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Women's Health West
Layers of Me
Excerpts from the Tears of Joy, Tears of Frustration Exhibition for International Women's Day 2006
"I feel my life is very full - I've piled on layers and layers of stuff, representing me as a lesbian parent, a single parent and the other things I do - my studies." Jude, Western Area Lesbian Littlies and Infants Playgroup
"Lately I've felt that I've left behind things that I wanted for myself. I'd like to do things that fill me up as a person, and that's been hard to organise".
"I was born in East Timor and came when I was 13. We had a big family. I got married 4 years ago. My happiest time was when I had Alex. We live with my in-laws, they're from Chile. I had a lot of support with Alex when he was born, and all my families' experience. Now he's in preschool I can do everything! I now want to go back to work." Mothers from the Spanish-speaking Mothers Group
Aboriginal women are really beautiful. We've got a lot to offer. We're really amazing women. You're shamed out of that and you need to embrace it. Embrace yourself about being beautiful, being who you are. We are so pressured by body image, what we should look like, trying to fight to be a certain weight or to look a certain way."
"We're very modest people. But sometimes that means your not embracing yourself enough either. It's a balance. Because Aboriginal women were objectified as sexual objects during the invasion and colonalisation, you deal with the shame of that. Starting to see yourself as beautiful and worthwhile."
"Taking ownership for yourself. It is hard, it's not easy." Mothers from the Indigenous Parents Playgroup
"I'm into having a career and going out, having adventures and being out in the community". Woman from the Horizons Women's Group