Instead, February 14 is now 1 Billion Rising day, Ensler’s new dance-oriented hijacking of her own V-Day which was itself a hijacking of Valentine’s Day. The thesis behind 1 Billion Rising is that if the world’s one billion rape victims all rose up en masse and danced every February 14, then rape would cease to exist because unicorns and rainbows. …

I had previously estimated the attendance at last year’s event as somewhere around two thousand. But the 2014 1 Billion Rising, as shown by this overall shot of the pitiful crowd I snapped from behind the stage, was much smaller — a few hundred at most. This newspaper report says there were only 100 participants, while a more generous media estimate says “nearly 400″ at the high end, most of whom showed up late in the event to hear Black Eyed Peas rapper apl.de.ap spin records as the headlining attraction. …

Missing from these quotes is any explanation of how “standing here as a woman with my strength and power” and “rising and dancing to end violence against women” will miraculously translate into a lower crime rate. What we have here is a classic example of “magical thinking,” which confuses symbolic gestures with effective action.