The Apology by Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler discusses her new book
By SHIPRA SHUKLA, June 11, 2019

Like millions of women, Eve Ensler—author of The Vagina Monologues, has been waiting much of her life for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father as a girl, Eve has grappled with her father’s betrayal and its effects for her whole life, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead.

After years of work as an artist and an activist in the movement to end violence against women, Eve realized she had never heard any man, including her father, give a satisfactory apology for abuse.

She had never heard a man indicate he had gone through the kind of transformation needed to assure he would never abuse another.

Eve decided she would not wait any longer. She could imagine an apology for herself. THE APOLOGY is written by Eve from her father’s point of view in the words she has always needed to hear to be freed from the trauma.

With this revolutionary work, Eve addresses her own past and the questions raised by the movement to end violence against women: How can survivors of abuse find release from their traumas? Now that we have called out abusers for what they have done, how might we call on them to confront and change their behavior and begin the process of healing? What will it take for them to genuinely apologize? What does transformation really look like?

At this cultural moment of public reckoning with violence against women, Eve’s message has the power to prompt real transformation and healing, not only in those who have been abused but also in the ones who have hurt them—a step toward change that is necessary and long overdue.

https://www.kalw.org/post/eve-ensler-discusses-her-new-book#stream/0