Here is the unabridged introduction to my review of Eve Ensler's "I Am an Emotional Creature." You can find the abridged full review of the Call to Revolution on the Canadian Feminist blog, Gender Focus, at:
http://www.gender-focus.com/2012/05/18/my-father-met-eve-ensler-and-they-both-wanted-to-tell-me-that-i-am-an-emotional-creature/
Eve Ensler, meet my father.
Father, meet Eve.
That’s the way I would have introduced them if I
were present when they met. But they met
on their own, without me. Yes, as you
might guess, my father’s emotions ran high.
He saw Eve standing by a lovely tree.
She wasn’t afraid of the snake slithering around the tree’s branch. She lifted her hand, slowly. So slowly.
She placed her palm beneath the ripe fruit and waited for it to fall
into her hand. She looked the sir-pent
directly in the eye and bit into the flesh of the fruit. She let it run pink down her chin and she did
not look down or wipe away the juice. The
snake didn’t speak because he knew his words did not have any power over
her. He watched, in awe. And so did my
father. My father and the serpent
watched Eve eat the fruit on her own, at her own will, at her own pace. They were her voyeurs, longing to be so bold
and unafraid. Then, he felt a wave of
courage come over him so he went to Eve’s side, hoping he could pick and eat
his own fruit the way she did. With
sensual and emotional power. Without a
second thought, without wiping his mouth with a leaf. But he was too afraid to say anything at all
to her. The serpent scared the death out
of him. My father did not want to look
into the serpent’s eyes so he ran up beside Eve, grabbed a piece of fruit from
the tree and took off. He took the fruit
home, calling it an apple, and gave it to me, his daughter.
Oh. Wait. Different story. So sorry.
That must have been ANOTHER father.
My father didn’t even tell me
about his encounter with Eve; I only know about it because I received a copy of
Ensler’s Best-Selling book, I Am an
Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World in the mail
(from him, my father). That was back when the book first came out, in
2010. I was shocked that my father would
send me the book, and I wondered if he was being sarcastic. As I studied the front and back covers, I
figured out that he was serious. I paged
through the book and knew it would take me an hour or so to read it, but I
didn’t read it at that time. I put the
book in my nightstand drawer and left it there until yesterday. I’m sure many of you have books in your drawers
or on your shelves that are waiting for you to come to them and spend a little
quality time with them. This is one book
that should come out of its hiding place.
Right about now. If you have any inkling, even a remote one,
that you are an emotional creature, do something rash and get ahold of this
work. Then read it. Give an hour of your time, that’s all you will
need, to develop your emotional intelligence and remember your inner girl and
all her superpowers. I want that for
you, I want you to be a tour de force in the world. Maybe my father wants that for me, too. I credit Eve.
It was Eve Ensler’s intuitive sense, after all, that
led her to giving the Vagina a voice (multiple voices, in fact) in The Vagina Monologues. Likewise, it was her fierce, unapologetic
anger and delight that fueled “I Am an Emotional Creature.” Eve, of the Garden of Eden, and Eve Ensler, of
the Garden of Girlhood, have a lot in common.
They are both intense emotional beings.
They both share a powerful ability to change the course of the world in
one single juicy act. They both share an
unstoppable hunger for what they already possess: insight. And they are both like you and me. Ensler’s latest work is defiant and
self-fulfilling. It’s self-indulgence
that benefits all of humanity. The
Voices of Girlhood in her book are the modern Eves of the world: daughters
seeking pleasure, fire, freedom, independence and agency, even if it requires
willful disobedience. Eve (Ensler) wants
us to stand up, pick our fruit and enjoy eating it. She wants the international daughters of the
world to realize that they possess something that threatens the current state
of affairs in the world – something so powerful it could turn patriarchy on its
head. We possess the power of emotional intelligence and spirituality. If we come together and share our
intelligence and agency, we can and we will revolutionize gender, sexuality, and
emotional existence. If one girl, say
one named Eve, can stand alone and disobey the patriarchal order of things;
imagine how transforming it would be for a group of girls and women to stand
together in their disobedience. Imagine
the power of our disobedience, our intuitive knowledge, our sensuality and our pleasure. Ensler’s book will light a fire under your
ass if one is not already lit. She, and
the voice(s) of girls everywhere, will call for your participation in the Girl
Revolution.
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