TEDGlobal 2005
Eve Ensler: What security means to me
Filmed:
Readability: 4
1,253,281 views
Playwright Eve Ensler explores our modern craving for security -- and why it makes us less secure. Listen for inspiring, heartbreaking stories of women making change.
Eve Ensler - Playwright, activist
Eve Ensler created the ground-breaking "Vagina Monologues," whose success propelled her to found V-Day -- a movement to end violence against women and girls everywhere. Full bio
Eve Ensler created the ground-breaking "Vagina Monologues," whose success propelled her to found V-Day -- a movement to end violence against women and girls everywhere. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I think it'll be a relief to some people and a disappointment to others
0
0
3000
00:15
that I'm not going to talk about vaginas today.
1
3000
3000
00:18
I began "The Vagina Monologues" because I was worried about vaginas.
2
6000
5000
00:23
I'm very worried today about this notion, this world,
3
11000
4000
00:27
this prevailing kind of force of security.
4
15000
4000
00:31
I see this word, hear this word, feel this word everywhere.
5
19000
4000
00:35
Real security, security checks, security watch, security clearance.
6
23000
3000
00:38
Why has all this focus on security made me feel so much more insecure?
7
26000
6000
00:44
What does anyone mean when they talk about real security?
8
32000
4000
00:48
And why have we, as Americans particularly,
9
36000
2000
00:50
become a nation that strives for security above all else?
10
38000
4000
00:54
In fact, I think that security is elusive. It's impossible.
11
42000
4000
00:58
We all die. We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us.
12
46000
4000
01:02
People change us. Nothing is secure.
13
50000
2000
01:04
And that's actually the good news.
14
52000
3000
01:07
This is, of course, unless your whole life is about being secure.
15
55000
4000
01:11
I think that when that is the focus of your life,
16
59000
3000
01:14
these are the things that happen.
17
62000
2000
01:16
You can't travel very far or venture too far outside a certain circle.
18
64000
5000
01:21
You can't allow too many conflicting ideas into your mind at one time,
19
69000
4000
01:25
as they might confuse you or challenge you.
20
73000
3000
01:28
You can't open yourself to new experiences, new people,
21
76000
3000
01:31
new ways of doing things -- they might take you off course.
22
79000
3000
01:34
You can't not know who you are, so you cling to hard-matter identity.
23
82000
5000
01:39
You become a Christian, Muslim, Jew.
24
87000
2000
01:41
You're an Indian, Egyptian, Italian, American.
25
89000
3000
01:44
You're a heterosexual or a homosexual, or you never have sex.
26
92000
3000
01:47
Or at least, that's what you say when you identify yourself.
27
95000
3000
01:50
You become part of an "us."
28
98000
2000
01:52
In order to be secure, you defend against "them."
29
100000
3000
01:55
You cling to your land because it is your secure place.
30
103000
3000
01:58
You must fight anyone who encroaches upon it.
31
106000
2000
02:00
You become your nation. You become your religion.
32
108000
2000
02:02
You become whatever it is that will freeze you, numb you
33
110000
3000
02:05
and protect you from doubt or change.
34
113000
3000
02:08
But all this does, actually, is shut down your mind.
35
116000
4000
02:12
In reality, it does not really make you safer.
36
120000
3000
02:15
I was in Sri Lanka, for example, three days after the tsunami,
37
123000
4000
02:19
and I was standing on the beaches
38
127000
2000
02:21
and it was absolutely clear that, in a matter of five minutes,
39
129000
3000
02:24
a 30-foot wave could rise up
40
132000
2000
02:26
and desecrate a people, a population and lives.
41
134000
3000
02:29
All this striving for security, in fact,
42
137000
3000
02:32
has made you much more insecure
43
140000
2000
02:34
because now you have to watch out all the time.
44
142000
3000
02:37
There are people not like you -- people who you now call enemies.
45
145000
3000
02:40
You have places you cannot go, thoughts you cannot think,
46
148000
3000
02:43
worlds that you can no longer inhabit.
