I think violence against women in America has become ordinary - it's been made absolutely acceptable.
Interpretation
The normalization of violence against women in America diminishes its perceived severity and urgency for action.
Eve Ensler's quote highlights a troubling reality where violence against women has been desensitized in American society. This 'ordinary' perception allows individuals and institutions to overlook the issue, thus making it seem acceptable, and underscores the urgent need for change to combat this violence and reshape societal attitudes.
In practice
During a panel discussing women's rights, this quote can be used to emphasize the urgency of addressing domestic violence.
Dancing insists we take up space, and though it has no set direction, we go there together. Dance is dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive, and contagious and it breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere, at anytime, with anyone and everyone, and it's free. Dance joins us and pushes us to go further and that is why it's at the center of ONE BILLION RISING.
Before cancer, I was obviously disconnected. I had a tumor the size of a mango inside me and didn't do anything about it. It wasn't like I didn't know something was wrong.
It's a weird thing about the truth: It protects you. What really makes you vulnerable is when you're lying because you're going to get caught. When you tell the truth, there's a strange relief that comes.
Well, the tyranny of masculinity and the tyranny of patriarchy I think has been much more deadly to men than it has to women. It hasn’t killed our hearts. It’s killed men’s hearts. It’s silenced them, it’s cut them off.
Why are women immobile? Because so many feel like they’re waiting for someone to say, "You’re good, you’re pretty, I give you permission."
Security is elusive. It's impossible. We all die. We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us. People change us. Nothing is secure.
When there's justice and change, you start to see the cleansing of the soul, and that is what I want for people, and I hope it's okay for me to say those things.
I think what I'd really like to see would be a mass consciousness-raising movement so that we would all become vegetarian.
We women are going to bring change. We are speaking up for girls' rights, but we must not behave like men, like they have done in the past.
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.
We could get more action in the South because the Negroes had a feeling that they were being oppressed. But you take New York, for example: they'd give Negroes little five-cent jobs here and there - and they thought they had something. And the same in Chicago and any of the metropolitan areas.
The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life.
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