V-Day 2001 Reporter's Diary

Exclusive On-the-Scene Reports from V-Day!

From 10 a.m. until midnight on Saturday, February 10, our Heroine reporters filed on-the-scene reports from V-Day and the Gathering to End Violence Against Women.

This year marked the first V-Day Gathering to End Violence Against Women. Rather than a traditional conference, the Gathering was a day of pure activism. All day Saturday, February 10, our reporters worked the room to bring you word of their encounters with the activists and contestants from around the world who came together at Madison Square Garden in New York City to share and invent creative and globally effective ways to stop violence against women and girls. They spoke with some of the 60 finalists of the STOP-RAPE Contest and heard about their innovative plans for stopping rape worldwide. They also reported first-hand how V-Day's celebrity participants did their part. Finally, they attended "Take Back the Garden: A Gala Benefit of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues," a show to end all shows, where our own editor and founder was among the unbelievable cast of performers. It was an exciting day, and we hope you'll read the entire Reporters' Diary, right through to the end.

The Entries

Darcy, 10 a.m.: I arrived at the Garden and tried to pick up my press pass. The guy at the desk was looking through the alphabetized stack of envelopes for my name, but then Marisa Tomei came in, and he got distracted. "Miss Tomei, you used to go to the same dentist as my wife, Dr. Weinraub." Marisa didn't recognize the name. "In Bensonhurst," continued the guy. She still had no clue. "Maybe it was your father," he concluded. Huh? Anyway, Marisa's smaller in person than she is on film, and quite beautiful, even though she looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. Another guy, who had the shiny look of a press person, came to escort the Academy-award winning actress upstairs. He looked thrilled for the opportunity. How fun it must be to be a movie star, and have people get excited just to ride in an elevator with you, or what a pain maybe. I had just been watching The Slums of Beverly Hills, in which Marisa plays a pill-popping fuck up, and in real-life, Marisa giggles a lot, just like she did in the movie, where she also appears sans clothing. And I'm looking at her thinking, last week I saw you naked.

11:11 AM Joan Osborne: I arrived at 8:30 AM. Our sound check was an hour late, Madison Square Garden sounding echo-ey and cavernous with no people in the seats. My two guitarists, Nini and Jen, and I go through "St. Teresa" once before being hustled offstage; Eve is cracking the whip to try to keep things moving smoothly. I sit in the greenroom and chat with Swoozie Kurtz, telling her I loved her as the undercover militant lesbian in "Citizen Ruth." I approach Linda Ellerbee to tell her that she rocked my world when I watched her newscast as a pubescent girl. She has such brains! Such attitude! I say hi to Ulali, a native American singing group whom I performed with three years ago at the Womad Festival in Seattle. Also get reacquainted with the women of Betty, a vocal group who are fellow veterans of the NYC club scene. Everyone is clearly excited to be part of this day.

Darcy 11:15 a.m.: I've been watching the presenters/contestants in the Stop Rape Contest. Vday coordinators around the world went in search of women with innovative ideas about stopping violence against women, and then winnowed the ideas down to the top 60. So today, 60 finalists from 46 countries are presenting their ideas, some of them in languages I don't speak. Most of the people in the audience are, predictably, women, though the age-range is wide, and there are many nationalities represented among attendees. I listened to young-ish American named Brandi talk about educating the masses about date/acquaintance rape through an infomercial that would air between previews and feature films in movie theaters. I heard a 44-year-old Canadian woman named Anne Marie suggest anti-rape education for boys should start early, in kindergarten, and continue through the end of junior high. At this point, she thinks, boys should have to take a test to earn a Dating Certificate, which any girl could then revoke for sexist behavior. Sanchita Regmi Joshy from Nepal highlighted how different conditions are for women in some third world countries - she talked about the importance of the government enforcing laws that punish attackers, and how the mass media shouldn't publish the names of rape victims (here they don't, though some would argue that doing so would begin to remove the shame associated with being raped).

Joan, 11:40 a.m.: Yesterday's rehearsal for the entrance and finale was really exciting. So many power women in the same room, all of us eyeing each other, some old friends but most of us strangers to each other. I sat down next to Andrea Martin, looked around and saw Jane Fonda, Amy Irving, Cynthia Nixon, Brooke Shields, Sharon Gless (of "Cagney & Lacey") performance artists Sara Jones and Ann Magnusen (also of the band Bongwater), Glenn Close, journalist Linda Ellerbee, Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge Simpson and star of Woody Allen films), comic Kate Clinton, author Erica Jong. I came in as Amy Irving and Rita Wilson rehearsed their piece "a happy fact about the clitoris" (the clitoris has twice as many nerve endings as the penis, apparently. Next up were Brooke Shields and Andrea Martin with a piece about U.S. states in which it is illegal to sell vibrators but completely legal to sell guns (Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Ohio). Next we rehearsed our group entrance. Each of us gets to say a vagina nickname as we walk in, and there is much hilarity and confusion ("am I a coochie or a wee-wee?"-"does anyone really call it a peepee?"). After the opening run-through, Eve Ensler gathered us all together to go over the show's order. She was brought to tears several times just describing the program, and soon there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Women from Kenya who have escaped female genital mutilation, Afghan women who are fighting the oppressive Taliban regime that makes it illegal for women and girls even to read. This is going to be an incredibly powerful show. And, after four years of putting on this event and virtually being ignored by sponsors (even Tampax didn't want to be associated with vaginas, apparently) the V-day show and related events should raise in excess of 3 million dollars to help stop violence against women around the world.

Darcy, 11:45: Spoke with two women at the Amnesty International table. They're both college students, one at Barnard, one at the City University of New York. They're here to give out information about Amnesty's efforts in the area of women's rights. They'd like you to check out their website (www.aiusa.org). I asked them how they think their presence here will help stop violence against women. "We're educating women, so that they'll know about preventative measures..." said Laura Smith. "Once the larger public gets involved..." continued Marsha Ghouralal. "There'll be more pressure in the public sphere not to tolerate injustice," concluded Laura.

Darcy, noon: So there are all these tables set up outside the room where the contest is going on, tables for organizations like Amnesty. The room looks really cool. It's all swathed in red with white gauze-y stuff hanging from the ceiling in some places. It could be a Valentine's Day party, which I guess it sort of is, though everyone's talking about ending violence rather than being in love. Most of the tables are, um, manned, by women, but there was one guy at a table, and I was curious. Turns out, he's a co-director of the three-year-old non-prof Men Can Stop Rape. He (oh, his name is Jonathan Stillerman) thinks men need to play a prominent role in stopping violence against women. "Our mission is to empower young men as allies with women to prevent rape and violence against women." He's sorry there aren't more men here today.

Darcy, 12: 30: I prefer peanut M&Ms to plain, but I'm eating plain ones today, because they're being given out all over the place. Little packets of plain M&Ms with stickers on them reading "NO to Eminem" and a web address (www.fvpf.org). They're an anti-domestic violence organization, and I'm guessing Eminem's not the only rapper they don't like, but check out their site if you want to know more.

Darcy, 12: 40: Shalini Singh Deo works for an organization in New Delhi called Talking About Rape and Sexual Health Issues. She identifies it as a non-governmental organization. Stop Rape came to her office soliciting contest entries, and she won, talking mostly about identifying the perpetrator in order to shame him. She's small and looks young (maybe as a result), though she is actually 49. In New Delhi, women are harassed a lot on the streets (sounds kind of like New York, though I imagine it's probably worse, and when she talks about being pinched on busses, my suspicion is confirmed, no one I know has ever had their ass grabbed on a public bus). Shalini says today is productive because, "Ideas, ideas and ideas. In our individual capacity, each person makes a difference." This is her first time in New York, though there's been no time to visit the Empire State Building in the midst of all this activity.

Darcy, 1:00: Everything has slowed down for lunch. So the goal of this

diary is to make you feel like you're here. If you'd like to feel like you're here, turn the heat down in your home, because it is freezing in here. There's an arctic chill. Then surround yourself by women, because there are a lot of women. Then call Tampax, and see if they'll be a sponsor of your home-event, because they seem to be a sponsor here, as the free tampons (free tampons!) in the bathroom would indicate. And finally, there are the M&Ms. Stock up on little packages of plain M&Ms. Then, trust me, you will have achieved a great deal of the atmosphere of Vday at Madison Square Garden.

