<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Whether you&amp;#x27;re into the whole Valentine&amp;#x27;s Day thing or would rather eye-roll it away, here&amp;#x27;s a loving gesture I think we can all get behind: Tomorrow, women and men from 180 villages, towns, and cities around the world will get up and dance to raise awareness for violence against women in a grassroots movement called One Billion Rising. And in between sending funny cupid GIFs to your girlfriends or planning your date-night outfit, you can join them. For a glimpse of what inspiring amazingness you&amp;#x27;re in for, take a look at the campaign&amp;#x27;s V-Day flash mob from last year in San Francisco: One Billion Rising&amp;amp;mdash;named for the one billion women who will be victims of abuse in their lifetime&amp;amp;mdash;stems from an organization called V-Day, which was founded in 1998 by The Vagina Monologues playwright/former Glamour Women of the Year honoree Eve Ensler. (Ensler herself was abused as a girl). As her famous play gained popularity worldwide, Ensler realized that there needed to be another call to action. &amp;quot;Many of those stories [in the play] were women talking about violence, how they had been beaten or battered.... As a result, it became impossible to continue doing the play without focusing on this worldwide epidemic,&amp;quot; said Ensler on a press call. Then it came to her: &amp;quot;I had a vision that the one billion women who will be raped or beaten in their lifetime, I had a vision of them and all the men who loved them rising and dancing to end violence against women,&amp;quot; she said. To date, the campaign&amp;amp;mdash;which boasts the tagline &amp;quot;Rise, Release, Dance&amp;quot;&amp;amp;mdash;has raised $100 million. It might sound weird at first. Dancing? To call out abuse? But Ensler&amp;#x27;s idea of a global campaign that demands justice for women in a visible, unified way is powerful and moving. And it couldn&amp;#x27;t come at a better time: According to the World Health Organization, 35 percent of women worldwide have been victims of intimate partner violence or nonpartner sexual violence, and 38 percent of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. This is in a time when reports estimate that 6,000 women have been raped in Syria since the start of the conflict, there&amp;#x27;s been a dramatic rise in violence against women in the Congo, and gang-rapes in India continue to grab headlines. That&amp;#x27;s to say nothing of other atrocities, such as (but sadly, not limited to) female genital mutilation, child marriage, sex trafficking, and injustices suffered by female military members right here in the U.S. If you want to help end this madness (even celebs are doing it!), here&amp;#x27;s how to get involved tomorrow: You can go to onebillionrising.org/events and find a group to dance with&amp;amp;mdash;there are already events planned in most states, as well as on college campuses around the country. Or, you can plan your own event (there&amp;#x27;s a tool kit on the site). The catch? You&amp;#x27;ll need to learn the campaign&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Break the Chain&amp;quot; dance, which, I have to say, is kind of the best part! Here&amp;#x27;s a video with the routine&amp;amp;mdash;I say grab a bottle of wine tonight, invite your friends over, and bust a move: You can also follow the campaign on Twitter @vday, and tweet and retweet using the hashtags #rise4justice and #reasontorise. In addition, you can change your Facebook profile photo and Twitter background to show support for One Billion Rising, and/or make a donation to end violence against women through the campaign&amp;#x27;s site. Consider it your valentine to women all over the world. P.S. One Billion Rising includes men speaking up too. I&amp;#x27;m obsessed with these photos of guys in Afghanistan showing their support, as well as this video of men reciting Ensler&amp;#x27;s piece titled &amp;quot;Man Prayer.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2014/02/one-billion-rising-for-v-day>