the Guardian want to ask others who are just as important to us – you – to
join the cause. Tell us why you will rise to end violence against women?
Have you or your loved ones experienced it firsthand and now you want to help
others? Are you worried about young girls and the pressures on them in today’s society?
Have you simply been moved by hearing the experiences and views of others?

Send us your video or clips, anything you want. A few people have already danced for
us, including the entire board of Domestic Workers union in the US. Others didn’t, but
we will forgive Fonda and Redford as their testimony is moving without movement.

We want you to record who you are and what you do and, most importantly, answer
the question, why are you rising? Why are you supporting V-Day and its One Billion
Rising Campaign? What aspect of violence against women are you fighting against?

Do you have a plan for next Valentine’s Day and what music will you dance to?
We ask you to keep the music out of the videos, although headphones are fine.

We aim to publish the best offerings on the 14th of each month leading up to
next February. Come and join in.

Eve’s hope is that if one billion people rise up and dance all at the same time,
the earth might move. Why do it? Surely the better question is, why not?