We speak with V, the playwright formerly known as Eve Ensler, about “How We Do Freedom: Rising Against Fascism,” a daylong educational event to be held at New York City’s Judson Memorial Church on Saturday. V is the founder of the global activist movements V-Day and One Billion Rising that is organizing the event. “The rise of fascism, from India to Italy, from Afghanistan to U.S., [is] the most pressing concern everywhere,” says V, who ties the crisis to growing loneliness and isolation. “One of the antidotes to fascism we know is community, is solidarity, is coming together, is talking, is being part of something that is bigger than yourself.”
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
A daylong event scheduled at Judson Memorial Church here in New York City Saturday is called “How We Do Freedom: Rising Against Fascism.” Speakers, poets, artists, activists will be crowding into the church, billed as a discussion on the way fascism impacts everything from, quote, “women’s bodies to anti-Blackness [and] the suppression of LGBTQ+ and the disabled, to the banning of books, erasing history and immigration bans, union busting, increasing violence and expansion of the police state, and the destruction of the Earth,” unquote. The event is organized by V-Day, One Billion Rising and Judson Memorial Church.
We’re joined right now in the studio by V, the playwright formerly known as Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising, global activist movements to end violence against all women, gender-expansive people and the Earth.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. This is an event that spans the globe. People will be talking about fascism from India to the United States.
V: Exactly. Thank you so much for having me this morning.
When we had our gathering of our global counsel of One Billion Rising in Rome in June, which we do every year — we kind of determine what’s going to be the issue of the year and what are the most pressing issues women are facing. And it was unanimous, within a half an hour, that the rise of fascism, from India to Italy, from Afghanistan to U.S., was the most pressing concern everywhere.
And I think this day, which I’m very excited about, we have a range of the most brilliant philosophers, thinkers, activists, artists, all who are going to be responding, telling stories, presenting theories, artistic responses to those theories, and, hopefully, inviting everybody into a deep exploration of what is fascism here, everywhere, and how we build a movement that can resist it.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play a clip that you have highlighted, Dalton Clodfelter, host of The Right Dissident program. He was speaking in 2022.
DALTON CLODFELTER: People say, “Well, I’m sort of like — you know, I’m like the 1920 feminists. You know, I believe women should have the right to vote,” etc., etc. No, that was evil, too. That was terrible. Our country started really going down the pooper once women got the right to vote. That’s evident. … And the facts of the matter are, women are dumber than men. Women should be subservient to men. Women have no place in male activities. Women have no place in partaking in the workforce. Women have no place in participating in politics. Women have no place outside of the home. The home is a virtuous place for women. Women should be happy when they are in the home. Women should be grateful when a man puts a roof over her head.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Dalton Clodfelter, host of The Right Dissident. How alone is he? Or what movement is he a part of?
V: Well, it’s hard to tell the numbers, but he’s certainly represented by JD Vance, who is running for vice president. We’re seeing a very strong push from the right wing to make sure that — let’s just look at abortion rights and the fact — what we’ve seen over the last year. I read this statistic recently that 64,000 babies were born last year to raped women who could not get abortions. That’s in America, right? We’re seeing the pushback of women back into the, quote, “family,” back into the home, the idea that women should now have the vote removed.
And I think we’re seeing this actually across the world, this repression of women. I mean, one of the women at our gathering and who will be — we’ll hear from during the event on Saturday, the oppression of women in Afghanistan is the extreme, most extreme form of oppression. It’s kind of the end of women, period. You can’t go out. You can’t speak. You can’t laugh. You can’t have jobs. You can’t — you can’t do anything, essentially, but have babies and be quiet, right? And I think there is a Talibanic movement in this country that would like to see women in the very same place.
And I think part of what we know is that when women’s rights are threatened in such a perilous way, it’s representative of all of our rights being, you know, oppressed in a similar kind of way. So, I think the day is really looking at — like, one panel, for example, is looking at the body — right? — the oppression of transgendered women’s bodies, the oppression of disabled women’s bodies, the oppression of, obviously, pregnant women’s bodies and our right to determine whether we have babies or we don’t have babies. But it’s also across the board, whether it’s the scapegoating of migrants and immigrants, as we’ve seen with this mad, mad — I don’t even want to repeat it, it’s so ludicrous, but the lies that are being told, the plans for expulsions of millions of people in vicious and violent ways.
I think what we all have to do now is really come together to think deeply about what are these rising fascistic impulses, that have been here all along in this country. They’re certainly not new to Black or Indigenous people, who have lived forever in that kind of precarity. But they are spreading, and they are deepening. And with Project ’25, the kind of outline of this policy bible, which is literally spelling it out, you know, beat by beat, we need to be prepared with our own Project ’25 as a counterproposal.
AMY GOODMAN: V, I wanted to ask about your piece in The Guardian titled “The forces of loneliness can cause political instability.” Explain.
V: Well, I think one of the things Hannah Arendt always talked about is that loneliness is often a precondition for fascism. It feeds off of it. And because people are lonely and they want to attach themselves to things, then they want to kind of find a cult or a way of belonging. And I think, you know, in 2023, the surgeon general came out and said that the greatest mental health crisis facing America was loneliness. And if we look at the combination of neoliberal capitalism and the pandemic, and now this ongoing, everyday malevolence coming from — mendacity coming from the right wing, I think it’s pushed people into a powerful state of isolation, loneliness, where they’re facing ongoing anxiety, dread, a feeling of not being wanted, a feeling of having to prove themselves and their right to be here. And it’s created mad isolation and mad disconnection.
And I think one of the antidotes to fascism we know is community, is solidarity, is coming together, is talking, is being part of something that is bigger than yourself, where you are protected, where each of us stands for each other’s rights. And I think, you know, one of the things I try to say in the piece about loneliness is that it’s up to us now to create a movement that is so powerful and so strong and so welcoming and so inclusive and so interdependent that that loneliness vanishes and we become strong in our numbers.
AMY GOODMAN: And one of the things about this event is not only the critique of fascism, but developing the strategies on dealing with it. And what do you think are among the most important global strategies, in this last 30 seconds we have?
V: Well, I think one is to recognize that it’s a global problem and to see this as something that’s happening, the rise of strongmen everywhere — right? — the expulsion of immigrants and scaping, the hatred of women and the destruction of our rights, and LGBTQ, the erasing of history, the religious nationalism. And I think one of the greatest strategies, I think, is educating ourselves, knowing what it is. I often bring up the word, and people don’t know what fascism is. So, part of this day is: What is it? And once we know what it is, then we begin to know how to deal with it and how to create an alternative to it.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, V, playwright formerly known as Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising. The event at the Judson Memorial Church in the Village on Saturday, “How We Do Freedom: Rising Against Fascism.”
That does it for our show. We have job openings. You can check them out at democracynow.org. Democracy Now! is produced by a remarkable team: Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Hana Elias. Our executive director, Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Jon Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike Di Filippo. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.