That Takes Ovaries! (33 page)

It’s a girl thing, so likely not a lot of guys will come. If some do, make them feel welcome (we can always use good men in the revolution, and at parties) and remind them that they can tell stories about the ovaries in their lives—female friends and family members. Some actually might, and then you are in for a treat; it is a treasure to hear men appreciate women’s boldness.

Before anyone leaves, tell your girl-guests that if they want their stories considered for any subsequent
Ovaries!
books they should check the website for submission info.

If you want to have more than just a few friends over; if you want to see strangers (who are only friends you have not yet met) excitedly milling around, talking about doing audacious things; if you want to bring women and girls together to listen, clap, and cheer with huge grins on their faces; if you want to feel powerful, smart, and in charge, like
you
can plan and pull off a great time for lots of folks—and raise their consciousness to boot—then you want to organize a bigger, public
That Takes Ovaries!
Open Mike. Good for you.

Luckily for everyone, the book’s control-freaky editor cannot be involved with most events. So instead, there are guidelines for open mike organizers, like you, to use. The guidelines are summarized below, with the full version found on the website.

What?
You say you have never organized a public event before?

Well, hey, now’s your chance. You never know, this might start your new career in organizing for women’s empowerment. Or it could just be a lot of fun—once.

You can work as an individual, or under the auspices of an established organization. You can hold a stand-alone event, or
include the open mike as a fun, audience participatory component to an already-scheduled larger conference (big advantages: comes with a site and pre-made audience). Or you can hold it in a bookstore. Options galore! Be creative.

Unlike a smaller Living Room Open Mike, where I have suggestions but no requirements, if you want to organize a bigger, public open mike, you will have to do Certain Things. I list them here. But first, a definition of what exactly a “bigger, public”
That Takes Ovaries!
Open Mike is. It is any gathering that uses “That Takes Ovaries!” or any like-wording in its promotion and: (1) is open to the public or local community—such as your city, neighborhood, or school; (2) includes more than just your friends and your friends’ friends; (3) is publicized, perhaps with a publicly posted flyer or listing in a newspaper, school, or community events calendar; and/or (4) may be covered by the media. Lastly, if you expect more than thirty people, whoever they are, consider your open mike “bigger, public.”

In keeping with the philosophy that it is important to give back to our communities, I encourage each (bigger, public) open mike organizer to make her event a fund-raiser, and to split the proceeds between two causes: one local, one international. We females are scattered far and wide; by dividing up our resources locally and internationally, we cover all bases.

Some of the money collected can go to covering costs (though it is hoped that sponsors or in-kind donations will take care of that), and, if necessary, to paying the organizer something. But regardless of costs, most of the proceeds should go to the beneficiaries of the fund-raiser.

It is my suggestion and hope that a portion of the money raised go to a local girls’ program—whichever one you like in your community. (If you need an idea, consider your nearest chapter of Girls Inc. (
www.girlsinc.org
), one of the nation’s preeminent girls’ organizations. They help girls with everything
from self-defense to economic empowerment to preventing adolescent pregnancy.) If you search high and low but cannot find a local girls’ group that seems right for an
Ovaries!
fundraiser, pick a women’s group.

It is my further hope that another portion of the money your event raises will be dedicated to stopping two of the most appalling international human rights abuses perpetrated against women and girls—sexual enslavement and, separately, female
genital mutilation (FGM) (for info on these two horrific violations of girls’ rights and sexual freedom). To this end,
That Takes Ovaries!
established a relationship with Equality Now (
www.equalitynow.org
), a New York-based international women’s organization that, among other things, works with grassroots groups around the globe to eradicate FGM as well as the sex trafficking of girls. Some of the writers in this book have already generously donated their contributor’s honorarium to Equality Now. Imagine if every open mike distributed information and made a donation, too. We could make a real difference in the crucial goal of educating the public and ending both sexual slavery and FGM. And we would be sending a strong message that women in the so-called First World, a world of privilege, care about all women around the globe. (Note: If there is another international women’s cause you’d prefer to donate to, that is also an option. Donating to Equality Now is strongly encouraged but not required.)

For those of you who have never organized for a cause or never before seen yourselves as social change activists—Welcome! Please use this event to get your feet (and knees and
tush) wet. There is nothing like the high that comes from making a difference.

• Register your intention to organize a (bigger, public)
  That Takes Ovaries!
  Open Mike. Wait until you hear back before proceeding further.
  

• Prepare yourself for a bunch of fun and a good bit of work: Depending on how big you want it to be, the event could take one to three months to pull off.
  

• Find a coorganizer or loyal servants, umm, assistants, who will help.
  

• Find a free/absurdly cheap, wheelchair accessible, close-to-public- transit site. Try a bookstore, coffee shop, university campus, poetry reading spot, club, auditorium, beauty parlor waiting room, bowling alley parking lot, whatever. (Or piggyback onto another organization’s already scheduled conference. Its organizers might love an audience participatory activity. And this way your site and crowd are already secured. Yippee!)
  

