“Why is the love of equals unmanly?” 1

We all bear some sort of responsibility in sustaining a culture wherein violence and inequality in relation to women persist. I hope this work can inspire audiences, especially male audiences, to rethink our social attitudes towards women and transcend notions of manhood, and to reflect on new values and gender equitable behaviors.

Birth Write: Patriarchy and Lust is an ongoing book project which explores experiences related to women’s reproductive autonomy as it intersects with sexuality, rape, pregnancy, abortion, motherhood, same-sex family building and bodily sovereignty. This first chapter is composed of photographs, collected ephemera and handwritten testimonies of women in New York, New Jersey, South Dakota and California who relate their experiences from a multiplicity of ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and spiritual locations.

I was born to a mother who escaped the Cuban revolution in 1967 and then embodied psychological and physical abuse from my biological father. I developed an early and lifelong sensitivity to restrictions of civil liberties and personal autonomy, especially among women. My childhood was experienced for most part with the absence of my father; the little time he was present are memories of violence. My two younger siblings were also victims of sexual assaults. As an adult, this perspective has been shaped by a formative relationship with my first girlfriend, Kim, who had an abortion during our years together.

I deeply questioned the impact of the strict moral father figure in America while we fought two unjust, limitless wars coupled with rising economic inequality and diminished human rights and values. In 2006, in response to Roe v. Wade being challenged in the State of South Dakota; I began this collaborative process of both documenting and collecting stories from individual women voicing often internalized experiences and improvisational expressions in relation to their varied lives as they move through this politicized landscape in female bodies.

If honored with the support of Looking@Democracy challenge, I will use the resources to expand this language into its second chapter focusing on the experiences of women in Mississippi and the Indian Nations of South Dakota.

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1. Carol Gillian and David A.J. Richards, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, & Democracy's Future (Cambridge, 2008).