Jennie Harris

Born Australian, in the 1950’s, I grew up experiencing significant differences in the treatment of women to men. I still wear my emancipation pants of the 1970s; it was exciting back then. Change has since been a roller-coaster. It is now ten years since Julia Gillard made her misogyny speech in Australia’s parliament; well worth a listen. (1)

Now 2022, little progress has been made.

Every day women around the world are killed, maimed, scarred, raped, stolen, abused, cheated, derided, belittled, patronized, denied basic rights. Women of all faiths, colour, intellect and purpose. Half of humanity.

As a woman who lived through years of hope, disappointment and despair, who found it difficult to speak out, I decided to trumpet common experiences of women. Little did I realize my own pain would be stitched into my work.

Frequently, I was confronted with “ugliness”: the look and feel of the fabric, the messy stitching, the inability to find the right emotional colours, stitching the wrong pieces together, the needle getting stuck in the fabric, holes appearing as I stitched … on it went. I was stuck for weeks, unable to “speak”, even through my textiles.

New materials were avoided for this age-old issue. The fabric within the female mouth is full of cobwebs, the mouth so long unable to speak. Arrows represent hurt. Colours chosen reflect “nasty”, “fear”, and “blood”. Language used to speak to, or about, women is both coarse and nasty, and subtle and demeaning. The examples reflect the breadth of how language is used against women.

Power imbalance, which enables disrespect, lies at the heart of this issue. Tied to historical structures and cultural behaviors that support the status quo, women have significantly less economic, political, religious and environmental power than men.

IT’S 2022, WE CAN DO BETTER!

(1) https://Youtu.be/SOPsxpMzYw4

Tyranny 2022 45” x 50” Painted, appliquéd, handwritten banner NFS