Eve Ensler, "The Girl Cell"

It's nearly impossible to summarize the words of Eve Ensler. The best-selling author of famous works such as The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body and founder of V-Day, a nonprofit dedicated to ending violence against women and girls around the world, spoke at a TED conference in India late last year about her new book, I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.

The world is at a collective crossroads. There is an unprecedented awareness of the crimes committed regularly against women and girls around the world, and their inextricable link to global crises like extremism, clean water, poverty and HIV/AIDS. More than ever, activists, journalists, politicians and scholars share in the belief that the solution lies in the education of women and young girls. And as evidenced by the success of Women Hold Up Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, millions are eager to learn and become part of the solution.

Ensler approaches the notion of girl power on the broadest scale possible, suggesting that something she calls "the girl cell," lives in all of us — women and men alike — and is the key to our survival. She also suggests that over time, we've all been taught to "crush, eradicate, annihilate, humiliate, belittle, censor, reduce and kill off the girl cell."

Ensler's words and delivery are as potent as ever. We urge you to please, watch this, savor it, digest it, share it, live it.

Image courtesy V-Day website