Warrior Women

Warrior Women is my last textile piece in my series on Violence Against Women. It is my homage towards the strength and courage women have, some of whom I have met and connected with, who have fought and are fighting the overbearing and threatening world of abusive and disrespectful men. Of governments who claim to be dealing with Intimate Partner Violence and who are, in reality, not doing so given the cost to them by admitting that this is now of epidemic proportions in our society today. Of our police forces and their inability to deal effectively with the lack of government-formed laws to arrest perpetrators of violence and abuse; they deal with a dysfunctional legal system currently in place as well. And with the lack of courts and judges who are not supported financially by our governments at this present time to process the criminal charges against perpetrators of IPV. Also the injustices within the police system itself where workers are not always supported appropriately in relation to unacceptable behaviours within such forces.

And then there is this: Perpetrators of abuse will almost always deny and lie about their abuse. Have no doubt about that. Perpetrators can hire lawyers who will lie for them. I know of this personally. The fact is perpetrators knowingly commit abuse and violence behind closed doors, in private, where they cannot be seen and/or where they are alone with the victim. Unless a woman is injured and the physical injuries are apparent, or if she is killed, it is difficult to prove the abuse happened. Thus many perpetrators get off without being charged or suffering the grave consequences of their actions. They live with their lies.

Intimate Partner Violence at its very worst lies in the horrific killing of a woman by her partner or spouse. We read about these tragic incidents in the media almost weekly. The loss of beloved daughters, of mothers, impacting on families beyond anything imaginable. As this is my last piece on Violence Against Women, I wanted to bring this reality visually to the foreground in this design but doing so visually in regard to human beings was not something I felt I could do. It was too much visual reality. So how could I visually show perpetrators killing victims? Then one day, it came to me. I am surrounded by wildlife in the countryside in which I live, in which predators and victims exist. Wolves and coyotes demolish smaller animals who are victims of these predators. This was my answer. I chose wolves to represent human male predators; I chose sheep to represent innocent women victims. When this section was completed, a friend looked at it and said that she found it visually disturbing. It is as I intended. She sensed it. Another friend looked at this section and immediately recognized the reality of what I was trying to convey. I leave it now to the viewer to decide. The killing of women victims is a tragic reality in society today. It is the ultimate issue in Intimate Partner Violence.

Vincent van Gogh once said: “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream”. When an idea comes to my mind, I think of my cloth and with scissors and needles I begin to tell my story. Please read this design visually from the bottom to top, as in the Oriental Scrolls of centuries ago. The Principles of Design, while always present in my mind, may not be as present in this piece as one might hope, but there are two focal points and I believe they may be seen visually by the viewer.

As the eye moves upward into the design, the red flames of anger are to be seen. Not the anger of the predators but those of the victims. Victims who have been left for dead, yet who lived, as did Cait Alexander (see Victims Bill of Rights page on my site). The flames of anger of victims who have suffered and been destroyed by years of emotional, physical, financial abuse at the hands of their intimate partners. And then, suddenly out of those flames of anger arises a woman, known in history as Liberty. A warrior woman.

Liberty is taken from Eugene Delacroix’s painting of the 17^th Century, Liberty Leading the People, during the French Revolution. She is dressed in green for Eugene Delacroix often used the colours red and green, which are opposites on the colour wheel, to enhance the vibrancy and dramatic effect in his paintings. I do so as well. She is seen holding flags that say ‘STOP’. Stop violence against women. And beside Liberty are three, known to me, warrior women who, in quietly coloured shrouds, have fought governments, who have fought and are fighting established police ‘systems’ due to harassment and inappropriate behaviour.

When I read this comment by Madhurie Dhanragh, University of Toronto Researcher, for Slaw, Canada’s Online Legal magazine, it resonated with me: “To be a victim is one thing. To be a survivor is quite another. In a world where violence against women and intimate partner violence (IPV) runs rampant and unabated victims are everywhere. But survivors, those who have endured, who continue to endure, who persevere against adversity, they are everywhere too. They, too, are unseen, their stories and lives hidden beneath the scars they carry and the pain in their hearts.”

Intimate Partner Violence: to have someone whom you have loved and may still love turn on you for reasons not readily understood, to being controlled by their sudden outbursts of anger towards you for no explicable reason, to be publicly and extensively slandered by them with others, to be physically assaulted by that person, and to suffer injuries,because of it, to live in constant fear…that in a nutshell describes IPV. Creating visual images related to Intimate Partner Violence has helped me in dealing with my experience of IPV. Working with my cloth has been healing for me and I hope it may help others similarly affected by IPV. I do not fully understand the cause of abuse, why some men resort to this extremely controlling, angry and sometimes savage behaviour. Whether mental health issues enter into it, I’d rather not say. I have my own thoughts on this.

May God bless you in your journey towards recovery and if you have not experienced IPV I hope these pages may be enlightening for you. If you know of anyone suffering abuse, please share these website pages with them. Putting a visual face to abuse, to violence against women, has been my goal. I trust I may have succeeded in some way that may be of help others.