The profound power of an authentic apology

Genuine apology goes beyond remorse, says legendary playwright Eve Ensler. In this frank, wrenching talk, she shares how she transformed her own experience of abuse into wisdom on what wrongdoers can do and say to truly repent -- and offers a four-step roadmap to help begin the process. (This talk contains mature content.)

For the past few years,
we've been calling men out.

It had to be done.

(Applause)

But lately, I've been thinking
we need to do something even harder.

We need, as my good friend
Tony Porter says,

to find a way to call men in.

My father began to sexually abuse me
when I was five years old.

He would come into my room
in the middle of the night.

He appeared to be in a trance.

The abuse continued until I was 10.

When I tried to resist him,

when I was finally able to say no,

he began to beat me.

He called me stupid.

He said I was a liar.

The sexual abuse ended when I was 10,

but actually, it never ended.

It changed who I was.

I was filled with anxiety and guilt
and shame all the time,

and I didn't know why.

I hated my body, I hated myself,

I got sick a lot,

I couldn't think,

I couldn't remember things.

I was drawn to dangerous men and women

who I allowed -- actually, I invited --
to treat me badly,

because that is what my father
taught me love was.

I waited my whole life
for my father to apologize to me.

He didn't.

He wouldn't.

And then, with the recent
scandals of famous men,

as one after another was exposed,

I realized something:

I have never heard a man

who has committed rape
or physical violence

ever publicly apologize to his victim.

I began to wonder,

what would an authentic,
deep apology be like?

So, something strange began to happen.

I began to write,

and my father's voice
began to come through me.

He began to tell me what he had done

and why.

He began to apologize.

My father is dead almost 31 years,

and yet, in this apology,

the one I had to write for him,

I discovered the power of an apology

and how it actually might be
the way to move forward

in the crisis we now face

with men and all the women they abuse.

Apology is a sacred commitment.

It requires complete honesty.

It demands deep
self-interrogation and time.

It cannot be rushed.

I discovered an apology has four steps,

and, if you would,
I'd like to take you through them.

The first is you have to say
what, in detail, you did.

Your accounting cannot be vague.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you"

or "I'm sorry if I sexually abused you"

doesn't cut it.

You have to say what actually happened.

"I came into the room
in the middle of the night,

and I pulled your underpants down."

"I belittled you because
I was jealous of you

and I wanted you to feel less."

The liberation is in the details.

An apology is a remembering.

It connects the past with the present.

It says that what occurred
actually did occur.

The second step
is you have to ask yourself why.

Survivors are haunted by the why.

Why? Why would my father want
to sexually abuse his eldest daughter?

Why would he take my head
and smash it against a wall?

In my father's case,

he was a child born long after
the other children.

He was an accident
that became "the miracle."

He was adored and treated
as the golden boy.

But adoration, it turns out, is not love.

Adoration is a projection

of someone's need for you to be perfect

onto you.

My father had to live up
to this impossible ideal,

and so he was never allowed to be himself.

He was never allowed to express tenderness

or vulnerability, curiosity, doubt.

He was never allowed to cry.

And so he was forced to push
all those feelings underground,

and they eventually metastasized.

Those suppressed feelings
later became Shadowman,

and he was out of control,

and he eventually unleashed
his torrent on me.

The third step is you have
to open your heart

and feel what your victim felt
as you were abusing her.

You have to let your heart break.

You have to feel the horror and betrayal

and the long-term impacts
of your abuse on your victim.

You have to sit with the suffering
you have caused.

And, of course, the fourth step

is taking responsibility
for what you have done

and making amends.

So, why would anyone want to go through
such a grueling and humbling process?

Why would you want to rip yourself open?

Because it is the only thing
that will set yourself free.

It is the only thing
that will set your victim free.

You didn't just destroy your victim.

You destroyed yourself.

There is no one who enacts
violence on another person

who doesn't suffer
from the effects themselves.

It creates an incredibly dark
and contaminating spirit,

and it spreads
throughout your entire life.

The apology I wrote -- I learned something

about a different lens
we have to look through

to understand the problem
of men's violence

that I and one billion
other women have survived.

We often turn to punishment first.

It's our first instinct, but actually,

although punishment
sometimes is effective,

on its own, it is not enough.

My father punished me.

I was shut down,

and I was broken.

I think punishment hardens us,
but it doesn't teach us.

Humiliation is not revelation.

We actually need to create a process
that may involve punishment,

whereby we open a doorway

where men can actually become
something and someone else.

For so many years, I hated my father.

I wanted him dead. I wanted him in prison.

But actually, that rage kept me
connected to my father's story.

What I really wanted
wasn't just for my father to be stopped.

I wanted him to change.

I wanted him to apologize.

That's what we want.

We don't want men to be destroyed,

we don't want them to only be punished.

We want them to see us,
the victims that they have harmed,

and we want them to repent

and change.

And I actually believe this is possible.

And I really believe it's our way forward.

But we need men to join us.

We need men now to be brave
and be part of this transformation.

I have spent most of my life
calling men out,

and I am here now,

right now,

to call you in.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you, thank you.

(Applause)