Joan, 2:00: Edie Falco (of the Sopranos) walks through her blocking on the stage at MSG. The floor of the garden is carpeted in a rich red, and all performers will wear red. In the center of the carpet is the stage, like a boxing ring without ropes. On the stage floor is a huge picture of a peach split in half...groups of women rehearse different moans for one segment of the show; Kate Clinton and Sharon Gless both have impressively uninhibited moaning skills.....we all watch in awe as Jane Fonda rehearses her piece about watching a woman give birth. She completely rocks the house. I have to return to the Stop Rape Contest to see the winners being announced....but I get lost and end up wandering around backstage at the Garden. I realize that as we are rehearsing and running the show, there is also a performance of Sesame Street Live and a pre-judging for the Westminster Dog Show. Wouldn't it be great if the dogs got loose, ran through the Garden with the kids following them, and busted in on the V-Day women just as we all rehearse a huge orgasmic moan?

Darcy, 2:00: There's a video booth here, showing movies about feminist activities world-wide. I wandered into a film called Brides Are Not For Burning, by Sagari Chhabra. In some parts of the world, brides are burned for dowry at some point after their marriage. The filmmaker talks to victims and activists about this cultural phenomenon. Before the movie started, I spoke to a woman named Megan who's here doing research for her dissertation. She hopes no one will steal her idea, so if you're currently doing your Ph.D. in cultural studies and you're desperately searching for a dissertation topic, please STOP READING NOW. I promised Megan her idea would be safe on our site. Anyway, she's doing her dissertation on Vday and the Vagina Monologues and how the media covers this event. "I think it's wonderful that we're all here, but awful that we have to be here," Megan says to me, quoting what another attendee said to her earlier. "The way this day is most effective is that individual connections are made and individual projects started." One question Megan hopes to address in her dissertation is "Is global feminism even possible?" It's something I've been wondering myself, listening to some of the speakers here today, who come from countries where rape victims are considered the criminals. How can we take on violence against women in America and Africa simultaneously, when what needs to be accomplished in each place is so different? Guess we'll all need to read Megan's dissertation to find out.

Mary Todd, 2:15: Came back to the press room for some fries, after talking to a vivacious, no-crap-taking, heavily smoking Yugoslavian woman.Two women sitting down to their boxed lunches nearby, Ms. Muthali from Malawi and Rout from India, joined me for a soda and excellent conversation. Ms. Muthali spoke after Ms. Rout and I had been chatting away for some time. "The difference between you and me is that you struggle for a better job, you fight to be recognized and for a better home. We fight one person at a time for clean water, for bread. For healthcare. Basic healthcare. We start with nothing, a totally blank slate. There is nothing in place for us. Here there are structures. You want to fight violence against women? You join an organization. Where I am from, you must start that organization and everything is against you. If you are attacked and you speak of it, everyone laughs at you. The police will say it is a domestic affair, they have more important things to deal with. Domestic? (laughs) I don't know this man, he doesn't live in my home! How is that domestic?" This quiet-speaking, carefully smiling African woman is full of determination and hope, but a solid realist who recognizes the need to act slowly, over time, making small changes. The Indian lawyer we sit with has a slightly different approach: "I am not going to stand up an fight for other people until I can fight for myself. I find the strength within because I respect myself. How can you fight without this? But having it, now I fight for all women, all my neighbors, all people, all humans. We are all interconnected, and we must all work together solve this problem. Today you are my neighbor. If I see you in danger, I will come to your rescue. Later, someone in India will be my neighbor and I will fight for her. Because I can fight, because I have the strength within me." We all agree that the fight has only just started, and that visualizing a successful goal, using everything we can, is the only thing that will keep the true fight going.

Darcy, 2:30: Talked to Anne Brodsky, a woman who works for RAWA, The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. She's American, but she was so horrified by the way women were treated there that she wanted to help. She's a psychology professor at a school in Baltimore. Did you know that women in Afghanistan have basically no rights? If you'd like to find out more about it, go to their website, www.rawa.org. Anne helps raise money for RAWA, and also to raise awareness about their situation. The Afghani women who belong to RAWA have to be pretty quiet about their membership; they get death threats_simply for suggesting that women be granted legal rights as citizens. Their situation is so dire, but we can't go ranking oppressions, as Anne is quick to remind me. "Think globally, act locally," she says. She's also part of an organization called Octaves Beyond Silence. They have a cd that features artists like Ani DiFranco, Me'Shell Ndgeocello, the Indigo Girls and Sheryl Bailey (you can buy it at www.octavesbeyondsilence.com), and proceeds benefit female survivors of violence. Anne is very busy, but doesn't look tired. Unlike the dog show people. They look tired.

Mary Todd, 2:45: Rosa Garces from Columbia got up on the platform in hospital scrubs, holding a body-sized pair of cardboard scissors. "SAY WITH ME! STERILIZATION FOR ALL RAPISTS!" The crowd shouted along as directed, with scattered tittering and a general sense of unease. Rosa showed a very expensive-looking video with drum and bass in the background; images flashed by of male criminals, of personal violence, of huddled and ashamed-looking women in beautiful black and white stills. A narrator spoke in short blasts of the danger of a rapist's semen, and of the tragedy of a woman living with the pregnancy resulting from rape. "SAY WITH ME..." I understood her point, but for some reason couldn't quite bring myself to agree with any kind of state-sanctioned "surgery." But I'm on a fence about it... especially when so many teenage girls carry the scar of those shots administered so carefully - official sanctioning of the distribution of depo-provera among inner-city teens at risk for pregnancy can't be that far off from forced sterilization of convicted rapists, can it? Are we in dangerous eye-for-an-eye territory here?

I keep hearing over and over again the words: Global. Multimedia. Media. Innovative. Awareness. Networking. Public Media. These words are littered throughout discussions of education of girls, of training people for activism, teaching them how to participate in their government, how to force such participation. This is all pretty high-falutin' on the heels of conversations about literacy. Literacy! Possibly the strongest weapon we might have. But don't.

And speaking of high-falutin' - United States participants have a really weird place in all of this. Speaking of their own issues - shuttle busses to bars and such - seems so out of place. We've taken for granted our suffrage.

Darcy, 2:50: Not much going on in the lobby, so I wandered back into the Stop Rape contest. The woman speaking was from Jordan, and spoke in Arabic. Which is all well and good, but I don't think many people in the room spoke Arabic. So I'm not sure what her plan was. Demonstrating the politeness of the attendees at this gathering, everyone applauded sincerely when she was done. Except for me. I applauded insincerely, since I had no idea what she was saying. Actually, I suppose most of the people in the room applauded insincerely. Honestly, I'm not sure what any of this will do to stop violence against women, but sitting around doing nothing isn't particularly productive either. If any of you have thoughts on this, go to our chat room and share them. I'd be curious.

Joan, 3:00: I finally get to the room where the finalists from the Stop Rape contest are waiting. These are women from all around the world who have contributed ideas to eradicate violence against women. I read through their proposals earlier in the day and I'm struck by how violence is so different in each country; in some cultures if a woman is raped she is thought to bring such shame on her family that her father is encouraged to kill her...obviously one blanket solution does not exist when the problem has so many different faces. I am so honored that these women know me from my music and are excited to have their photo taken with me - I'm the one who is excited about meeting

THEM.

Mary Todd, 3:15: A woman from the Philippines speaks on behalf of a large committee, who has come up with a very complicated plan of action. Good thing _ it had better be complicated with the incredible diversity of culture in the Philippines. The general idea of it is that there will be regional consultations to develop regional action plans. After a year these will all be brought together and a national action plan can be constructed. Many of these preliminary plans appear to focus heavily on the use of art, music, dance and theater. Once the regional plans are integrated into a national plan, a commemorative mural and tapestry will be made in honor of the victims of rape. There will be a V-Day annually in each region, and theatrical productions will continue in the spirit of the Vagina Monologues. This has to be one of the most practical presentations I've heard so far, and I'm very curious to see the result of these plans.

Earlier in the day a woman cried out, "Why are men so Cruel?" in such a heartfelt and bare way, it was really heartbreaking. The frustration and anger of most of the participants here seems to boil up into a pitch, and then is beautifully dispersed by the MC, (performance artist Sara Jones) who uses humor in just the right way, relieving tension when it is most needed. Things are starting to wind up - the last participant is presenting, in a very spitty speech. I want to see how it turns out. More later.

Darcy, 3:25: The next woman I hear speak is from Mexico, but she speaks English, and we can all understand her. She wants to use art to educate boys and girls about violence against women. She says that 7 out of every 10 women in Mexico is a victim of domestic violence. Could this be true? If so, wow. There are many, many countries in which most of us were lucky not to be born. At the end, she encouraged everyone to scream Stop Rape, over and over. Again, not sure what this will accomplish. As Mary said, she's preaching to the converted. I haven't heard the word "empower" so many times since I left college back in 1994.

