<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Most women of our generation know the feminist writer Eve Ensler \u2013 if they know her at all, that is \u2013 as the woman behind The Vagina Monologues. Ensler&amp;#039;s brand of feminism, while opening women&amp;#039;s eyes to their own bodies and minds (my sister cried when she saw the show), is the sort that begat some of the stereotypes on a certain un-ironic, crunchy, baby boomer brand of feminism. Have you ever seen the feminist bookstore sketch in Portlandia? It&amp;#039;s kind of like that. These days, we seem to like our feminism not touchy-feely and straight up, but with a twist of snark \u2014 Tina Fey, for instance, or How to Be A Woman author Caitlin Moran. On my way to Powerhouse Bookstore in Dumbo to hear Ensler read selections from her newest book, In the Body of The World, I wondered if her approach was still relevant to today&amp;#039;s no-nonsense Lean In style. There was only one way to find out. The attendees were almost completely female, save for one or two boyfriends. Ensler, with close-cropped black hair and black combat boots, greeted the crowd with: &amp;quot;I feel very open and very emotional and very happy to be here.&amp;quot; As she began to read, it became clear that her book was a memoir, but, in the way of good memoirs, is meant to speak to the larger female experience. Ensler had barely just survived uterine cancer (yes, she&amp;#039;s aware of the irony that she wrote The Vagina Monologues and subsequently was afflicted by the area in question) after doctors had discovered a mango-sized tumor and subsequently removed two organs. As she underwent chemo and radiation, she began to work with a women&amp;#039;s sanctuary in the Congo called the City of Joy and encountered the unrelenting rape and abuse of its women. She saw refugee camps, women scarred with acid and the lash, and felt able to relate to them on a visceral level because her own body was being attacked. This empathy was often literal: At one point she encountered a rape victim with fistula \u2013 a hole between the vagina and anus that&amp;#039;s a cause of pain and embarrassment for many victims of extreme sexual assault \u2013 while actually suffering the same ailment due to her treatments. But there was an even deeper reason that cancer changed Ensler: in her youth, she&amp;#039;d experienced severe emotional and physical sexual abuse that disconnected her from her body, as young victims often do as a survival technique. She&amp;#039;d spent years trying to re-connect with it, but her techniques were always self-destructive, like binge drinking, one-sided relationships and joyless sex. She felt alienated both from her body and the world at large. (As she put it, &amp;quot;I did not have a baby. I did not like the trees.&amp;quot;) At the time of her cancer diagnosis, she&amp;#039;d been sober and vegan for the last 30 years, but still hasn&amp;#039;t found a way to unite herself with either of those things, which eventually seemed inextricably linked. Throughout her treatment, she began associating the chemicals in her body with the pollution in the earth \u2013 a particularly vicious round of chemo, or a catheter, say, became equivocal with an oil spill in the Arctic. Coming closer to the earth was an unorthodox, but effective way to reconnect with her own body (the orthodox way, says Ensler, being childbirth). During her treatment, she also came to realize, as her many friends came to her aid, that she was unconditionally loved whether there was a significant other in her life or not \u2014 something we could all stand to remember. She smoked weed and and quinoa and watched Friday Night Lights with them in her hospital room and reconnected with her estranged sister. And, with all of these experiences strengthening her, she defeated cancer, plus re-established connections with her body, the Congo and the world. She recalled something her therapist told her in the days that doctors said she may not make it, when she considered succumbing that seems to me an uplifting thought for anyone going through the same thing. &amp;quot;&amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s attacking the [childhood abuse/negative energy]. It&amp;#039;s going to heal you and coming to rescue your innocence.&amp;#039; I welcomed the chemo after that.&amp;quot; Ensler paused. &amp;quot;This is why I love women. They&amp;#039;re so fucking smart.&amp;quot; At the end of the day, while Ensler&amp;#039;s work is a little touchy-feely for me (what can I say? Super-intense Feelings make me vaguely uncomfortable), what she&amp;#039;s doing is still important circa 2013 \u2014 although it&amp;#039;s not necessarily my style, I could see her work truly touch the women around me, and I&amp;#039;m glad it exists. Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw Image via Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a12842/eve-ensler-in-the-body-of-the-world/>