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.
I finally learned to accept that I can't make radio play blues any more than I could get Reagan out of the White House.
Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and the responsibility to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp and the only option left is to get to work.
You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being and that of your family and your country.
It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.
The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.
Thankfully, dreams can change. If we'd all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.
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