If you are a woman in America or a man who cares about women, I urge you to read this carefully as you approach voting on November 8. Even if you have been able to ignore the fact that Trump is an incompetent, racist, Islamophobic bigot who doesn’t believe in climate change, will cut Planned Parenthood, and move us back to the dark ages with abortion, I deeply hope this will change your mind.
catharine
In April this year, I had the honor of writing a piece on Nadia Murad for the TIME 100 list of the most influential people of the year. Nadia is a member of the ethnic Kurdish minority Yazidi people, one of thousands who was brutally enslaved by ISIS in Iraq, who now bravely travels the world to raise awareness of the genocide.
Feigning ignorance or a lack of complicity is no longer acceptable – we must all work together to counter endemic prejudice in America.
This presidential election is America’s reckoning. What mighty love will we summon to ensure the ending of this violence, this hate?
I am thinking of the price list leaked out from the ISIS Sex Slave Market, that included women and girls on the same list as cattle. ISIS needed to impose price controls as they were worried about a down turn in their market.
Eve Ensler recently spoke with Yanar Mohammed about the impact of the U.S. military invasion and occupation of Iraq, the people’s uprisings in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, and the horrific violence, fear and trauma that Iraqi women face daily.
Transparent, Orange Is the New Black and Sense8 have brought transgender characters to wider TV audiences. But where are all the trans love stories? The author of The Vagina Monologues unveils the sexy new web series Her Story.
No one believed my father was a battering sex abuser. He was handsome, a corporate president. He was successful, charming, a man’s man. He wore tailored suits. He played golf. He drank martinis. He was celebrated at country clubs and knew the first names of head maitre d’s at the fanciest exclusive restaurants. He was arrogant and smug the way Bill Cosby is arrogant and smug.
Twenty years ago, when I wrote The Vagina Monologues, it was very difficult to say the word vagina anywhere. The public utterance of the word alone was explosive as so much of the truth about what happened to vaginas was repressed, denied, kept secret, and coated in shame and self-hatred.
There have been many victories, but still the violence continues. The refusal to hold perpetrators to account is a ‘global plague’ – and this year the campaign will focus on justice.