The message at this year’s My Body My Choice exhibition at Rhodes University is from women to the world: These are our bodies and we can decide what to do with them. Even if we are completely naked, that is not an invitation.
The aim of the exhibition is two-fold: Firstly, to celebrate the woman's body as a site of courage, beauty, strength, autonomy, love and resistance, and secondly to bring ordinary women together to support each other and to listen to each other’s stories. “The two-day photograph session was truly liberating. It gave me a new perspective on being a woman and what my choices are,” says Beth Vale of the My Body My Choice organising committee.
This year’s My Body My Choice Exhibition will feature over 70 new courageous women consisting of Rhodes University students and staff, as well as photos from 90 participants from last year’s exhibition. It was completely up to the participants how much of their body they wanted to cover or reveal.
Using the placards and whatever other props they chose, the participants discretely covered whatever they did not want shown. All the women had full creative licence over what they wanted to say on their placards and how they wanted to pose. This was their message to the world!
The year 2009 was the first time a My Body My Choice Exhibition was held at Rhodes after a group of female activists on campus noticed a similar campaign done with Hollywood stars. These activists agreed that they needed to have an exhibition with ordinary women who may not have the perfect bodies but still want to tell the world that, “this is still my body and it is still my choice”. The 2009 exhibition was very successful and 2010 will be building on this success.
Vale concluded by saying, “Last year we were pleased to see how the exhibition made some young men see the female body from a different angle. What a woman is wearing or not wearing is never an excuse to violate her. “
All too often women's bodies are reduced to sexual objects and seen as an invitation for abuse, rape and assault.
The My Body My Choice Exhibition will take place in the Nuns' Chapel on Wednesday 4 August at 18h30, followed by VAGINA MONOLOGUES at 20h00.