47
151000
2000
02:45
And so you spend your days fighting things off, defending your territory
48
153000
4000
02:49
and becoming more entrenched in your fundamental thinking.
49
157000
3000
02:52
Your days become devoted to protecting yourself.
50
160000
3000
02:55
This becomes your mission. That is all you do.
51
163000
3000
02:58
Ideas get shorter. They become sound bytes.
52
166000
3000
03:01
There are evildoers and saints, criminals and victims.
53
169000
3000
03:04
There are those who, if they're not with us, are against us.
54
172000
3000
03:07
It gets easier to hurt people because you do not feel what's inside them.
55
175000
3000
03:10
It gets easier to lock them up, force them to be naked, humiliate them,
56
178000
4000
03:14
occupy them, invade them and kill them,
57
182000
2000
03:16
because they are only obstacles now to your security.
58
184000
4000
03:20
In six years, I've had the extraordinary privilege through V-Day,
59
188000
4000
03:24
a global movement against [violence against] women,
60
192000
1000
03:25
to travel probably to 60 countries,
61
193000
2000
03:27
and spend a great deal of time in different portions.
62
195000
5000
03:32
I've met women and men all over this planet,
63
200000
3000
03:35
who through various circumstances --
64
203000
2000
03:37
war, poverty, racism, multiple forms of violence --
65
205000
4000
03:41
have never known security,
66
209000
2000
03:43
or have had their illusion of security forever devastated.
67
211000
4000
03:47
I've spent time with women in Afghanistan under the Taliban,
68
215000
3000
03:50
who were essentially brutalized and censored.
69
218000
3000
03:53
I've been in Bosnian refugee camps.
70
221000
2000
03:55
I was with women in Pakistan
71
223000
2000
03:57
who have had their faces melted off with acid.
72
225000
3000
04:00
I've been with girls all across America who were date-raped,
73
228000
3000
04:03
or raped by their best friends when they were drugged one night.
74
231000
3000
04:06
One of the amazing things that I've discovered in my travels
75
234000
4000
04:10
is that there is this emerging species.
76
238000
2000
04:12
I loved when he was talking about this other world that's right next to this world.
77
240000
4000
04:16
I've discovered these people, who, in V-Day world,
78
244000
3000
04:19
we call Vagina Warriors.
79
247000
2000
04:21
These particular people, rather than getting AK-47s,
80
249000
4000
04:25
or weapons of mass destruction, or machetes,
81
253000
3000
04:28
in the spirit of the warrior, have gone into the center, the heart of pain, of loss.
82
256000
5000
04:33
They have grieved it, they have died into it,
83
261000
3000
04:36
and allowed and encouraged poison to turn into medicine.
84
264000
4000
04:40
They have used the fuel of their pain to begin to redirect that energy
85
268000
4000
04:44
towards another mission and another trajectory.
86
272000
3000
04:47
These warriors now devote themselves and their lives
87
275000
3000
04:50
to making sure what happened to them doesn't happen to anyone else.
88
278000
4000
04:54
There are thousands if not millions of them on the planet.
89
282000
3000
04:57
I venture there are many in this room.
90
285000
2000
04:59
They have a fierceness and a freedom
91
287000
2000
05:01
that I believe is the bedrock of a new paradigm.
92
289000
3000
05:04
They have broken out of the existing frame of victim and perpetrator.
93
292000
5000
05:09
Their own personal security is not their end goal,
94
297000
3000
05:12
and because of that, because, rather than worrying about security,
95
300000
4000
05:16
because the transformation of suffering is their end goal,
96
304000
3000
05:19
I actually believe they are creating real safety
97
307000
3000
05:22
and a whole new idea of security.
98
310000
3000
05:25
I want to talk about a few of these people that I've met.
99
313000
3000
05:28
Tomorrow, I am going to Cairo,
100
316000
2000
05:30
and I'm so moved that I will be with women in Cairo
101
318000
4000
05:34
who are V-Day women, who are opening the first safe house
102
322000
3000
05:37
for battered women in the Middle East.
