1 Billion Rising, Scotland
It takes guts, drive and determination to start a revolution. Fortunately Eve Ensler has enough for all of us. One Billion Rising is her brilliant idea and a revolution is exactly what she is trying to create. But it’s a revolution with a difference: no guns, no battles and definitely no violence. #1billionrising, #reasontorise @vday
Because One Billion Rising is about trying to end violence against women all round the world by persuading people to strike, dance and rise on 14 February. Why dance? Because “Dancing insists we take up space. It has no set direction but we go there together. It’s dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive. It breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere at anytime with anyone and everyone. It’s free. No corporation can control it. It joins us and pushes us to go further. It’s contagious and it spreads quickly. It’s of the body. It’s transcendent.”
Which is possibly all a little other worldly and discomfiting for Scots but it makes its point. Dancing is something we can all join in with, to make a physical expression of our demands for a different world, one in which women do not live daily with the threat of violence. Sexual, physical and emotional violence stalk women wherever they live in the world. It’s used as a weapon of war, it’s used as a weapon of oppression and of persecution, at every level in women’s lives.
The new Chief Constable for the Scottish police force, Stephen House has chosen domestic abuse as his number one target. He needs to. Despite years of campaigning, the number of women who continue to experience domestic abuse grows. Reported incidents to the police rose 7% last year and the worrying thing is that the age of the victims and perpetrators is getting younger. Women are most at risk of being abused between the ages of 22 and 25 years.
More women are being raped and sexually assaulted too and the figures on children being sexually abused are also up. We live in a culture and society where sex sells everything and anything, where sexualisation begins at a younger and younger age and where we are having to teach children how to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex.
And we live in a culture where justice is hard to come by. Ask Frances Andrade’s family just how hard.
It’s not just at home, women all over the world live in fear of sexual abuse and violence, as Eve Ensler’s powerful blog testifies.
But it’s not just women’s problem to solve. Men are part of the solution – it’s not enough for men to say that’s not me, I don’t do that and turn away and get on with life. Men must take a stand and demand change too. Which is why the work of the Violence Reduction Unit in rolling out its Mentors in Violence programme is so important. It works with young people encouraging them to become bystanders, to object to inappropriate treatment of girls and young women they know, for the majority to stop being silent.
One Billion Rising is a global attempt to focus on a global problem. And it’s easy to get involved. Set up your own dancing strike or join an event near you. Spend some of 14 February challenging mores and attitudes by taking a public stand. Get up. Stand up. Dance.
One in every three women will be raped or beaten or abused in their lifetimes. That’s one billion women. And it’s one billion women too many.
Join One Billion Rising and take part in a global strike. Join women and men you know in saying enough. Dance and show your solidarity with women all over the world. And let’s all stop accepting violence against women and girls as a given.
There are events happening all over Scotland. A flashmob in St Andrew’s Square. A dance at the Constitutional Futures Forum gender equality event during the lunch hour.
A dance protest outside the Scottish Parliament. A Nia dance class in Burntisland. A street parade in Kirkcaldy. An evening event at Stereo in Glasgow. Lunchtime dance in Union Street, Aberdeen. And one on Bute. And a Zumba class in Beith in Ayrshire. An evening rising in Kelso and a street event in Forres. Communities large and small,all over Scotland, taking part.
Join them and on 14 February, strike, rise, dance.
To find out more, visit One Billion Rising. – [or see the great short film here]
“But it’s not just women’s problem to solve. Men are part of the solution – it’s not enough for men to say that’s not me, I don’t do that and turn away and get on with life. Men must take a stand and demand change too.”
I think men who naively think it cannot happen to them would be well advised to expend their energies in encouraging women to recognise that they have no right to assault men.
Teaching young girls not to physically assault boys as well as the other way around would go a long way to reduce injuries to women who are injured in retaliation for a first strike attack by the often weaker woman.
Thanks, Kate for bringing the V-day One Billion Rising to the fore – have signed up. A powerful blog indeed by Eve Ensler and a truly shocking film with an inspiring ending. The focus on domestic violence reduction by the police is a huge advance, as is the Mentors in Violence Programme. We might yet see the day when the enlightened youth will bring about a wider change of attitude in a society that tolerates jokes and jibes against women and brushes the real reasons for them under the carpet. I look forward to a report of the Constitutional Futures seminar and I’ll be dancing with my daughter, grand daughter and the women all over the globe on V-day.
Like Wanvote, I’ll be dancing with my two daughters, sister and niece in solidarity. Thank you for bringing this event to my attention.
Rising (Eve Ensler)
This could have been anywhere
And was
Mexico City
Manila
Mumbai
Manhattan
Nighttime men
waiting
like wolves
Drooling
for prey
behind
that single dimly painted door
paying nothing
a couple of dollars
or euros
rupees
or pesos
to have her
Enter her
Eat her
Devour her
and throw away her bones.
This could have been anywhere
And was
A Buddhist nun on a bus
Trying to stay dry for the night
A woman leader speaking out against
The repressive government
A young woman travelling with her boyfriend
One lost her voice
The other her following
The last one her life
This could have been anywhere and was
Pink wooden crosses
A stack of stones
Red wilting carnations
Empty chairs in a square
Ribbons flying in a sultry wind
I ask Anna Nighat Kamla Monique Tanisha Emily
Why Why
Porque Eran Mujeres
Parce qu’elles étaient des femmes
Because they were women
Because they were women
This could have been anywhere
And was
Where she got fired for being too beautiful
Fined for drinking after she was raped
A serious offer to marry her rapist
Got told it was legitimate but not forcible
This could have been anywhere
They do such a thing
When the girls go for fire wood
Step into the lonely man’s car
Drink a little too much at the college party
Wake up with her uncle’s fingers inside
Run from the screaming machete and guns
Be taken at sunrise
Get a bullet in the brain for learning the alphabet
Be stoned for falling in love
Be burned for seeing the future
I am done
Cataloguing these horrors
Data Porn
2 million women raped and tortured
1 out of 3 women
a woman raped every minute
every second
one out of 2
one out of 5
the same
one
one
one
I am done counting
And recounting
Its time to tell a new story
It needs to be our story
It needs to be outrageous and unexpected
It needs to lose control in the middle
It needs to be sexy and in our hips
And our feet
It needs to be angry and a little scary the way storms can be scary
It needs to not ask permission
Or get permits or set up offices
Or make salaries
It wont be recorded or bought or sold
Or counted
It needs to just happen
It is not a question of inventing
But remembering
Buried under the leaves of trauma and sorrow
Beneath the river of
semen and squalor
vaginas and labias
shredded and extracted
stolen
body mines
mined bodies
It is not about asking now
Or waiting
It is about rising
Raise your arm my sister my brother
Raise your one
Billion
Your one heart
Your one of us
I used to be afraid of love
It hurt too much
What never happened
What got ripped away
The rape
The wound
And love
I thought
was salt
But I was wrong
I was wrong
Step into the fire
Raise your arm
Raise your one
Billion
One
One
One
Rising.
Rising.
Rising.
Eve Ensler for One Billion Rising
V-Day today! One Billion Rising worldwide campaign to end violence against women and girls. Thandie Newton, a V-Board member speaks to Jon Snow on channel 4 tonight. One man listening while the rest bury their heads in the sands as usual?