Darcy, 3:45: Talking to the women at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is sort of depressing. That's cause we were talking about Planned Parenthood International, and the funds that women's health care organizations around the world have lost thanks to George W. Bush, the GOP, and the self-righteous Right to Lifers. If you haven't heard, W. has cut off funds to health care organizations around the world that have anything to do with abortion. Mind you, U.S. dollars were never funding international abortions. But U.S. dollars were funding things like HIV education for organizations that also happened to do reproductive counseling. No more. So now, these clinics are losing their funding for programs like HIV education all because the Republicans are in power. Down with them, I say. So does Kirsten, who works for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood, by the way, stopped accepting federal funds in the mid-80s, because they did not want to compromise women's health by being subject to dictates about what they could and could not talk about. Kirsten says groups around the world will lose millions of dollars because of this new gag order. "What's frustrating is that the organizations that will lose money will be community-based health care organizations." This will be devastating not only to those communities, but also in the long run to world health. If you'd like to donate money to Planned Parenthood International, go to their site at www.plannedparenthood.org/fpia. Write letters to your congressperson. Vote for the Democrats next time around.

Darcy, 4:00: People are beginning to leave, with packets of M&Ms and tampons stuffed into their coat pockets. I stopped one woman to ask her what she thought about the whole thing. "I was interested in the international aspect of it," said Hiroko, a 23-year-old office manager who is Japanese-American. "I wanted to hear the stories these women had to share. It was interesting how in some parts of the world, religion figures into violence against women, and how it's dealt with. In Japan, that's not the case. I had also never thought about how the economic status of a country plays into how they deal with violence against women. Wealthier nations have the resources to allocate to stopping the violence." Hiroki found out about Vday from her friend who was one of the organizers. She's looking forward to tonight's performance, as am I.

The Show

Darcy, 6:00: We arrive at the box office to pick up our press tickets. The Garden is packed. It's rumored the show has sold out. The Knicks sell out the Garden. Bette Midler sells out the Garden. It's pretty amazing that The Vagina Monologues might have sold out the Garden. Like this afternoon, the crowd is mostly women, though there do seem to be some boyfriends/husbands tagging along, as well as some gay male couples there with no female prodding.

Darcy, 6:30: Mary and I, antsy in our pretty good seats, are curious about what it was that brought all these people out on this freezing cold New York City Saturday night for this event, so we wander around, notebooks and digital camera in tow, to ask. Dennis, a 25-year-old in sales, says "Her," when he's asked why he's there. "Her" turns out to be his roommate. "She saw it on Broadway and thought it was pretty incredible. And I thought it was a worthwhile cause to support. Violence against women is just stupid." Well put, Dennis.

Mary Todd, 6:30: The Bonners, an African American couple from the City, heard Vday so widely publicized that they thought it would be a good plan for the evening. Oprah's publicity drew them especially from her segment on forced prostitution and slavery in India, and they looked forward to an enlightening evening. A gay couple from town heard about it in a gay publication and thought it would be interesting. Ms. Bryant and Ms. Ferguson, friends from town, heard about it through their church and by word of mouth, and were curious. None of these people had been to Vday before, and neither really knew what to expect. There were a surprising number of men in the audience, and many people from around the world, as rounds of shouting were to show.

Darcy, 6:35: Debbie and Michael are a couple, both in their mid-thirties, and Debbie has seen The Monologues before. She brought Michael, who swears up and down that he wasn't even coerced into coming. Debbie gets choked up when she talks about Vday, and when she notices the signs that read "Rape Free Zone" draped on every seat in the place. "I'm here so that every place can be this," she says, pointing to the signs, "A rape free zone. It's more than a show. It's a movement, and it's about time." Mary and I go and buy some popcorn at the concession stand. It's stale, but we're hungry and eat some anyway.

Mary Todd, 7:10: After the Gathering, the V-Day main event came as a welcome relief from the tensions of the day, opening with an earth-shatteringly powerful rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Chloe Goodchild, Phoebe Snow and The Vulva Choir, which introduced our hero perfectly. "I bet you're worried." Eve Ensler had the audience instantly riveted. "Vagina. Vagina, Vagina, Vagina. No matter how many ways you try to use it, it never sounds like a word you want to say."

Darcy, 7:15: Next the most amazing crew of women ever assembled on one stage marching onto the stage in formation_each decked out in red_to utter a different name for vagina. You've never heard of most of these euphemisms, trust me. You've heard of the women though: Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, Queen Latifah, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Calista Flockhart, Gloria Steinem, Julie Kavner, Carol Kane, Nell Carter, Teri Hatcher, Linda Evans, Rosie Perez...the list goes on. Can you imagine all these women in one room? On one stage? To say it was cool doesn't quite capture it. It was Impressive. And the Garden was all but sold out. Round about 18,000 people showed up.

Darcy, 8:00: From what I understand, The Vagina Monologues are usually performed as three monologues, by three actresses (each monologue is based on interviews Eve Ensler did with women about their vaginas). Tonight's performance, as part of this whole Vday, Take Back the Garden, Stop Violence Against Women campaign, is more than just that. There are singers. There are dancers. There are two or three women sharing each monologue. The concept works pretty damn well, and the pairings are inspired. The first one is Carol Kane, Julie Kavner and Ricki Lake, playing an old woman talking for the first time in her life about her vagina. Carol Kane and Julie Kavner are brilliant comedians, and a pregnant Ricki Lake manages to hold her own with them as the three deliver the monologue. This old woman talks about how embarrassed she was after being really turned on when a boy she was out with kissed her. From that point on, she never let herself get excited again, lived her whole life, it seemed from the monologue, without having any form of intimate contact with a man, or anyone. I thought this one really highlighted how far we've come in the last century in terms of acceptance of women's sexuality.

Mary Todd, 8:00: I was reminded of the Tracy Ullman show on desire and sex. Carol definitely stole the show, talking about the character's "down there," "things get caught in there, little animals and things." The act was hilarious, but delivered with compassion. Three women speaking as one, alternating lines, allowed the character to be in good company, to be one of many, not a freak, but still unique.

Mary Todd, 8:10: A circle of women on the stage are asked, "If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" No real surprises there _ something sumptuous here, something gorgeous there, "An electrical device to keep unwanted strangers away." I become aware that we're being lowered, mercifully and slowly, into the dark heart of what brings us here today. Violence is just at the edges, not coming out just yet. "If your vagina could talk, what would it say? Slow. Down." Then, "Whoa ho ho Nelly!" Brave choice. "Bonjour!" and finally Mary Testa's plea, "Where's Brian?" The sense of community here lifting up each person's most intimate individuality is awe-inspiring.

Darcy, 8:20: Joan performs St. Teresa, from her first album, Relish. She's wearing the cool pink coat you might have noticed in some of the pictures from earlier in the day, and she doesn't sound too bad either.

Darcy, 8:30: Here's what the program calls "Vagina Happy Fact," delivered by the very lovely and talented Rita Wilson and Amy Irving: the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, way more than any other place in the human body, and twice as many as the penis. Not that it's a contest.

Mary Todd, 8: 35: Kathy Najimy, Teri Hatcher and Marisa Tomei delivered the next monologue, about a positive experience their character had with a man who liked to look at her vagina. Another story of a woman completely alienated from her body, ending with her achieving completeness. These women, like everyone else in the show, put their all into the monologue. This was important, every moment of it. None of the actors let you forget it.

Mary Todd, 8:50: The next round was about female genital mutilation. A 15-year-old girl from Kenya came up to tell us of her decision to run away rather than endure the cutting off of her clitoris. Her story was devastating. The difficulty she faced, how hard it was to leave her family and everyone, everything she loved to save herself, this came across only in her facial expressions. What she said out loud was, "My decision inspired my sister to do the same. I hope what I do helps to make it easier for others." She was accompanied by a woman who spent her life walking all over her region of Africa (now driving, thanks to the money raised by Vday), teaching people about their bodies to discourage this mutilation, and also to provide an alternative in order to preserve traditions: circumcision by words. We become women through words. A rite of passage without cutting, with singing, dancing, poetry, food and presents. The three women on stage smiled at this dream before leaving the stage to a second standing ovation. True bravery just walked by. I feel something shattering inside, my inner warrior screaming, ready to descend on high with flaming sword to destroy what? It's just all too awful.

Mary Todd, 9:05: Appropriately, the next group were ANGRY ABOUT THEIR VAGINAS. Rosie Perez, Shirley Knight and Meera Syal were on a tirade against people trying to "clean up" their insides. Rosie: "Don't let them tell you it's supposed to smell like rose petals when it's supposed to smell like pussaaayyyyy." Shirley Knight: "I want to taste the fish, that's why I ORDERED IT." "It helped to release a baby. Now it wants to travel."