103
325000
2000
05:39
That will happen because women in Cairo made a decision to stand up
104
327000
4000
05:43
and put themselves on the line,
105
331000
2000
05:45
and talk about the degree of violence that is happening in Egypt,
106
333000
3000
05:48
and were willing to be attacked and criticized.
107
336000
4000
05:52
And through their work over the last years,
108
340000
3000
05:55
this is not only happening that this house is opening,
109
343000
2000
05:57
but it's being supported by many factions of the society
110
345000
3000
06:00
who never would have supported it.
111
348000
2000
06:02
Women in Uganda this year,
112
350000
2000
06:04
who put on "The Vagina Monologues" during V-Day,
113
352000
3000
06:07
actually evoked the wrath of the government.
114
355000
3000
06:10
And, I love this story so much.
115
358000
2000
06:12
There was a cabinet meeting and a meeting of the presidents
116
360000
3000
06:15
to talk about whether "Vaginas" could come to Uganda.
117
363000
3000
06:18
And in this meeting -- it went on for weeks in the press,
118
366000
3000
06:21
two weeks where there was huge discussion.
119
369000
2000
06:23
The government finally made a decision
120
371000
2000
06:25
that "The Vagina Monologues" could not be performed in Uganda.
121
373000
3000
06:28
But the amazing news was that because they had stood up, these women,
122
376000
4000
06:32
and because they had been willing to risk their security,
123
380000
3000
06:35
it began a discussion that not only happened in Uganda,
124
383000
3000
06:38
but all of Africa.
125
386000
2000
06:40
As a result, this production, which had already sold out,
126
388000
3000
06:43
every single person in that 800-seat audience, except for 10 people,
127
391000
5000
06:48
made a decision to keep the money.
128
396000
3000
06:51
They raised 10,000 dollars on a production that never occurred.
129
399000
5000
06:56
There's a young woman named Carrie Rethlefsen in Minnesota.
130
404000
3000
06:59
She's a high school student.
131
407000
2000
07:01
She had seen "The Vagina Monologues" and she was really moved. And as a result,
132
409000
4000
07:05
she wore an "I heart my vagina" button to her high school in Minnesota.
133
413000
5000
07:10
(Laughter)
134
418000
1000
07:11
She was basically threatened to be expelled from school.
135
419000
5000
07:16
They told her she couldn't love her vagina in high school,
136
424000
3000
07:19
that it was not a legal thing, that it was not a moral thing,
137
427000
3000
07:22
that it was not a good thing.
138
430000
2000
07:24
So she really struggled with this, what to do,
139
432000
2000
07:26
because she was a senior and she was doing well in her school
140
434000
3000
07:29
and she was threatened expulsion. So what she did is she got all her friends together --
141
437000
4000
07:33
I believe it was 100, 150 students
142
441000
3000
07:36
all wore "I love my vagina" T-shirts,
143
444000
3000
07:39
and the boys wore "I love her vagina" T-shirts to school.
144
447000
3000
07:42
(Laughter)
145
450000
2000
07:44
Now this seems like a fairly, you know, frivolous,
146
452000
3000
07:47
but what happened as a result of that, is that that school now
147
455000
5000
07:52
is forming a sex education class. It's beginning to talk about sex,
148
460000
4000
07:56
it's beginning to look at why it would be wrong
149
464000
3000
07:59
for a young high school girl to talk about her vagina publicly
150
467000
3000
08:02
or to say that she loved her vagina publicly.
151
470000
3000
08:05
I know I've talked about Agnes here before,
152
473000
3000
08:08
but I want to give you an update on Agnes.
153
476000
2000
08:10
I met Agnes three years ago in the Rift Valley.
154
478000
2000
08:12
When she was a young girl, she had been mutilated against her will.
155
480000
6000
08:18
That mutilation of her clitoris
156
486000
2000
08:20
had actually obviously impacted her life
157
488000
2000
08:22
and changed it in a way that was devastating.
