Ambitious Agenda for V-Day

By Cindy Richards

If Valentine's Day 2003 turns out to be an average day in America, 739 women will be sexually assaulted, and another 13,150 women will be beaten by their spouses, lovers or significant others.

Eve Ensler hopes Friday will not turn out to be an average day. Moreover, she hopes to change the averages for women all over the world so that none of us has to walk the streets in fear or live in our own homes in fear.

It's a pretty ambitious agenda. But she might be the woman to do it--after all, there aren't many people who can claim to have built an international non-profit organization, raised $14 million and changed the way people feel about the word ''vagina'' in five short years.

Ensler is the author of ''The Vagina Monologues'' and mother of an international grass-roots movement to end violence against women, called V-Day. Ensler started V-Day, she says, as a reaction to the overwhelming number of women who approached her to share their personal stories of abuse after hearing her perform ''The Vagina Monologues.''

V-Day--the v, which stands for Valentine, victory over violence and, of course, vagina--has a very lofty goal. It asks women and men to envision and create a world without violence against women and girls.

''I'm a mad optimist. What's the alternative? You don't get out of bed in the morning,'' she said with a chuckle during a brief phone conversation before heading off on a two-month international tour of more than 20 cities to perform ''The Vagina Monologues'' in connection with V-Day.

Five years ago, there was just one benefit performance of ''The Vagina Monologues.'' This year, her wonderful collection of women's stories about their sexuality, their bodies and their vaginas will be performed in 1,200 locations around the world.

Organizers of the Chicago performance, scheduled for Feb. 19 at the DuSable Museum, 740 E. 56th, hope to raise $45,000. The money will be split between Rape Victim Advocates and Family Rescue, said producer Mary Morten.

Morten is staging the show with 37 performers, the vast majority of whom are African-American.

''It was my feeling as the producer that this is a community where we have not done enough talking about violence against women, in particular sexual and domestic violence. There has been a conspiracy of silence,'' she said.

Ensler said she believes her efforts already have made a difference, particularly on college campuses where the performances often are supplemented by speak-outs, conferences and other consciousness-raising activities.

At Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., V-Day 2002 became the springboard for a campuswide effort to end sexual violence at the small liberal arts school. Citing statistics that show 35 of every 1,000 undergraduate women are raped each year on college campuses nationwide, student Chanel Luck asked for and received a $20,000 grant from the administration to create a Center for Safer Sexual Studies. The center will offer counseling to victims and perpetrators and a program for educating students and support staff so they can better respond to and prevent sexual assaults.

Raising awareness among college-age women has been one of the most important parts of V-Day, according to Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

''Eve has brought a lot of visibility to this issue in an interesting way," she said. ''Young women need something to engage them. This gives them that thing. They tend not to think about their own mortality."

Visit the V-Day Web Site, www.vday.org and follow the links to ''Find An Event'' for more information about the Chicago fund-raising performance or college performances at Northwestern, DePaul, University of Illinois-Chicago, Loyola, Northeastern, Roosevelt, Oakton Community, Elmhurst, Lake Forest, William Rainey Harper and North Central in the Chicago area or Indiana University Northwest or Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana.