March 2, 2002

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Thank Goddess for V-Day!

Here is some information about the v-day website. --Editor

V-DAY'S MISSION

• 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 sex 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. Join us!

V-DAY'S 2002 VISION STATEMENT

Violence against women is happening everywhere. It is local and specific. It does not distinguish between class or race or age or locality. Rape happens in back alleys, plush hotel suites and college dorms. Women are beaten in thatched huts, high-rise apartments and trailer parks. They are sold into sexual slavery every few minutes. They are burned with acids for refusing to marry, mutilated as little girls. Although the particular forms of violence may vary from culture to culture, we have come to expect it, make room for it, and accommodate it, as if it were a given of the human condition. As a result, women spend most of their lives recovering from, resisting or surviving violence rather than creating and thriving.

V-Day is a radical idea, a catalytic force, a deeper imagining, an invitation. It is both the vision of the place and the energy necessary to transport us to the place where women are free and safe. For four years, V-Day has been growing and gathering women from all over the world. There are V-Day productions in over 31 countries. We have connected with the communities of the raped and murdered women from Juarez, Mexico, sex-trafficked women from Paris, Bulgaria and Manila, women who have been date-raped on college campuses all over North America, women honor-killed in Jordan, battered women in the corporate world, genitally-mutilated women in Kenya, the women slowly being made extinct through gender genocide in Afghanistan. Women are responding and joining together in a global community, a global energy that is changing the world.

This year, V-Day is spreading like an antidote to the virus of violence. We are going further, we are going everywhere. We are moving into town halls, church basements, college auditoriums, and union halls. We are inviting women and men to host V-Day wherever they live, to bring "The Vagina Monologues" for one night to their communities, wherever women need to be safe, whatever the venue &endash; a living room, an amphitheater, an open valley or a stadium.

Join us. Make your community a Rape Free Zone.

United States - National Statistics:

• 1 in 6 women in the United States has experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds. (United Nations Study on the Status of Women, 2000)
• Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 90 seconds. (US Department of Justice, 2000)
• 1 in 3 murdered females are killed by a partner, versus 3.6% of males. (US Department of Justice, May 2000)
• Approximately 1 million women are stalked annually in the United States. (US Department of Justice, November 1998)
• According to the Justice Department, 1 in 2 rape victims is under 18; 1 in 6 is under 12. (Child rape victims, 1992)
• Boys who witness their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes. (Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, 1993)
• Of the 1,977 high school girls aged 14-18 surveyed in a 1997 study, about 20% reported that they had been hit, slapped, shoved or forced into sexual activity by a dating partner. (Journal of The American Medical Association, 1999)
• Domestic violence often does not consist of a single incident; it is instead a continual state of victimization. ("Domestic and Sexual Violence Data Collection," National Institute of Justice and Bureau of Justice Statistics joint report, July 1996)
• In 47% of rapes, the victim sustained injuries other than rape injuries. ("Violence Against Women," Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1994)
• Battering is the leading cause of injury to women aged 15 to 44 in the United States. (US Surgeon General, 1992)
• Approximately 50% of the homeless women and children in the United States are on the streets because of violence in their homes. ("A Report on the 1988 National Survey of Shelters for the Homeless," U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1989)
• Domestic violence occurs in approximately 25-33% of same-sex relationships. (NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, October 1996)
• Pregnant or recently pregnant women are more likely to be the victims of homicide than to die of any other cause. (Journal of the American Medical Association, March 2001)