Cyndi Lauper, Obie Award-winning, vagina-loving playwright Eve Ensler, and friends and members of the country's oldest feminist press convened at Tavern on the Green in Manhattan on Monday evening and rallied under a common theme: The women of the world are being entirely too polite.

"The energy in this room is almost as over the top as the décor," said Lynn Szwaja, President and Chair of the City University of New York's Feminist Press in her opening comments. So true.

Lauper was honored for her continued support of women and minorities, culminating in this summer's True Colors Tour, a concert series intended to bring about equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered men, women men-women and women-men. Lauper told Radar she's been a feminist since burning her training bra sometime around 1969. "I was tired of being told who I should be, what I should be, and when I should be it," the pop icon squeaked. "When I hit the glass ceiling, I decided to break it."

When a presenter quoted the historical party-girl anthem, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," Lauper jumped out of her chair to shout a string of defenses including "I didn't write that!" and, "What am I supposed to do? A can-can dance?"

Ensler, who single-handedly popularized vaginas, posed for pictures flashing the V-sign, which could be easily mistaken by the untrained eye as a plain old peace sign. Celebrating the 10th year of V-Day, the global movement dedicated to ending violence against women, Ensler said the she's both proud and surprised that The Vagina Monologues became the unifying sensation it did. "I just hoped someone wouldn't shoot me," she said.

Daytime television judge Maria Lopez and Tony-award winning actor and playwright Sarah Jones milled about, and in the wash of awards and Martha Stewart jokes, the overall consensus of the evening was that, despite what Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter or Christopher Hitchens might say, women are just as good, just as smart, and just as funny as men.

Case and point: Lauper recalled a dream in which she gazed at a tree and heard a mysterious voice saying, "Out of old roots, new trees grow." Looking at the ladies of the Feminist Press, she said, she finally figured out what that means. Radar hopes to soon, as well.