Darcy, 9:15: I think Claire Danes and Julia Stiles are two of the most talented actresses of their generation, and their performance tonight does nothing to disprove this. The two of them together deliver a monologue of a Bosnian teenager who's been raped again and again by soldiers (soldiers with broomsticks, soldiers with rifles, soldiers with bottles) in her war-torn country. It's jarring to see such pretty young girls with their long blond hair moving backwards toward each other on the stage as they walk you through their transformation from happy young girl to beaten-down, destroyed older girl. Like the genital mutilation portion of the show, it makes you sick to think of the awful things people are capable of doing to one another.

Mary Todd, 9:30: Okay, here go a few in one: Betty provided a perfect musical segue, into "Humpty Dumpty," an acapella song of perfect tension and harmony. "I'm people, just people, and I'm broken." This song gave us our second orgasm of the evening. Calista Flockhart delivered a monologue on her short skirt, which "doesn't want you to rip it off, doesn't want you to pull it down." She declared any street her vagina's territory, and I couldn't help thinking how Camille Paglia would probably think this the silliest thing she'd ever heard. I didn't, though. I started to like her. Teens came out next. A lot of teens. Dancing and singing. They were Included in all this. I loved that! Later on, a pure performance art piece would be performed by children, who jumped through framed plate glass, picked up their tarp and left the stage. I started noticing for the first time that the cast was unusually diverse, and no one was really being tokenized. How sad, that such a thing is so rare.

Mary Todd, 10:00: The segment on crimes in Afghanistan is almost too hard to write about. Oprah (actor Oprah, not talk show Oprah) asked the audience to visualize as if it were ourselves what the women in Afghanistan are go through every day. Covered in a rug-like dress almost completely, with a screen over the eyes so that vision is extremely impaired, if part of them sticks out it is cut off. Any man can come up to them and check their socks; wrong color = public whipping. Husbands regularly murdered, and they can't go out in public without a male escort. Laughter is AGAINST THE LAW. Music, against the law. Dancing, against the law. It goes on and on. It is full on, all-out WAR that has been declared on women, and THEY NEED OUR HELP. A woman from RAWA (www.rawa.org), an Afghan group that fights back, came out in the dress described, and I have to say I've never had such an acute sympathetic claustrophobic attack in my life. She is Sonja, 23-years-old going on 50. "I belong to a graveyard named Afghanistan." She spoke of the terrors women go through in that country, that her family has gone through, and asked that we not forget them. (I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell we were doing in KUWAIT.) Her voice is ringing in my ears, "The only way to freedom is to struggle all the way to victory." At this point, I'm feeling positively trampled by reality.

Mary Todd, 10: 20: The next segment, in honor of a homeless woman interviewed by Eve, was called "The Little Cootchie Snorcher that Could." It's played by Lisa Gay Hamilton and Nell Carter and Hazelle Goodman, and is a perfect combination of childlike innocence and worldliness. They are a woman who discovers, with the help of a pretty neighbor, that she is a lesbian. "I decide right there I wanna be a secretary when I grow up." I start to feel a little okay, like, it's possible that things could be okay. Then Glenn Close delivers the third orgasm of the evening, reclaiming the word "cunt." There is no way to describe this, so I won't. Suffice it to say, she's gorgeous and amazing and I am SO not worthy.

Mary Todd, 10:30: Eve herself performed her monologue of a sex worker, who worked only with women. Okay, I'll skip past everything else to report that there were more orgasms during this segment than I've probably had in my entire life. And that is, in fact, saying something. The Vulva Choir participated in an illustration of all the various types of moans, including "The lost moan," (my fave - no sound), The Jewish moan ("no. no. no."), The Diva moan (ending with a high note), and The Surprise Triple Orgasm moan. This of course had to be followed by the Madison Square Garden moan, with the braver part of 18,000 women providing their own favorite moan. Dear god. That was fun. Jane Fonda, who incidentally donated $1 million to this cause, delivered the final monologue. She played Eve, present at the birth of her grandchild, standing in awe of the mother. Jane Fonda. Is. A great lady. She was tremendous.

Darcy, 10:45: The show ended with announcements of the Stop Rape contest winners and thanks to all the sponsors (for details on these, go to www.vday.org). And then we were off to the after party...

Darcy, 11:00: I lost Mary and Luann, Heroine's very with-it intern, somewhere in front of the Garden, so I arrive at the party, around the corner at the Hammerstein Ballroom, on my own. I'm just glad to be in from the cold, and follow the herd of journalists upstairs to where the celebrities will be likewise shortly be herded to answer questions from the media. From the press area on the balcony of the ballroom, I can watch the revelers below swarming around the buffet tables in the midst of red table cloths and candles. The room looks quite beautiful from up here, and after such a heavy evening, I'm not surprised that the bar looks like the most popular destination in the place.

Darcy, 11:10: Jane Fonda is the first performer to arrive, decked out in the same red pantsuit and red boa she wore during the performance. Why did she choose to participate (and give $1 million dollars to Vday)? "I've traveled all over the world and seen what violence has done to women and girls. We have to reclaim our bodies," she says. And for anyone who's wondering, she also said that this will not mark her return to acting.

Darcy, 11:15: Comedian Andrea Martin, another performer at the event, comes in next. "This has been a fantastic high from beginning to end. I got to see Jane Fonda, what else can I say?"

Darcy, 11:20: Celebrities are streaming in now, and it's hard to know who to talk to first. Isabella Rosellini, in all her porcelain-skinned loveliness, says she is there, "Because I'm a woman." Ricki Lake, in a red maternity dress, says the night, "Was unbelievable. It exceeded my expectations, and I have pretty high expectations. I was hanging with Jane Fonda and talking about natural birth." Meeting Jane seemed to be everyone's highlight of the night.

Darcy, 11:25: Everyone is chatting, and having a good time. The energy in the room is really high, which is amazing considering the performers must be pretty drained. Julia Stiles, who's changed into a red t-shirt and jeans, is hanging out with what look like her college friends (she's currently attending Columbia), cute, nerdy boys with glasses. Claire Danes is swept in by her publicist. Dylan McDermott, who may be one of the most beautiful men in the world, comes in with his wife, InStyle/Vogue staple Shiva Rose, and says he's there to support his step mother. Turns out Eve Ensler is his step mother (and I seem to be the only one who didn't already know this). Calista Flockhart comes in, also changed into jeans and a t-shirt, and I ask her what she thinks this evening may have accomplished. "I think it will certainly raise the public's awareness," she says, "Vday has been slowly building and tonight solidified that." Julia Stiles thinks that the evening, "will get women talking about their vaginas." So far, I've heard no talk of vaginas at the party.

Darcy, 11:30: What do you say to Gloria Steinem? I can't think of a thing. So I just stand nearby and listen to another reporter make a go at it. Unfortunately, the other reporter's tape recorder seems to be malfunctioning, and she has to keep getting Ms. Steinem to begin her thoughts again. How embarrassing! Lisa Gay Hamilton, who is great on The Practice and was great tonight in her portion of the monologue, is easier to approach. "I thought it was very uplifting," she says about the evening, "Especially for the women who shared their personal stories, and for the women who stood up at the end and shared that they had been raped. To be a part of that kind of truth, of women standing up for themselves, it's a beautiful thing."

Darcy, 11:35: Brooke Shields and Rosie Perez arrive and jokingly slap each other on the ass for the cameras. Amongst people you're so used to seeing onscreen, you see that it's true that the camera adds ten pounds. Brooke, for one, looks sort of gargantuan on film, but she's tiny in person. Rita Wilson acknowledges her debt-the debt of all women-to Gloria Steinem: "We can make a difference tonight because we've had women like Gloria Steinem before us."

Darcy, 11:40: The sassy Rosie Perez says, "Tonight was great. It accomplished awareness."

Mary Todd, midnight: What an experience that was! I don't think my brain can process everything I saw last night. So much awe, humor, sincerity, pain, anguish, and determination all on one stage. Eve Ensler just took me on a trip I'll never forget.

Darcy, midnight: As our glass slippers become more and more uncomfortable, the Heroine team makes our way out of the ballroom. It's been quite a day, so we hail a passing pumpkin and head home.

Welcome to V-Day 2001! From 10 a.m. until midnight. on Saturday, our Heroine reporters filed on-the-scene reports from V-Day and the Gathering to End Violence Against Women.