• Invite local girls’ and women’s organizations to join the fun by having them coorganize, sponsor, publicize, and/or attend the event.
  

• Consider inviting local celebrities and leaders. They will bring their fans, and can read from the book, tell their own personal stories, or emcee. Which gets us to…
  

• Secure a Mistress of Ceremonies (emcee). She should be vibrant and bold (like the book!), and, most important, able to make crowds comfortable enough to share personal stories aloud.
  Maybe she is you?
  

• If you are not already holding the open mike at a bookstore, invite the owner or manager of one to attend your event to sell the book. This helps promote the paperback—thank you!—and further legitimizes your open mike by linking it to the book. (P.S. Don’t forget to support your local
  independent
  bookstores.)
  

• Schedule an up-to-two-hour agenda. Choose activities from the
  At the Event Itself
  options (summarized below; full version found on the website).
  

• Get a nifty
  Ovaries!
  publicity packet off the website.
  

• Make an eye-catching (hot pink?) hardcopy flyer about the event, and an e-mail flyer, too.
  

• E-mail and snailmail flyers to all potentially interested individuals and groups, like local women’s centers, YWCA, N.O.W., Girls Inc., and Girl Scouts chapters.
  

• Pass out flyers at poetry slams, clubs, knitting conventions, pro-choice demos, and any public gathering of one or more people. Post on windows and community bulletin boards in libraries, bookstores, coffee shops, beauty salons, gynecologists’ offices—anywhere you’d find women chillin’.
  

• Get the open mike listed in the calendar section of local publications.
  

• If you want more publicity, like your fifteen seconds of fame, contact local TV stations and city newspapers’ entertainment/around town/style reporters and book reviewers. Their interests will be piqued by a
  That Takes Ovaries!
  Open Mike. It’s playful
  and
  depthful, and it has just enough “edge” to draw them in.
  

Activities you can use at your event are listed in the Open Mike Guidelines on the website. Pick the ones you think would work best with the community you are inviting. A bare-bones open
mike consists of only three components: first, the
Introduction,
when the Mistress of Ceremonies reads aloud the book’s preface (aka “Rivka’s Note to All Readers”) and discusses the importance of women and girls publicly sharing their brazen, outrageous, audacious, courageous acts; second,
Modeling the Storytelling Style,
when someone role-models the types of stories we hope to hear at the event (i.e. true, short, and, of course, gutsy), perhaps by reading aloud examples from the book; and last, the actual
Open Mike Time,
when women and girls who came with a story already prepared share them with the whole room, thereby motivating others to spontaneously share stories, too. With just those three components, you will have a great event!

However, other activities can also be found on the website, such as
Celebrity Readings,
when well-known, crowd-drawing locals tell stories from their own lives or read from the book; the
Golden Ovaries Award Ceremony,
when community-based women and girls who have acted boldly are honored and then tell their specific act of brazenness to the audience; the
Greater Audience Involvement
exercise, when all who attend have a chance to share their stories in a small group setting, and then later, if they want, with the whole room. The exercise is a fun way to help bring shy people out and build their self-esteem.

No matter how you proceed with your open mike, the clapping, cheering, supportive yelps and congratulatory pats on the back at the end of every story will encourage each woman and girl to keep being gutsy, keep taking risks in her day-to-day life. And when the electrified crowd finally dances its way out the door, you can be sure they’ll know that being
Women With Ovaries
enhances their own lives and serves as a fine example to others of what a woman can be.

It is my hope that the
That Takes Ovaries!
Open Mikes that you organize (especially the bigger, public ones) will be fund-raisers, with a percentage of the money raised going to local girls’ groups and a percentage going to the organization Equality Now for their work to stop female genital mutilation (FGM) and the equally horrible but separate atrocity of sexual enslavement. (For general info on fund-raising)

FGM is one of the most atrocious human rights abuses perpetrated against girls around the globe. To date, 130 million females from Africa to Europe and the United States have been mutilated and suffer permanent disabilities from the barbaric act. An unknown number die each year during and after the procedure. Equality Now works with community-based leaders and grassroots groups worldwide to promote a better understanding of FGM and effective strategies for its eradication

This is how Fauziya Kassindja, who managed to escape FGM, describes it in her story in
That Takes Ovaries!:

A harmful traditional practice among some African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures, female genital mutilation (FGM) is performed on about two million infants, girls, and
women each year. That’s more than five thousand a day. Depending on the local custom, you will either “only” have your clitoris cut off, or you will lose the whole thing, including labia minora and majora. If it is the latter, you are sewn up, leaving a small hole, hardly big enough to allow pee and menstrual blood to squeeze out. Then, with each baby you birth, you are recut and resewn anew. The rationale behind FGM is complex: It is tradition; it is thought to protect virginity and prevent promiscuity; uncircumcised females are considered dirty; girls must be cut as a requirement for marriage; and circumsised girls and women are deemed more sexually desirable.