This year marks the 10th anniversary of V-Day, a movement seeking to end violence against women and girls worldwide. This global campaign developed out of Eve Ensler’s celebrated and controversial play, The Vagina Monologues.

Cornell has participated in V-Day’s College Campaign since its debut in 1998. The first coordinator of the Campaign was a Cornell alumna who felt strongly that her alma mater should take part in V-Day. Gannett and the Cornell Women’s Resource Center sponsored the first University production of The Vagina Monologues, but not without reservation. The directors worried about the backlash they would receive from the Cornell community, and potentially, the nation. Ultimately, Cornell decided to go forward with its production of the monologues and it was a success.

The original Vagina Monologues were performed in the Big Red Barn. There were no microphones and the Barn was filled to capacity with close to 100 audience members. Cornell was one of approximately 50 universities to participate in the first V-Day. Today, hundreds of universities worldwide put on an annual production of Ensler’s play. This year’s monologues will take place tonight and tomorrow evening.

It is not surprising that Cornell has been part of V-Day since the beginning. The University, largely thanks to its two co-founders, was forward-thinking for its time when it came to women and education. As fellow columnist Elana Beale ’08 and I pointed out earlier this year, Uncle Ezra sent his daughter off to Vassar in 1866 and in 1877, A.D. White’s second wife, Helen Magill, became the first woman in the U.S. to receive a Ph.D. It comes as no shock, then, that Cornell was the first Ivy League university to admit women, and one of only three Ivies to admit women prior to the 20th century.

Cornell continues to lead the Ivies in other ways, too. With eight quick phone calls to all the health centers in the Ivy League, I discovered that Cornell makes us proud as the only member of the Ancient Eight to sell vibrators. Harvard did divulge that it sold vibrators at one time, but the pharmacist went on to say that “they weren’t a hot item,” so the health center let them go. A male pharmacist at Yale responded to my inquiry regarding the availability of vibrators on campus with a long, awkward pause before telling me “no” and hanging up. The most enthusiastic response I received was from a woman at Columbia’s health center who informed me that the home of the Lions does not sell vibrators and then chuckled saying, “But shoo, honey, there are better places in this city to buy a vibrator.” She then proceeded to list a few of these “better places” before I interrupted her with a “thank you.”

As one who loves history, I was also excited to discover that Cornell resident scholar Rachel P. Maines has published a book on the evolution of the vibrator. (Did Newsweek take this into consideration when it dubbed us “Hottest Ivy?”) Maines’ book explores the modes of female masturbation from ancient times to the present, discusses society’s response to the female orgasm and includes many interesting illustrations as well. Today, the fact that only one school in the Ivy League sells vibrators provides a small glimpse into the way in which society views women’s sexuality.

What is undeniably more telling of society’s attitude towards women is the level of violence women continue to experience across college campuses, the nation and the world. The U.S. Government’s Center for Disease Control conservatively estimates that 20 to 25 percent of college women in the U.S. experience attempted to completed rape during their time in college. Cornell women are no exception.

The Clery Act requires that universities report crimes that take place on and around their campuses. Cornell’s most recent statistics disclose four forcible sex offenses and one gender hate crime for the year 2005, though Gannett’s Victim Advocate Nina Cummings and director of Cornell Women’s Resource Center Laura Weiss say that these statistics drastically underestimate violence against Cornell women due to under-reporting. I applaud Cornell for creating Cummings’ position — a resource available to the victims of harassment, assault, rape and other types of abuse is extremely important. Cornell’s need for a Victim Advocate underscores the prevalence of female victims of male-perpetrated violence and the need for victim support. While the Victim Advocate’s services are available to male victims as well, Cummings says the majority of cases she sees are of male on female violence.

Nationwide, again according to the CDC, 1 in 6 women report rape or attempted rape at some point during their lives. Across the globe, rape and other forms of sexual violence are used as tools of war. As a campus, nation and global community we need to begin a conversation about why this violence continues to occur and why so much of it goes unreported.

The V-Day movement to end violence against women and girls is growing, but so is this violence. It is time for this to end.

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There are resources at Cornell and in the Ithaca to help women and men who have been the victims of abuse. Their contact information is listed below.

Advocacy Center: (607) 277-3203;

24-Hour Hotline: (607) 277-5000

Gannett, Victim Advocate: (607) 255-1212,

victimadvocate@cornell.edu

Women’s Resource Center: (607) 255-0015

womensresctr-mailbox@cornell.edu

Sarah Olesiuk is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be contacted at solesiuk@cornellsun.com. Archive This! appears alternate Fridays.