158
490000
3000
08:25
She made a decision not to go and get a razor or a glass shard,
159
493000
4000
08:29
but to devote her life to stopping that happening to other girls.
160
497000
4000
08:33
For eight years, she walked through the Rift Valley.
161
501000
3000
08:36
She had this amazing box that she carried and it had a
162
504000
2000
08:38
torso of a woman's body in it, a half a torso,
163
506000
3000
08:41
and she would teach people, everywhere she went,
164
509000
2000
08:43
what a healthy vagina looked like and what a mutilated vagina looked like.
165
511000
3000
08:46
In the years that she walked, she educated parents, mothers, fathers.
166
514000
4000
08:50
She saved 1,500 girls from being cut.
167
518000
3000
08:53
When V-Day met her, we asked her how we could support her
168
521000
2000
08:55
and she said, "Well, if you got me a Jeep,
169
523000
2000
08:57
I could get around a lot faster." So, we bought her a Jeep.
170
525000
3000
09:00
In the year she had the Jeep, she saved 4,500 girls from being cut.
171
528000
5000
09:05
So, we said, what else could we do?
172
533000
1000
09:06
She said, "If you help me get money, I could open a house."
173
534000
3000
09:09
Three years ago, Agnes opened a safe house in Africa to stop mutilation.
174
537000
7000
09:16
When she began her mission eight years ago, she was reviled,
175
544000
4000
09:20
she was detested, she was completely slandered in her community.
176
548000
4000
09:24
I am proud to tell you that six months ago,
177
552000
3000
09:27
she was elected the deputy mayor of Narok.
178
555000
3000
09:30
(Applause)
179
558000
7000
09:37
I think what I'm trying to say here
180
565000
2000
09:39
is that if your end goal is security,
181
567000
4000
09:43
and if that's all you're focusing on, what ends up happening
182
571000
3000
09:46
is that you create not only more insecurity in other people,
183
574000
3000
09:49
but you make yourself far more insecure.
184
577000
3000
09:52
Real security is contemplating death, not pretending it doesn't exist.
185
580000
5000
09:57
Not running from loss, but entering grief, surrendering to sorrow.
186
585000
5000
10:02
Real security is not knowing something, when you don't know it.
187
590000
4000
10:06
Real security is hungering for connection rather than power.
188
594000
4000
10:10
It cannot be bought or arranged or made with bombs.
189
598000
3000
10:13
It is deeper, it is a process, it is acute awareness
190
601000
4000
10:17
that we are all utterly inter-bended,
191
605000
2000
10:19
and one action by one being in one tiny town
192
607000
3000
10:22
has consequences everywhere.
193
610000
3000
10:25
Real security is not only being able
194
613000
2000
10:27
to tolerate mystery, complexity, ambiguity, but hungering for them
195
615000
4000
10:31
and only trusting a situation when they are present.
196
619000
3000
10:34
Something happened when I began traveling in V-Day, eight years ago. I got lost.
197
622000
6000
10:40
I remember being on a plane going from Kenya to South Africa,
198
628000
5000
10:45
and I had no idea where I was.
199
633000
1000
10:46
I didn't know where I was going, where I'd come from,
200
634000
3000
10:49
and I panicked. I had a total anxiety attack.
201
637000
3000
10:52
And then I suddenly realized that it absolutely didn't matter
202
640000
3000
10:55
where I was going, or where I had come from
203
643000
2000
10:57
because we are all essentially permanently displaced people.
204
645000
5000
11:02
All of us are refugees.
205
650000
2000
11:04
We come from somewhere and we are hopefully traveling all the time,
206
652000
3000
11:07
moving towards a new place.
207
655000
2000
11:09
Freedom means I may not be identified as any one group,
208
657000
4000
11:13
but that I can visit and find myself in every group.
209
661000
4000
11:17
It does not mean that I don't have values or beliefs,
210
665000
3000
11:20
but it does mean I am not hardened around them.
211
668000
2000
11:22
I do not use them as weapons.
212
670000
3000
11:25
In the shared future, it will be just that, shared.
