A Womans Work

11 years old, round the corner from my house was my first encounter with a man who saw me not as a small girl, but a sexual object where he felt it was acceptable to comment and stare at my body. It didn't flatter me or make me feel good about myself but instead made me feel powerless,vulnerable and confused. Getting older, the problems faced with street harassment only got worse. Even at age 14, I've had men tell me they want me but when I chose to ignore and walk away, they'd become fuelled with anger, most likely because for a tiny second there I had the power. Which of course they'd take back by calling me a whore. As I write about my own experiences, I know that girls reading this will have gone through the exact same thing. In fact I guarantee every girl will be nodding their heads thinking of the countless times they have to experience street harassment. I asked my 12 year old sister if she has started getting attention from men and she looked sadly into my eyes and told me yes. 6 years later from when I was just 11 and absolutely nothing has changed.

This is when I knew I needed to, for myself and for everyone experiencing the same, create something in my art where I could show the truth about the way women are constantly treated by men. So, I began asking friends, some sent anonymous, some not, the same question: What is the worst thing a boy has ever done or said to you?

I didn't expect to get so many responses, in fact it was so heartbreaking that every girl I asked personally had something to tell me and even more heartbreaking that the responses I got were so horrifying.  I took all these responses and began creating one story about a girl who got into an abusive relationship experiencing rape, molesting and physical abuse. As if these girls stories has become every girls reality. 

I then used these responses and sewed them onto doilies, a typical type of a woman's work. I then created a tea party where the doilies were covered by cups and saucers. This represented the way in which some women are treated by some men is never really spoken about. Countless sexual abusive experiences and rapes are unreported and it became the sort of idea that the tea party looked perfect but underneath lay important and unspoken issues.