This year marked the first V-Day Gathering to End Violence Against Women. Rather than a traditional conference, the Gathering was a day of pure activism. All day Saturday, February 10, our reporters worked the room to bring you word of their encounters with the activists and contestants from around the world who came together at Madison Square Garden in New York City to share and invent creative and globally effective ways to stop violence against women and girls. They spoke with some of the 60 finalists of the STOP-RAPE Contest and heard about their innovative plans for stopping rape worldwide. They also reported first-hand how V-Day's celebrity participants did their part. Finally, they attended "Take Back the Garden: A Gala Benefit of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues," a show to end all shows, where our own editor and founder was among the unbelievable cast of performers. It was an exciting day, and we hope you'll read the entire Reporters' Diary, right through to the end.

The Entries

Darcy, 10 a.m.: I arrived at the Garden and tried to pick up my press pass. The guy at the desk was looking through the alphabetized stack of envelopes for my name, but then Marisa Tomei came in, and he got distracted. "Miss Tomei, you used to go to the same dentist as my wife, Dr. Weinraub." Marisa didn't recognize the name. "In Bensonhurst," continued the guy. She still had no clue. "Maybe it was your father," he concluded. Huh? Anyway, Marisa's smaller in person than she is on film, and quite beautiful, even though she looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. Another guy, who had the shiny look of a press person, came to escort the Academy-award winning actress upstairs. He looked thrilled for the opportunity. How fun it must be to be a movie star, and have people get excited just to ride in an elevator with you, or what a pain maybe. I had just been watching The Slums of Beverly Hills, in which Marisa plays a pill-popping fuck up, and in real-life, Marisa giggles a lot, just like she did in the movie, where she also appears sans clothing. And I'm looking at her thinking, last week I saw you naked.

11:11 AM Joan Osborne: I arrived at 8:30 AM. Our sound check was an hour late, Madison Square Garden sounding echo-ey and cavernous with no people in the seats. My two guitarists, Nini and Jen, and I go through "St. Teresa" once before being hustled offstage; Eve is cracking the whip to try to keep things moving smoothly. I sit in the greenroom and chat with Swoozie Kurtz, telling her I loved her as the undercover militant lesbian in "Citizen Ruth." I approach Linda Ellerbee to tell her that she rocked my world when I watched her newscast as a pubescent girl. She has such brains! Such attitude! I say hi to Ulali, a native American singing group whom I performed with three years ago at the Womad Festival in Seattle. Also get reacquainted with the women of Betty, a vocal group who are fellow veterans of the NYC club scene. Everyone is clearly excited to be part of this day.

Darcy 11:15 a.m.: I've been watching the presenters/contestants in the Stop Rape Contest. Vday coordinators around the world went in search of women with innovative ideas about stopping violence against women, and then winnowed the ideas down to the top 60. So today, 60 finalists from 46 countries are presenting their ideas, some of them in languages I don't speak. Most of the people in the audience are, predictably, women, though the age-range is wide, and there are many nationalities represented among attendees. I listened to young-ish American named Brandi talk about educating the masses about date/acquaintance rape through an infomercial that would air between previews and feature films in movie theaters. I heard a 44-year-old Canadian woman named Anne Marie suggest anti-rape education for boys should start early, in kindergarten, and continue through the end of junior high. At this point, she thinks, boys should have to take a test to earn a Dating Certificate, which any girl could then revoke for sexist behavior. Sanchita Regmi Joshy from Nepal highlighted how different conditions are for women in some third world countries - she talked about the importance of the government enforcing laws that punish attackers, and how the mass media shouldn't publish the names of rape victims (here they don't, though some would argue that doing so would begin to remove the shame associated with being raped).

Joan, 11:40 a.m.: Yesterday's rehearsal for the entrance and finale was really exciting. So many power women in the same room, all of us eyeing each other, some old friends but most of us strangers to each other. I sat down next to Andrea Martin, looked around and saw Jane Fonda, Amy Irving, Cynthia Nixon, Brooke Shields, Sharon Gless (of "Cagney & Lacey") performance artists Sara Jones and Ann Magnusen (also of the band Bongwater), Glenn Close, journalist Linda Ellerbee, Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge Simpson and star of Woody Allen films), comic Kate Clinton, author Erica Jong. I came in as Amy Irving and Rita Wilson rehearsed their piece "a happy fact about the clitoris" (the clitoris has twice as many nerve endings as the penis, apparently. Next up were Brooke Shields and Andrea Martin with a piece about U.S. states in which it is illegal to sell vibrators but completely legal to sell guns (Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Ohio). Next we rehearsed our group entrance. Each of us gets to say a vagina nickname as we walk in, and there is much hilarity and confusion ("am I a coochie or a wee-wee?"-"does anyone really call it a peepee?"). After the opening run-through, Eve Ensler gathered us all together to go over the show's order. She was brought to tears several times just describing the program, and soon there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Women from Kenya who have escaped female genital mutilation, Afghan women who are fighting the oppressive Taliban regime that makes it illegal for women and girls even to read. This is going to be an incredibly powerful show. And, after four years of putting on this event and virtually being ignored by sponsors (even Tampax didn't want to be associated with vaginas, apparently) the V-day show and related events should raise in excess of 3 million dollars to help stop violence against women around the world.

Darcy, 11:45: Spoke with two women at the Amnesty International table. They're both college students, one at Barnard, one at the City University of New York. They're here to give out information about Amnesty's efforts in the area of women's rights. They'd like you to check out their website (www.aiusa.org). I asked them how they think their presence here will help stop violence against women. "We're educating women, so that they'll know about preventative measures..." said Laura Smith. "Once the larger public gets involved..." continued Marsha Ghouralal. "There'll be more pressure in the public sphere not to tolerate injustice," concluded Laura.

Darcy, noon: So there are all these tables set up outside the room where the contest is going on, tables for organizations like Amnesty. The room looks really cool. It's all swathed in red with white gauze-y stuff hanging from the ceiling in some places. It could be a Valentine's Day party, which I guess it sort of is, though everyone's talking about ending violence rather than being in love. Most of the tables are, um, manned, by women, but there was one guy at a table, and I was curious. Turns out, he's a co-director of the three-year-old non-prof Men Can Stop Rape. He (oh, his name is Jonathan Stillerman) thinks men need to play a prominent role in stopping violence against women. "Our mission is to empower young men as allies with women to prevent rape and violence against women." He's sorry there aren't more men here today.

Darcy, 12: 30: I prefer peanut M&Ms to plain, but I'm eating plain ones today, because they're being given out all over the place. Little packets of plain M&Ms with stickers on them reading "NO to Eminem" and a web address (www.fvpf.org). They're an anti-domestic violence organization, and I'm guessing Eminem's not the only rapper they don't like, but check out their site if you want to know more.

Darcy, 12: 40: Shalini Singh Deo works for an organization in New Delhi called Talking About Rape and Sexual Health Issues. She identifies it as a non-governmental organization. Stop Rape came to her office soliciting contest entries, and she won, talking mostly about identifying the perpetrator in order to shame him. She's small and looks young (maybe as a result), though she is actually 49. In New Delhi, women are harassed a lot on the streets (sounds kind of like New York, though I imagine it's probably worse, and when she talks about being pinched on busses, my suspicion is confirmed, no one I know has ever had their ass grabbed on a public bus). Shalini says today is productive because, "Ideas, ideas and ideas. In our individual capacity, each person makes a difference." This is her first time in New York, though there's been no time to visit the Empire State Building in the midst of all this activity.

Darcy, 1:00: Everything has slowed down for lunch. So the goal of this

diary is to make you feel like you're here. If you'd like to feel like you're here, turn the heat down in your home, because it is freezing in here. There's an arctic chill. Then surround yourself by women, because there are a lot of women. Then call Tampax, and see if they'll be a sponsor of your home-event, because they seem to be a sponsor here, as the free tampons (free tampons!) in the bathroom would indicate. And finally, there are the M&Ms. Stock up on little packages of plain M&Ms. Then, trust me, you will have achieved a great deal of the atmosphere of Vday at Madison Square Garden.

Joan, 2:00: Edie Falco (of the Sopranos) walks through her blocking on the stage at MSG. The floor of the garden is carpeted in a rich red, and all performers will wear red. In the center of the carpet is the stage, like a boxing ring without ropes. On the stage floor is a huge picture of a peach split in half...groups of women rehearse different moans for one segment of the show; Kate Clinton and Sharon Gless both have impressively uninhibited moaning skills.....we all watch in awe as Jane Fonda rehearses her piece about watching a woman give birth. She completely rocks the house. I have to return to the Stop Rape Contest to see the winners being announced....but I get lost and end up wandering around backstage at the Garden. I realize that as we are rehearsing and running the show, there is also a performance of Sesame Street Live and a pre-judging for the Westminster Dog Show. Wouldn't it be great if the dogs got loose, ran through the Garden with the kids following them, and busted in on the V-Day women just as we all rehearse a huge orgasmic moan?

