get involved: one billion rising

“One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. One billion women violated, is an atrocity. One billion women dancing, is a revolution”

As a project dedicated to ending violence against women for good, One Billion Rising is a global strike calling for men and women alike to ‘refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends’. Inviting any and all people committed to seeing the abolition of the acceptance of violence against women as “a given”, this is a chance to combine forces and use the power of numbers for an act of solidarity, and capture the powerful action that the physical act of movement can create.

One Billion Rising is a newly founded baby sprout of V-Day, which will be celebrating its 15^th year of campaigning for the rights of women to be free from rape, incest, domestic battery, female genital mutilation, sex slavery and more. Inspired by the 1998 play, The Vagina Monologues, by playwright, activist, feminist and V-Day founder, Eve Ensler, it is determined to make this the biggest worldwide movement that will ensure the issues of violence against women ‘will never be marginalised again’.

‘When we started V-Day 14 years ago, we had the outrageous idea that we could end violence against women’, reads their website.

‘Violence against women and girls is not only a woman’s issue; it’s a human issue. When we say everyone should join the campaign we mean everyone.’

As a chance to ‘break free of the cage of patriarchy, of fear and intimation, and…blast open the boundaries that have kept ourselves…creativity…vision…body in prison’, Eve Ensler is on the mission to find One Billion to Rise and dance together, as a sign of strength, unity and ultimately to show the world that we won’t settle for anything less than justice.

Even our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard is on board, sharing her thoughts: ‘We cannot accept a situation where that is possible, let alone where one that is tolerated or justified,’ she said.

‘Let’s find the courage to stand together and say enough – the violence has to stop.’

So this coming Thursday, 14^th February we encourage you to rise up together or alone, dance your heart away for all the women who are treated as second class citizens based on the way they were born.

To find a One Billion Rising event near you, pop on your dancing shoes, reignite your feminist passion and visit the One Billion Rising website.