I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler
Learn more about the refusers included in the monologue. Which individuals or issues speak to you?
How can you be a refuser in your everyday life?
Do you think young people can make an impact as refusers?
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT BEING A GIRL?
What’s your favorite thing about being a girl?
What are some misconceptions about girls?
ASKING THE QUESTION
Why is it so hard to “ask the question” to use contraception with a sexual partner?
Do you think guys don’t want to wear condoms? Why wouldn’t they?
What advice would you give a friend who needs to “ask the question”?
Do you ever “make people up” and imagine what others are thinking or feeling, as the character in the monologue does?
What role does honesty play in a healthy romantic or sexual relationship?
THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
What do you like about your body?
What makes you feel strong and confident?
What outside influences affect how girls feel about their bodies?
What would the world be like if we loved and appreciated one another as we are?
MY SHORT SKIRT
How can you challenge the belief that girls “ask for it” if they dress in a certain way?
How do women look in real life versus in the media? How does this influence you?
What do you find beautiful in real life?
How can your clothing express defiance or empowerment?
THINGS THAT GIVE US PLEASURE
What gives you pleasure?
Do you ever feel like you are doing things just to make other people happy?
How can you focus on what gives you pleasure, rather than seeking to please others?
FIVE COWS AND A CALF
Why do you think gender violence is so common throughout the world and throughout history?
What does your culture expect from you as a girl?
How can you challenge these expectations?
Where would you like to have reconciliation for yourself, in your family, in your friendships, or in other aspects of your life?
What is FGM? What do you think about the practice? Do you think it is possible for cultural attitudes about FGM to change? How?
Do you know of any places where long-practiced traditions have changed?
I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE
What is an emotional creature?
How are you an emotional creature?
What have you been told to shut down or turn off?
Have you ever been told you are too much of something? Too intense, wild, caring, angry, idealistic, etc.? How do you challenge these assumptions?
What would happen if you let the big door inside you fly open? What would happen if we all did?
EPILOGUE: MANIFESTA TO YOUNG WOMEN AND GIRLS
How can you keep your heart open?
What are your hopes and dreams? Who do you want to be, where do you want to go, and what do you want to learn?
How can you be true to yourself when there are so many things that other people want you to do and be?
How do you want to be an activist in the world?
What issues and causes are important to you?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EVE ENSLER is an internationally bestselling author and an acclaimed playwright whose works for the stage include The Vagina Monologues, Necessary Targets, and The Good Body. She is the author of Insecure at Last, a political memoir. Ensler is the founder of V-Day (vday.org), the global movement to end violence against women and girls. In the last decade, V-Day has raised more than $70 million for grassroots groups that work to end violence against women and girls around the world. Eve Ensler lives in Paris and New York City.
Copyright © 2010 by 16th Street Productions, Inc.
Foreword copyright © 2010 by Carol Gilligan
Discussion Questions © 2011 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Villard, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
VILLARD BOOKS and VILLARD & “V” CIRCLED Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ensler, Eve.
I am an emotional creature: the secret life of girls
around the world / Eve Ensler.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51973-3
1. Girls—Psychology. 2. Girls—Social conditions—21st century. 3. Girls—Social life and customs—21st century. I. Title.
HQ777.E57 2010
155.43′3—dc22 2009044775
www.villard.com
Cover design and hand-lettering: Joel Holland
v3.0
Eve Ensler, I Am an Emotional Creature