Darcy, 2:00: There's a video booth here, showing movies about feminist activities world-wide. I wandered into a film called Brides Are Not For Burning, by Sagari Chhabra. In some parts of the world, brides are burned for dowry at some point after their marriage. The filmmaker talks to victims and activists about this cultural phenomenon. Before the movie started, I spoke to a woman named Megan who's here doing research for her dissertation. She hopes no one will steal her idea, so if you're currently doing your Ph.D. in cultural studies and you're desperately searching for a dissertation topic, please STOP READING NOW. I promised Megan her idea would be safe on our site. Anyway, she's doing her dissertation on Vday and the Vagina Monologues and how the media covers this event. "I think it's wonderful that we're all here, but awful that we have to be here," Megan says to me, quoting what another attendee said to her earlier. "The way this day is most effective is that individual connections are made and individual projects started." One question Megan hopes to address in her dissertation is "Is global feminism even possible?" It's something I've been wondering myself, listening to some of the speakers here today, who come from countries where rape victims are considered the criminals. How can we take on violence against women in America and Africa simultaneously, when what needs to be accomplished in each place is so different? Guess we'll all need to read Megan's dissertation to find out.

Mary Todd, 2:15: Came back to the press room for some fries, after talking to a vivacious, no-crap-taking, heavily smoking Yugoslavian woman.Two women sitting down to their boxed lunches nearby, Ms. Muthali from Malawi and Rout from India, joined me for a soda and excellent conversation. Ms. Muthali spoke after Ms. Rout and I had been chatting away for some time. "The difference between you and me is that you struggle for a better job, you fight to be recognized and for a better home. We fight one person at a time for clean water, for bread. For healthcare. Basic healthcare. We start with nothing, a totally blank slate. There is nothing in place for us. Here there are structures. You want to fight violence against women? You join an organization. Where I am from, you must start that organization and everything is against you. If you are attacked and you speak of it, everyone laughs at you. The police will say it is a domestic affair, they have more important things to deal with. Domestic? (laughs) I don't know this man, he doesn't live in my home! How is that domestic?" This quiet-speaking, carefully smiling African woman is full of determination and hope, but a solid realist who recognizes the need to act slowly, over time, making small changes. The Indian lawyer we sit with has a slightly different approach: "I am not going to stand up an fight for other people until I can fight for myself. I find the strength within because I respect myself. How can you fight without this? But having it, now I fight for all women, all my neighbors, all people, all humans. We are all interconnected, and we must all work together solve this problem. Today you are my neighbor. If I see you in danger, I will come to your rescue. Later, someone in India will be my neighbor and I will fight for her. Because I can fight, because I have the strength within me." We all agree that the fight has only just started, and that visualizing a successful goal, using everything we can, is the only thing that will keep the true fight going.

Darcy, 2:30: Talked to Anne Brodsky, a woman who works for RAWA, The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. She's American, but she was so horrified by the way women were treated there that she wanted to help. She's a psychology professor at a school in Baltimore. Did you know that women in Afghanistan have basically no rights? If you'd like to find out more about it, go to their website, www.rawa.org. Anne helps raise money for RAWA, and also to raise awareness about their situation. The Afghani women who belong to RAWA have to be pretty quiet about their membership; they get death threats_simply for suggesting that women be granted legal rights as citizens. Their situation is so dire, but we can't go ranking oppressions, as Anne is quick to remind me. "Think globally, act locally," she says. She's also part of an organization called Octaves Beyond Silence. They have a cd that features artists like Ani DiFranco, Me'Shell Ndgeocello, the Indigo Girls and Sheryl Bailey (you can buy it at www.octavesbeyondsilence.com), and proceeds benefit female survivors of violence. Anne is very busy, but doesn't look tired. Unlike the dog show people. They look tired.

Mary Todd, 2:45: Rosa Garces from Columbia got up on the platform in hospital scrubs, holding a body-sized pair of cardboard scissors. "SAY WITH ME! STERILIZATION FOR ALL RAPISTS!" The crowd shouted along as directed, with scattered tittering and a general sense of unease. Rosa showed a very expensive-looking video with drum and bass in the background; images flashed by of male criminals, of personal violence, of huddled and ashamed-looking women in beautiful black and white stills. A narrator spoke in short blasts of the danger of a rapist's semen, and of the tragedy of a woman living with the pregnancy resulting from rape. "SAY WITH ME..." I understood her point, but for some reason couldn't quite bring myself to agree with any kind of state-sanctioned "surgery." But I'm on a fence about it... especially when so many teenage girls carry the scar of those shots administered so carefully - official sanctioning of the distribution of depo-provera among inner-city teens at risk for pregnancy can't be that far off from forced sterilization of convicted rapists, can it? Are we in dangerous eye-for-an-eye territory here?

I keep hearing over and over again the words: Global. Multimedia. Media. Innovative. Awareness. Networking. Public Media. These words are littered throughout discussions of education of girls, of training people for activism, teaching them how to participate in their government, how to force such participation. This is all pretty high-falutin' on the heels of conversations about literacy. Literacy! Possibly the strongest weapon we might have. But don't.

And speaking of high-falutin' - United States participants have a really weird place in all of this. Speaking of their own issues - shuttle busses to bars and such - seems so out of place. We've taken for granted our suffrage.

Darcy, 2:50: Not much going on in the lobby, so I wandered back into the Stop Rape contest. The woman speaking was from Jordan, and spoke in Arabic. Which is all well and good, but I don't think many people in the room spoke Arabic. So I'm not sure what her plan was. Demonstrating the politeness of the attendees at this gathering, everyone applauded sincerely when she was done. Except for me. I applauded insincerely, since I had no idea what she was saying. Actually, I suppose most of the people in the room applauded insincerely. Honestly, I'm not sure what any of this will do to stop violence against women, but sitting around doing nothing isn't particularly productive either. If any of you have thoughts on this, go to our chat room and share them. I'd be curious.

Joan, 3:00: I finally get to the room where the finalists from the Stop Rape contest are waiting. These are women from all around the world who have contributed ideas to eradicate violence against women. I read through their proposals earlier in the day and I'm struck by how violence is so different in each country; in some cultures if a woman is raped she is thought to bring such shame on her family that her father is encouraged to kill her...obviously one blanket solution does not exist when the problem has so many different faces. I am so honored that these women know me from my music and are excited to have their photo taken with me - I'm the one who is excited about meeting

THEM.

Mary Todd, 3:15: A woman from the Philippines speaks on behalf of a large committee, who has come up with a very complicated plan of action. Good thing _ it had better be complicated with the incredible diversity of culture in the Philippines. The general idea of it is that there will be regional consultations to develop regional action plans. After a year these will all be brought together and a national action plan can be constructed. Many of these preliminary plans appear to focus heavily on the use of art, music, dance and theater. Once the regional plans are integrated into a national plan, a commemorative mural and tapestry will be made in honor of the victims of rape. There will be a V-Day annually in each region, and theatrical productions will continue in the spirit of the Vagina Monologues. This has to be one of the most practical presentations I've heard so far, and I'm very curious to see the result of these plans.

Earlier in the day a woman cried out, "Why are men so Cruel?" in such a heartfelt and bare way, it was really heartbreaking. The frustration and anger of most of the participants here seems to boil up into a pitch, and then is beautifully dispersed by the MC, (performance artist Sara Jones) who uses humor in just the right way, relieving tension when it is most needed. Things are starting to wind up - the last participant is presenting, in a very spitty speech. I want to see how it turns out. More later.

Darcy, 3:25: The next woman I hear speak is from Mexico, but she speaks English, and we can all understand her. She wants to use art to educate boys and girls about violence against women. She says that 7 out of every 10 women in Mexico is a victim of domestic violence. Could this be true? If so, wow. There are many, many countries in which most of us were lucky not to be born. At the end, she encouraged everyone to scream Stop Rape, over and over. Again, not sure what this will accomplish. As Mary said, she's preaching to the converted. I haven't heard the word "empower" so many times since I left college back in 1994.

