For the Builders, the Planters, and the Refusers, on the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day

When we finally have our voice and come together. When we stop turning on each other. When we stop worrying about our too frizzy hair or fat thighs. When we stop caring about making everyone so incredibly happy -- we got the power.
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On this, the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, I want to take a minute to honor grassroots women's activists across the planet -- women, like those working tirelessly in Haiti, who have inspired their communities, united their communities, and led their communities, holding them together and pushing them forward.

Today, I want to particularly honor the women on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who have organized and worked for peace and freedom over the many years of conflict that has been fought in their country and on their bodies. On February 4, the women of Congo, in partnership with V-Day and the Fondation Panzi (République Démocratique du Congo), opened the City of Joy, a revolutionary leadership community for survivors of sexual violence that will be the headquarters of a grassroots women's movement in Eastern, DRC.

A group of women, called "Friends of V-Day," built the City of Joy -- they were possibly the first female construction crew in Congolese history. These women mixed the cement, carried loads on their shoulders, made the bricks. They built the City of Joy with their own hands, understanding, with each careful step, that making a world and living in the world are not separate. Each day that the women built, they took time to dance and sing. It was part of the day's work, and now that spirit is literally built into the walls of the City of Joy. These women were aware that it takes a very specific constellation of ingredients to create a community, the way water, sun and earth all come together to build a new world. In the final days before the opening, the women planted grass, blade by blade, on the grounds of the City of Joy. That is how movements are born -- individual green blades, planted one by one, nurtured by water and light, protected until they have grown into grass.

Today, I dedicate my piece, REFUSER, to all the builders, all the grass planters, all the individual, green, sparkling blades of grass. I dedicate it to all the girls and women joining forces across the earth, to create change and revolution. REFUSERFrom the Lebanese mountainsTo the Kenyan village of El Doret We are practicing self-defenseVersed in Karate, Tai Chi, Judo, and Kung Foo We are no longer surrendering to our fate.

Now, we are the ones who walk our girl friends home from school. And we don't do it with macho. We do it with cool.

Our mothers are the Pink Sari Gang Fighting off the drunken menWith rose pointed fingers and sticks inUttar Pradesh.The Peshmerga womenin the Kurdish mountainswith barrettes in their hairand AK47's instead of pocket books. We are not waiting anymore to be taken and retaken.

We are the Liberian women sittingin the Africa sun blockading the exits til the men figure it out.

We are the Nigerian womenbabies strapped to out backsoccupying the oil terminals of Chevron.We are the women of Keralawho refused to let Coca Colaprivatize our water.We are Cindy Sheehan showing up in Crawford without a plan.We are all those who forfeited husbands boyfriends and datesCause we were married to our mission. We know love comes from all directions and in many forms.We are Malalai who spoke back to the Afghan Loya JurgaAnd told them they were "raping warlords" andShe kept speaking even when they kepttrying to blow up her house.And we are Zoya whose radical mother was shot dead when Zoya was only a child so she was fed on revolution which was stronger than milk

And we are the ones who kept and loved our babieseven though they have the faces of our rapists.

We are the girls who stopped cutting ourselves to release the painAnd we are the girls who refused to have our clitoris cut And give up our pleasure.

We are: Rachel Corrie who wouldn't couldn't move away from the Israeli tank.Aung San Suu Kyi who still smiles after years of not being able to leave her room.Anne Frank who survives now cause she wrote down her story.We are Neda Soltani gunned down by a sniper in the streets ofTehran as she voiced a new freedom and wayAnd we are Asmaa Mahfouz from the April 6th movement in EgyptWho twittered an uprising. We are the women riding the high seas to offerNeedy women abortions on ships.We are women documenting the atrocitiesin stadiums with video cameras underneath our Burqas.We are seventeen and living for a year in a treeAnd laying down in the forests to protect wild oaks.We are out at sea interrupting the whale murders.We are freegans, vegans, trannies But mainly we are refusers.We don't accept your worldYour rules your warsWe don't accept your cruelty and unkindness.We don't believe some need to suffer for others to surviveOr that there isn't enough to go aroundOr that corporations are the only and best economic arrangementAnd we don't hate boys, okay?That's another bullshit story.

We are refusersBut we crave kissing.We don't want to do anything before we're readybut it could be sooner than you thinkand we get to decideand we are not afraid of what is pulsing through us.It makes us alive.

Don't deny us, criticize us or infantilize us.We don't accept checkpoints, blockades or air raidsWe are obsessed with learning.On the barren Tsunamied beaches of Sri LankaIn the desolate and smelly remainsOf the lower ninthWe want school.We want school.We want school.

We know if you plan too longNothing happens and things get worse and thatMost everything is found in the actionand instinctively we get that the scariest thingisn't dying, but not trying at all.

And when we finally have our voiceand come togetherwhen we let ourselves gather the knowledgewhen we stop turning on each otherbut direct our energy towards what matterswhen we stop worrying about our skinny ass stomachs or too frizzy hairor fat thighs when we stop caring about pleasingand making everyone so incredibly happy-We got the Power.

If Janis Joplin was nominated the ugliest man on her campusAnd they sent Angela Davis to jail If Simone Weil had manly virtuesAnd Joan of Arc was hystericalIf Bella Abzug was eminently obnoxiousAnd Ellen Sirleaf Johnson is considered scaryIf Arundhati Roy is totally intimidatingand Rigoberta Menchu is pathologically intenseAnd Julia Butterfly Hill is an extremist freakCall us hysterical thenFanaticalEccentricDelusionalIntimidatingEminently obnoxiousMilitant Bitch FreakTattoo meWitchGive us our broomsticks And potions on the stoveWe are the girlswho are aren't afraid to cook.

"Refuser" is published in Eve's newest work - I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World, just released in paperback from Villard Trade Paperbacks.

Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist, is the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. In conjunction with I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE, V-Day has developed a targeted pilot program, V-Girls, to engage young women in our "empowerment philanthropy" model, providing them with a platform to amplify their voices.

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