Terence McKenna says, "The culture is not your friend." I am not sure we can change this culture. But I think we can rise above it and create a new world. That's why I so deeply believe in alternative spaces. That's why I believe in the power of art and activism.
Eve EnslerI think culture is where things change in us deeply. But right now, I think that people are very traumatised. They are very scared. Having grown up in a house with a perpetrator who was violent every day and terrorising every day, I feel like that this country is suddenly very much like the house and the family I grew up in. Every day we are glued to our phones, glued to our television; "What is this psychopath going to do next? How will he embarrass us? Who will he bully or hurt or humiliate today? It's so easy to get locked into a syndrome where the perpetrator is ruling your life.
Eve EnslerEverything you deny is actually killing you on some level. You see something, you feel something wrong with your body, you pretend it's not happening, it goes on, it grows, it gets worse.
Eve EnslerPeople didn't feel so much shame around it and that they didn't feel so much humiliation around it. And the other thing that people have given me a lot of feedback about - something I'm very excited about - is all the stuff around chemo as an "empathetic warrior."
Eve EnslerThere is a beautiful expression in Nicaragua: "struggle is the highest form of song". I love that. We are in the struggle. It's like a river. Once you step into it you become the river. It's not, you go out and click on a couple of charities that you believe in, march in the Women's March, and you're done. Struggle becomes your life, transforming a paradigm that is based on domination into a paradigm of co-operation. Fighting for the liberation of women, of people of color, of indigenous people, of lgbtq communities. Fighting to protect immigrants and assuring the safety of refugees.
Eve Ensler