Darcy, 3:45: Talking to the women at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is sort of depressing. That's cause we were talking about Planned Parenthood International, and the funds that women's health care organizations around the world have lost thanks to George W. Bush, the GOP, and the self-righteous Right to Lifers. If you haven't heard, W. has cut off funds to health care organizations around the world that have anything to do with abortion. Mind you, U.S. dollars were never funding international abortions. But U.S. dollars were funding things like HIV education for organizations that also happened to do reproductive counseling. No more. So now, these clinics are losing their funding for programs like HIV education all because the Republicans are in power. Down with them, I say. So does Kirsten, who works for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood, by the way, stopped accepting federal funds in the mid-80s, because they did not want to compromise women's health by being subject to dictates about what they could and could not talk about. Kirsten says groups around the world will lose millions of dollars because of this new gag order. "What's frustrating is that the organizations that will lose money will be community-based health care organizations." This will be devastating not only to those communities, but also in the long run to world health. If you'd like to donate money to Planned Parenthood International, go to their site at www.plannedparenthood.org/fpia. Write letters to your congressperson. Vote for the Democrats next time around.

Darcy, 4:00: People are beginning to leave, with packets of M&Ms and tampons stuffed into their coat pockets. I stopped one woman to ask her what she thought about the whole thing. "I was interested in the international aspect of it," said Hiroko, a 23-year-old office manager who is Japanese-American. "I wanted to hear the stories these women had to share. It was interesting how in some parts of the world, religion figures into violence against women, and how it's dealt with. In Japan, that's not the case. I had also never thought about how the economic status of a country plays into how they deal with violence against women. Wealthier nations have the resources to allocate to stopping the violence." Hiroki found out about Vday from her friend who was one of the organizers. She's looking forward to tonight's performance, as am I.

The Show

Darcy, 6:00: We arrive at the box office to pick up our press tickets. The Garden is packed. It's rumored the show has sold out. The Knicks sell out the Garden. Bette Midler sells out the Garden. It's pretty amazing that The Vagina Monologues might have sold out the Garden. Like this afternoon, the crowd is mostly women, though there do seem to be some boyfriends/husbands tagging along, as well as some gay male couples there with no female prodding.

Darcy, 6:30: Mary and I, antsy in our pretty good seats, are curious about what it was that brought all these people out on this freezing cold New York City Saturday night for this event, so we wander around, notebooks and digital camera in tow, to ask. Dennis, a 25-year-old in sales, says "Her," when he's asked why he's there. "Her" turns out to be his roommate. "She saw it on Broadway and thought it was pretty incredible. And I thought it was a worthwhile cause to support. Violence against women is just stupid." Well put, Dennis.

Mary Todd, 6:30: The Bonners, an African American couple from the City, heard Vday so widely publicized that they thought it would be a good plan for the evening. Oprah's publicity drew them especially from her segment on forced prostitution and slavery in India, and they looked forward to an enlightening evening. A gay couple from town heard about it in a gay publication and thought it would be interesting. Ms. Bryant and Ms. Ferguson, friends from town, heard about it through their church and by word of mouth, and were curious. None of these people had been to Vday before, and neither really knew what to expect. There were a surprising number of men in the audience, and many people from around the world, as rounds of shouting were to show.

Darcy, 6:35: Debbie and Michael are a couple, both in their mid-thirties, and Debbie has seen The Monologues before. She brought Michael, who swears up and down that he wasn't even coerced into coming. Debbie gets choked up when she talks about Vday, and when she notices the signs that read "Rape Free Zone" draped on every seat in the place. "I'm here so that every place can be this," she says, pointing to the signs, "A rape free zone. It's more than a show. It's a movement, and it's about time." Mary and I go and buy some popcorn at the concession stand. It's stale, but we're hungry and eat some anyway.

Mary Todd, 7:10: After the Gathering, the V-Day main event came as a welcome relief from the tensions of the day, opening with an earth-shatteringly powerful rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Chloe Goodchild, Phoebe Snow and The Vulva Choir, which introduced our hero perfectly. "I bet you're worried." Eve Ensler had the audience instantly riveted. "Vagina. Vagina, Vagina, Vagina. No matter how many ways you try to use it, it never sounds like a word you want to say."

Darcy, 7:15: Next the most amazing crew of women ever assembled on one stage marching onto the stage in formation_each decked out in red_to utter a different name for vagina. You've never heard of most of these euphemisms, trust me. You've heard of the women though: Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, Queen Latifah, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Calista Flockhart, Gloria Steinem, Julie Kavner, Carol Kane, Nell Carter, Teri Hatcher, Linda Evans, Rosie Perez...the list goes on. Can you imagine all these women in one room? On one stage? To say it was cool doesn't quite capture it. It was Impressive. And the Garden was all but sold out. Round about 18,000 people showed up.

Darcy, 8:00: From what I understand, The Vagina Monologues are usually performed as three monologues, by three actresses (each monologue is based on interviews Eve Ensler did with women about their vaginas). Tonight's performance, as part of this whole Vday, Take Back the Garden, Stop Violence Against Women campaign, is more than just that. There are singers. There are dancers. There are two or three women sharing each monologue. The concept works pretty damn well, and the pairings are inspired. The first one is Carol Kane, Julie Kavner and Ricki Lake, playing an old woman talking for the first time in her life about her vagina. Carol Kane and Julie Kavner are brilliant comedians, and a pregnant Ricki Lake manages to hold her own with them as the three deliver the monologue. This old woman talks about how embarrassed she was after being really turned on when a boy she was out with kissed her. From that point on, she never let herself get excited again, lived her whole life, it seemed from the monologue, without having any form of intimate contact with a man, or anyone. I thought this one really highlighted how far we've come in the last century in terms of acceptance of women's sexuality.

Mary Todd, 8:00: I was reminded of the Tracy Ullman show on desire and sex. Carol definitely stole the show, talking about the character's "down there," "things get caught in there, little animals and things." The act was hilarious, but delivered with compassion. Three women speaking as one, alternating lines, allowed the character to be in good company, to be one of many, not a freak, but still unique.

Mary Todd, 8:10: A circle of women on the stage are asked, "If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" No real surprises there _ something sumptuous here, something gorgeous there, "An electrical device to keep unwanted strangers away." I become aware that we're being lowered, mercifully and slowly, into the dark heart of what brings us here today. Violence is just at the edges, not coming out just yet. "If your vagina could talk, what would it say? Slow. Down." Then, "Whoa ho ho Nelly!" Brave choice. "Bonjour!" and finally Mary Testa's plea, "Where's Brian?" The sense of community here lifting up each person's most intimate individuality is awe-inspiring.

Darcy, 8:20: Joan performs St. Teresa, from her first album, Relish. She's wearing the cool pink coat you might have noticed in some of the pictures from earlier in the day, and she doesn't sound too bad either.

Darcy, 8:30: Here's what the program calls "Vagina Happy Fact," delivered by the very lovely and talented Rita Wilson and Amy Irving: the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, way more than any other place in the human body, and twice as many as the penis. Not that it's a contest.

Mary Todd, 8: 35: Kathy Najimy, Teri Hatcher and Marisa Tomei delivered the next monologue, about a positive experience their character had with a man who liked to look at her vagina. Another story of a woman completely alienated from her body, ending with her achieving completeness. These women, like everyone else in the show, put their all into the monologue. This was important, every moment of it. None of the actors let you forget it.

Mary Todd, 8:50: The next round was about female genital mutilation. A 15-year-old girl from Kenya came up to tell us of her decision to run away rather than endure the cutting off of her clitoris. Her story was devastating. The difficulty she faced, how hard it was to leave her family and everyone, everything she loved to save herself, this came across only in her facial expressions. What she said out loud was, "My decision inspired my sister to do the same. I hope what I do helps to make it easier for others." She was accompanied by a woman who spent her life walking all over her region of Africa (now driving, thanks to the money raised by Vday), teaching people about their bodies to discourage this mutilation, and also to provide an alternative in order to preserve traditions: circumcision by words. We become women through words. A rite of passage without cutting, with singing, dancing, poetry, food and presents. The three women on stage smiled at this dream before leaving the stage to a second standing ovation. True bravery just walked by. I feel something shattering inside, my inner warrior screaming, ready to descend on high with flaming sword to destroy what? It's just all too awful.

Mary Todd, 9:05: Appropriately, the next group were ANGRY ABOUT THEIR VAGINAS. Rosie Perez, Shirley Knight and Meera Syal were on a tirade against people trying to "clean up" their insides. Rosie: "Don't let them tell you it's supposed to smell like rose petals when it's supposed to smell like pussaaayyyyy." Shirley Knight: "I want to taste the fish, that's why I ORDERED IT." "It helped to release a baby. Now it wants to travel."

