Emma has been interviewing author Eve Ensler for Elle UK this week, and today’s piece is the last one from the series. In this one, Emma speaks to Eve on the ideological, and literal, assaults on women’s vaginas – from the Presidency down through to the ranks to everyday life. They assert solidarity with transgender women and discuss the next stage of the new women’s Resistance.
PART 4. “The next stage of the women’s uprising is upon us.”
Emma Watson: I have a question from another one of my Book Club members, Sierra, who says: “As an intersectional feminist, how do you balance retaking ownership and pride in vaginas whilst still being an ally for trans women? Not a critique, just something I’ve been wondering recently due to the backlash after some of the Women’s March defined their womanhood by their vagina.”
Eve Ensler: This is what I am going to say: it’s not either/or.
I know many women, for example, transgender women, who were very happy in the march and see themselves as very connected to those Pussy hats.
I know other transgender women who feel like being vagina-focused is exclusionary. But what I would say this: there are three billion women in the world who have vaginas. One out of three of them are being raped or battered.
I think we have to talk about vaginas now.
As we have been posting in the past few days, Emma has interviewed author Eve Ensler for Elle UK, and they are sharing the conversation in a 4-part series. Today, the magazine has posted the 3rd part of it, in which Emma and Eve discuss life under Donald Trump, the importance of an artistic uprising and why those who wish to cause a revolution, must dance. You can read Parts 1 and 2 here and here, respectively.
PART 3.”What is this psychopath going to do to us next?'”
Emma Watson: I have another question, from Marzie, who said, “We seem to be moving in reverse at present in the U.S., with respect both to societal equality and women’s reproductive choices. The Vagina Monologues is more relevant than ever. What are your thoughts about art and culture and how they should try and help hold the ground for women’s rights?”
Eve Ensler: That’s a great question. I think art is everything. I think culture is where things change in us deeply. But right now, I think that people are very traumatised. They are very scared.
Having grown up in a house with a perpetrator who was violent every day and terrorising every day, I feel like that this country is suddenly very much like the house and the family I grew up in.
Every day we are glued to our phones, glued to our television; “What is this psychopath going to do next? How will he embarrass us? Who will he bully or hurt or humiliate today? It’s so easy to get locked into a syndrome where the perpetrator is ruling your life.
That’s where art comes in. This artistic uprising we had the other night in Washington Square park: there was poetry, there was dance, there was song, there was spoken word; and people left feeling so inspired and so energised. We have to get ourselves out of this syndrome of trauma and being re-traumatised. Art releases this energy. It exposes us to wonder again, and magic again, and ambiguity – all the things we need to really keep going and fighting and resisting in these times.
In the first part of this conversation (read here), Emma and author Eve Ensler discussed the difficulties of bringing The Vagina Monologues to publication and the activism it helped create. In the 2nd part, she speaks to author and activist Eve about the dangers of patriarchy, women’s rights to choice, and her harrowing trips to Bosnia and Croatia to meet survivors of wartime rape camps.
PART 2. “There’s a profound emergency in America.”
Emma Watson: Are things changing with regards to the patriarchy?
Eve Ensler: I think what is sad is that the men in power still don’t understand that the liberation of women is their liberation as well, because they’re still hungering for domination. I think that desire for domination, that predatory mind-set, is destroying our world in every respect. Whether it’s immigrants who are being denied entry after the U.S. bombed their countries, whether it’s the greed of extraction of oil which devastates the earth, whether it’s women’s bodies endlessly raped and abused and denied reproductive rights – there’s such a predatory mind-set at present. I think the younger generation were born with so many of the Rights that my generation didn’t have, so they naturally took them for granted. Now when those rights are under siege, suddenly people are waking up and realizing, ” We have to resist. We have to fight.”
In an exclusive and revelatory 4-part story for Elle UK, Emma interviews her latest Our Shared Shelf book club choice The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler about her work and activism. The conversation will run for the next 4 days on the magazine’s official website, and we’ll be sharing it with you here, too.
PART 1. ‘A wild vagina journey.’
In this first part, Emma and Eve talk about the difficulties of bringing The Vagina Monologues to publication and the activism it helped create.
Emma Watson: Hello lovely Eve, how are you?
Eve Ensler: You know, this is One Billion Rising season, so it’s been crazy.
Emma Watson: Ok, so I’ve written out my questions for you because I’m nerdy like that.
Eve Ensler: I do love your book club, I think it’s amazing.
Emma Watson: It’s my favourite project, I just love it, it’s so cool. Here’s where I’ll start: I went on holiday last week and I read Insecure At Last, which I hadn’t read before, which I just loved. Hats off to you, it’s so brave to make your personal political. Last year I also read In the Body Of The World, and then we’ve obviously been doing The Vagina Monologues. Do you have a favourite of your pieces of work?
Eve Ensler: No. They’re all so different, and it depends – people always used to ask me about The Vagina Monologues, “what’s your favourite monologue?” and it’s such a cruel question, like choosing one woman over another woman. I think sometimes you have days when you’re more drawn towards one book or one monologue than you are to others.