213
673000
5000
11:30
The end goal will [be] becoming vulnerable,
214
678000
2000
11:32
realizing the place of our connection to one another,
215
680000
3000
11:35
rather than becoming secure, in control and alone.
216
683000
5000
11:40
Thank you very much.
217
688000
2000
11:42
(Applause)
218
690000
3000
11:45
Chris Anderson: And how are you doing? Are you exhausted?
219
693000
5000
11:50
On a typical day, do you wake up with hope or gloom?
220
698000
4000
11:54
Eve Ensler: You know, I think Carl Jung once said
221
702000
2000
11:56
that in order to survive the twentieth century,
222
704000
3000
11:59
we have to live with two existing thoughts, opposite thoughts, at the same time.
223
707000
4000
12:03
And I think part of what I'm learning in this process
224
711000
4000
12:07
is that one must allow oneself to feel grief.
225
715000
4000
12:11
And I think as long as I keep grieving, and weeping,
226
719000
3000
12:14
and then moving on, I'm fine.
227
722000
2000
12:16
When I start to pretend that what I'm seeing isn't impacting me,
228
724000
4000
12:20
and isn't changing my heart, then I get in trouble.
229
728000
4000
12:24
Because when you spend a lot of time going from place to place,
230
732000
4000
12:28
country to country, and city to city,
231
736000
2000
12:30
the degree to which women, for example, are violated,
232
738000
3000
12:33
and the epidemic of it, and the kind of ordinariness of it,
233
741000
4000
12:37
is so devastating to one's soul that you have to take the time,
234
745000
5000
12:42
or I have to take the time now, to process that.
235
750000
3000
12:45
CA: There are a lot of causes out there in the world that have been talked about,
236
753000
4000
12:49
you know, poverty, sickness and so on. You spent eight years on this one.
237
757000
5000
12:54
Why this one?
238
762000
2000
12:56
EE: I think that if you think about women,
239
764000
2000
12:58
women are the primary resource of the planet. They give birth,
240
766000
5000
13:03
we come from them, they are mothers, they are visionaries,
241
771000
3000
13:06
they are the future. If you think that the U.N. now says
242
774000
3000
13:09
that one out of three women on the planet
243
777000
2000
13:11
will be raped or beaten in their lifetime,
244
779000
3000
13:14
we're talking about the desecration of the primary resource of the planet,
245
782000
4000
13:18
we're talking about the place where we come from, we're talking about parenting.
246
786000
3000
13:21
Imagine that you've been raped and you're bringing up a boy child.
247
789000
2000
13:23
How does it impact your ability to work, or envision a future,
248
791000
4000
13:27
or thrive, as opposed to just survive? What I believe is
249
795000
4000
13:31
if we could figure out how to make women safe and honor women,
250
799000
4000
13:35
it would be parallel or equal to honoring life itself.
251
803000
5000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Eve Ensler - Playwright, activistEve Ensler created the ground-breaking "Vagina Monologues," whose success propelled her to found V-Day -- a movement to end violence against women and girls everywhere.
Why you should listen
Inspired by intimate conversations with friends, Eve Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues. The play recounts tender, funny, gripping and horrifying stories she gathered from hundreds of women about their bodies, their sexual experiences, and yes, their vaginas. Since its first staging in 1996, it has been translated into more than 45 languages, performed in more than 120 countries and re-created as an HBO film.
The Vagina Monologues' success allowed Ensler to create V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, which has so far raised $85 million to prevent violence and protect abused women. In February 2011, Ensler received the Isabelle Stephenson Tony Award for her philanthropic work. Ensler has also drawn praise for The Good Body, a play that cuts to women's obsession with their appearance, and her film What I Want My Words to Do to You, which portrays a writing group she leads at a correctional facility for women. Today, she continues to find new projects and push the envelope. Her latest play, I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World, hit the New York Times bestseller list and just wrapped a workshop production in Johannesburg -- nest stop is Paris and then Berkeley in June 2012.
Eve Ensler | Speaker | TED.com