UCLA V-Day uses art to rise against gender inequality

For Eve Ensler, the Tony Award-winning writer of the provocative “The Vagina Monologues,” and many students at UCLA, Valentine’s Day is about a lot more than heart-shaped candies and oversized teddy bears. It’s about giving a voice to women across the world by offering them an opportunity to stand together and speak out against gender inequality.

This year, V-Day, a grassroots movement started by Ensler to end violence against women, is coming to UCLA. Starting today, the Social Awareness Network for Activism through Art is hosting an almost two-week long series of events to instigate a discussion of how our perception of sexuality influences issues like sexual assault and unequal rights for women.

Today’s kickoff features student performances from the Sex Squad, spoken-word artists and several dance groups followed by a trauma intervention workshop later this evening. At the end of the series, on Feb. 22 and 23, the Social Awareness Network for Activism through Art will host three performances of “The Vagina Monologues.”

Kausar Mohammed, a third-year communication studies and international development studies student and a staff member of the Social Awareness Network for Activism through Art, is responsible for producing the events. She said she believes that embracing sexuality is the key to understanding its social implications.

“Sexuality needs to be discussed because when it isn’t, that’s how things like sexual abuse get hidden under the rug,” Mohammed said.

Mohammed said the decision to host a V-Day event this year was inspired in part by the launch of Ensler’s new campaign, One Billion Rising, in celebration of the 15th anniversary of V-Day. This global movement invites the world to rise up on Valentine’s Day to give a voice to the more than one billion women who will be raped or beaten in their lifetime, according to the One Billion Rising website.

Ensler said her goal for her campaign is to use performance art to create new visions of gender roles in our society. The Social Awareness Network for Activism through Art is applying this to its own efforts by using its artistic talents to bring the issue of violence against women to students’ attention.

“Art truly, I believe, speaks to everybody. It doesn’t matter if it’s music or poetry or the way you dress every day. Art is a universal means of reaching people,” said Amalia Mesa-Gustin, a fourth-year theater student and president of the Social Awareness Network for Activism through Art.

Mohammed and Mesa-Gustin said they hope to use art to open the discussion, and the self-defense and trauma intervention workshops are intended to provide women with practical tools to prevent and heal from sexual assault, a prevalent problem on college campuses that Ensler said is important to address.

“If we really want girls and women to progress in their education, they have to feel safe in the environment in which they are studying,” Ensler said.

To make V-Day happen at UCLA, the Social Awareness Network for Activism through Art is collaborating with several student organizations including Hip Hop Congress, which is hosting a panel discussion of gender in hip-hop, and Creative Minds, which is helping to plan the trauma intervention workshop.

UCLA departments like Counseling and Psychological Services are also getting involved, particularly in the planning of the self-defense workshop.

Echo Zen, a graduate student in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and co-chair of the Reproductive Health Interest Group, is organizing the publicity and social media for the events. He said it is the collaboration among different groups that makes the One Billion Rising movement so powerful globally and locally because it sends a message that women’s issues are everyone’s issues.

“Our theme this year is we’re showing how it’s not just the cast and crew that worked on this. We’re showing how all the different organizations worked on this like the African Women’s Collective and Creative Minds,” Zen said. “They’re all having a part in pushing this V-Day movement forward.”

Working together, the organizers of V-Day at UCLA said they hope that engaging students in an open discussion about gender will propel Ensler’s vision for a world without violence against women by inspiring students to take action to change the way our society views and treats women.

“I have not seen a place where women are not wanting to rise up and take back their rights, take back their bodies, take back their homes and take back their power,” Ensler said.