Homemade
Beautiful plastic doll, how I envy you. Your skin is so clear and always so smooth. Your body has no flab and dark rings never find your eyes. You’re more beautiful than me, than my mother, than my sister, than all the women on my street. I want to trade places with you. Take my flabby body and give me the beauty of your soft plastic.
– Ghada Khalifa
“Be careful. You are a girl.” These demeaning words summarize my life and my relationship with my body. Ever since I was young girl, I was constantly reminded by mother that being a girl is a liability and burden. I need to be extra careful of my actions. I cannot stay out late — what would people say about me? Even after I got divorced, my family continued to remind me: “Be careful. You are a girl.” We live our whole lives guarding our body. You have to get married before you become too old to bear children. You have to preserve your figure to stay desirable. You have to, you have to ... I came to resent the body I am trapped in. I wished to lose it. To live without it.
This project started as a private group on Facebook where we, a group of women, shared our feelings and personal stories. Then we met in person. We discussed what it means to be living under all this pressure, simply because we own these bodies. We spoke about how each of us discovered what it means to be a woman. Faces turned red, tears started rolling down cheeks and in that moment of openness, an extraordinary bond formed between us. Using their words, I took some time to imagine how a visual representation of their stories might look. After I photographed the women, I noticed a change in some of them. Two decided to show their faces in the images, something they were previously uncomfortable with. Now, they do not care about the consequences; they feel liberated.
Storytelling is a way for us to heal and to free ourselves from the weight of experience. The women who found the strength to stand and speak in front of the camera have given me a gift — they have given me the strength to photograph. I hope these images and stories, in turn, will give strength to other women who feel silenced.
Homemade by Heba Khalifa was produced through the Arab Documentary Photography Program by AFAC and in partnership with the Magnum Foundation and Prince Claus Fund.
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