This was my first story to be accepted, and there has been much anticipation awaiting it's final release date. The people who have helped me workshop this story are members of the Chalk Scribblers London group. You can read it here:
https://www.sadgirldiaries.com/post/bodies-of-women-sylvia-woodham
There was one woman, in particular, who was very excited about the con
tents of this story and shared interests, and I thoroughly enjoy the themes she tackles in her writing also, so excuse a brief detour about her. Among all of the feedback at the workshop, she was the one who most helped lay down some guidelines how to fit into the literary short story genre. Please find Anat's website here: https://www.anatderacine.com
She excites me using her experience growing up across the Middle East to write about obstacles women face there, which shares many common discussion topics with my writing.
I have blogged about Bodies of Women a few times and the kind of mixed response it has received, particularly based on gender differences. Since I have already said so much about the premise and how these themes get very very strange responses from men, I can share some additional unknown inspirations.
The inspiration were several real life sports medicine abuse situations in the US, and when I posted on an alumni group Facebook chat, I had women from the 1980s and 2000s both have the same experience with the athletic department sport medicine doctor. Twenty years seemed like a long time to terrorise women athletes.
I have said that the entire story is about the context of this woman coping emotionally with the assault. One male editor's response was that the tone seemed different throughout the story, as if a woman can't have a moment of fun, and that her entire existence needs to be given over and defined by a man's assault? I really believe that the response I have received from men about this story demonstrate how they really have no idea, and no idea what they are saying when they make these kinds of comments.
You have to show what the woman is trying to get back to, why she is in the sport in the first place, and what life should be like for her without the heavy weight of men behaving badly toward her on it.
The story is also about a relationship between two women. I know that sometimes Jasmine is overused as a character name for Women of Color, so I wanted to also include the real life inspiration for this name. I had a biracial friend named Jasmine, and I was in her wedding. She was very happy to find a man who was sweet to her. Her own father had died. She had been in Manhattan working as a model, and it was not clear to me if it was before that time or during that time she confided in me she had experienced being ruffied at a party and raped. She and her husband were not sexually active before being married, and she was not sure how to talk to him about this situation. It was less than a year between when they met and when they were married, and the engagement was about three months - I feel like that 90 day specific number stuck in my head because it was very relevant when dress shopping to find a dress she could have in that short timeframe.
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