By Shanayah Braithwaite//
Hood College presented a benefit reading of V-Day’s, “Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and a Prayer: Writing to Stop Violence Against Women and Girls,” on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23 in Hodson Auditorium.
The book is a collection of monologues by world-renowned authors and playwrights, edited by Mollie Doyle and Eve Ensler, V-DAY founder.
Proceeds raised from the event went to the Heartly House, an organization that helps Frederick County residents who have been impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse.
The benefit performance was presented as part of V-Day’s One Billion Rising for Justice campaign, a global call for women survivors of violence and those who love them to gather safely in places where they are entitled to justice and release their stories through art, dance, marches, ritual, song, spoken word, sit-ins and testimonies.
Ellie Blaser, a junior at Hood, performed, “The Aristocrats,” by Kate Clinton. “It’s basically just women telling their stories about sexism that they’ve faced – maybe on a personal level, maybe on a global level, and the different ways stuff like that can happen and have negative affect,” she said.
V-Day organizers have changed laws to protect women and girls, funded rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, educated their communities, and raised over $ 100 million for groups working towards ending violence and serving survivors and their families (V-DAY, 2014).
Members of Hood College’s Feminist Student Union (FSU) and the V-Team, Eve Ensler and part time and full time members of V-Day, teamed up to make the event possible by directing, managing backstage, and performing a variety of monologues.