Darcy, 9:15: I think Claire Danes and Julia Stiles are two of the most talented actresses of their generation, and their performance tonight does nothing to disprove this. The two of them together deliver a monologue of a Bosnian teenager who's been raped again and again by soldiers (soldiers with broomsticks, soldiers with rifles, soldiers with bottles) in her war-torn country. It's jarring to see such pretty young girls with their long blond hair moving backwards toward each other on the stage as they walk you through their transformation from happy young girl to beaten-down, destroyed older girl. Like the genital mutilation portion of the show, it makes you sick to think of the awful things people are capable of doing to one another.

Mary Todd, 9:30: Okay, here go a few in one: Betty provided a perfect musical segue, into "Humpty Dumpty," an acapella song of perfect tension and harmony. "I'm people, just people, and I'm broken." This song gave us our second orgasm of the evening. Calista Flockhart delivered a monologue on her short skirt, which "doesn't want you to rip it off, doesn't want you to pull it down." She declared any street her vagina's territory, and I couldn't help thinking how Camille Paglia would probably think this the silliest thing she'd ever heard. I didn't, though. I started to like her. Teens came out next. A lot of teens. Dancing and singing. They were Included in all this. I loved that! Later on, a pure performance art piece would be performed by children, who jumped through framed plate glass, picked up their tarp and left the stage. I started noticing for the first time that the cast was unusually diverse, and no one was really being tokenized. How sad, that such a thing is so rare.

Mary Todd, 10:00: The segment on crimes in Afghanistan is almost too hard to write about. Oprah (actor Oprah, not talk show Oprah) asked the audience to visualize as if it were ourselves what the women in Afghanistan are go through every day. Covered in a rug-like dress almost completely, with a screen over the eyes so that vision is extremely impaired, if part of them sticks out it is cut off. Any man can come up to them and check their socks; wrong color = public whipping. Husbands regularly murdered, and they can't go out in public without a male escort. Laughter is AGAINST THE LAW. Music, against the law. Dancing, against the law. It goes on and on. It is full on, all-out WAR that has been declared on women, and THEY NEED OUR HELP. A woman from RAWA (www.rawa.org), an Afghan group that fights back, came out in the dress described, and I have to say I've never had such an acute sympathetic claustrophobic attack in my life. She is Sonja, 23-years-old going on 50. "I belong to a graveyard named Afghanistan." She spoke of the terrors women go through in that country, that her family has gone through, and asked that we not forget them. (I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell we were doing in KUWAIT.) Her voice is ringing in my ears, "The only way to freedom is to struggle all the way to victory." At this point, I'm feeling positively trampled by reality.

Mary Todd, 10: 20: The next segment, in honor of a homeless woman interviewed by Eve, was called "The Little Cootchie Snorcher that Could." It's played by Lisa Gay Hamilton and Nell Carter and Hazelle Goodman, and is a perfect combination of childlike innocence and worldliness. They are a woman who discovers, with the help of a pretty neighbor, that she is a lesbian. "I decide right there I wanna be a secretary when I grow up." I start to feel a little okay, like, it's possible that things could be okay. Then Glenn Close delivers the third orgasm of the evening, reclaiming the word "cunt." There is no way to describe this, so I won't. Suffice it to say, she's gorgeous and amazing and I am SO not worthy.

Mary Todd, 10:30: Eve herself performed her monologue of a sex worker, who worked only with women. Okay, I'll skip past everything else to report that there were more orgasms during this segment than I've probably had in my entire life. And that is, in fact, saying something. The Vulva Choir participated in an illustration of all the various types of moans, including "The lost moan," (my fave - no sound), The Jewish moan ("no. no. no."), The Diva moan (ending with a high note), and The Surprise Triple Orgasm moan. This of course had to be followed by the Madison Square Garden moan, with the braver part of 18,000 women providing their own favorite moan. Dear god. That was fun. Jane Fonda, who incidentally donated $1 million to this cause, delivered the final monologue. She played Eve, present at the birth of her grandchild, standing in awe of the mother. Jane Fonda. Is. A great lady. She was tremendous.

Darcy, 10:45: The show ended with announcements of the Stop Rape contest winners and thanks to all the sponsors (for details on these, go to www.vday.org). And then we were off to the after party...

Darcy, 11:00: I lost Mary and Luann, Heroine's very with-it intern, somewhere in front of the Garden, so I arrive at the party, around the corner at the Hammerstein Ballroom, on my own. I'm just glad to be in from the cold, and follow the herd of journalists upstairs to where the celebrities will be likewise shortly be herded to answer questions from the media. From the press area on the balcony of the ballroom, I can watch the revelers below swarming around the buffet tables in the midst of red table cloths and candles. The room looks quite beautiful from up here, and after such a heavy evening, I'm not surprised that the bar looks like the most popular destination in the place.

Darcy, 11:10: Jane Fonda is the first performer to arrive, decked out in the same red pantsuit and red boa she wore during the performance. Why did she choose to participate (and give $1 million dollars to Vday)? "I've traveled all over the world and seen what violence has done to women and girls. We have to reclaim our bodies," she says. And for anyone who's wondering, she also said that this will not mark her return to acting.

Darcy, 11:15: Comedian Andrea Martin, another performer at the event, comes in next. "This has been a fantastic high from beginning to end. I got to see Jane Fonda, what else can I say?"

Darcy, 11:20: Celebrities are streaming in now, and it's hard to know who to talk to first. Isabella Rosellini, in all her porcelain-skinned loveliness, says she is there, "Because I'm a woman." Ricki Lake, in a red maternity dress, says the night, "Was unbelievable. It exceeded my expectations, and I have pretty high expectations. I was hanging with Jane Fonda and talking about natural birth." Meeting Jane seemed to be everyone's highlight of the night.

Darcy, 11:25: Everyone is chatting, and having a good time. The energy in the room is really high, which is amazing considering the performers must be pretty drained. Julia Stiles, who's changed into a red t-shirt and jeans, is hanging out with what look like her college friends (she's currently attending Columbia), cute, nerdy boys with glasses. Claire Danes is swept in by her publicist. Dylan McDermott, who may be one of the most beautiful men in the world, comes in with his wife, InStyle/Vogue staple Shiva Rose, and says he's there to support his step mother. Turns out Eve Ensler is his step mother (and I seem to be the only one who didn't already know this). Calista Flockhart comes in, also changed into jeans and a t-shirt, and I ask her what she thinks this evening may have accomplished. "I think it will certainly raise the public's awareness," she says, "Vday has been slowly building and tonight solidified that." Julia Stiles thinks that the evening, "will get women talking about their vaginas." So far, I've heard no talk of vaginas at the party.

Darcy, 11:30: What do you say to Gloria Steinem? I can't think of a thing. So I just stand nearby and listen to another reporter make a go at it. Unfortunately, the other reporter's tape recorder seems to be malfunctioning, and she has to keep getting Ms. Steinem to begin her thoughts again. How embarrassing! Lisa Gay Hamilton, who is great on The Practice and was great tonight in her portion of the monologue, is easier to approach. "I thought it was very uplifting," she says about the evening, "Especially for the women who shared their personal stories, and for the women who stood up at the end and shared that they had been raped. To be a part of that kind of truth, of women standing up for themselves, it's a beautiful thing."

Darcy, 11:35: Brooke Shields and Rosie Perez arrive and jokingly slap each other on the ass for the cameras. Amongst people you're so used to seeing onscreen, you see that it's true that the camera adds ten pounds. Brooke, for one, looks sort of gargantuan on film, but she's tiny in person. Rita Wilson acknowledges her debt-the debt of all women-to Gloria Steinem: "We can make a difference tonight because we've had women like Gloria Steinem before us."

Darcy, 11:40: The sassy Rosie Perez says, "Tonight was great. It accomplished awareness."

Mary Todd, midnight: What an experience that was! I don't think my brain can process everything I saw last night. So much awe, humor, sincerity, pain, anguish, and determination all on one stage. Eve Ensler just took me on a trip I'll never forget.

Darcy, midnight: As our glass slippers become more and more uncomfortable, the Heroine team makes our way out of the ballroom. It's been quite a day, so we hail a passing pumpkin and head home.

Have we got you all fired up about fighting violence against women? The following organizations will tell you more about what you can do to help.

Family Violence Prevention Fund
http://www.fvpf.org/

The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women
http://www.nowldef.org/html/policy/introtf.htm

National Domestic Violence Hotline
http://www.ndvh.org/

NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund
http://www.nowldef.org/index.htm

Also, click here to sign Lifetime Online’s V-Day petition.
http://www.lifetimetv.com/our_commitment/violence/index.html#