us for all women - Camila Cavalcante

Us For All Women is a project that explores the idea of the female body as a confrontational space. It creates a community of women collaborating to challenge recent conservative actions of the State to repress and diminish women’s reproductive rights in Brazil.

Even though it focuses on the debate around illegal abortions in that country, this is a project that aims to reach women around the world who have their bodies submitted by governmental rules.

The first phase of the project was done during the Despina Art Residency, in Rio de Janeiro and it was exhibited at Largo das Artes/ Despina on June 2016.

The titles of the images refer to the year in which those women somehow experienced an illegal abortion. The phrases that follow as captions were said during the interviews that I’ve done with them or are personal observations of our encounter.

This project has been publish by Carved Voices, Fearless Femme and Boshemia magazines as well as Refinery 29 and the Cosmopolita Media blog amongst others. It was exhibited as an installation at Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh and as part of photography exhibitions in Saint Gilles Croix de Vie (France), Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and London.

The completion of this project was possible thanks to two successful crowdfunding campaigns in August 2017 and December 2018. This project was transformed into the book 'For the Lives of All Women', published by Break the Habit Press in 2019.

To see more images and testimonials of this project, please visit www.camilacavalcante.com/usforall

Image part of the project Us For All, about women's reproductive rights. The title of the image refers to the year in which this woman experienced an illegal abortion. For more information, www.camilacavalcante.com/usforall

Us For All in 2005:

"You face judgement from other people, all the way. On the journey that I have been through, I did not find a single person who understood me, no one gave me support through the situation."

When she told her partner about the pregnancy and asked for help, he said that it was not his problem.

Us For All in 2011-2:

“I left without knowing if I would ever return or how it would be. I was not able to tell anyone about it and hoped that no one would look for me in those days.”

She believes that abortion should be considered a woman’s right today more than ever. Not just because she experienced it, but because she knows that there are many more anonymous women around.

Us For All in 2011:

"It is a woman's right. It is the expression of her autonomy to claim uncompromising power over her own body and destiny. It is the overcoming of motherhood as a biological destiny".

She is used to talking to crowds about women's rights, but she can never talk about her own experience of the subject.

Us For All in 2014:

“The doctor looked at me with disapproval and disbelief. I was very anxious. She started to accuse me before she even examined me. When I laid on the hospital bed I was already weeping.”

The three female doctors that dealt with her case were hypercritical and hostile, even when her life was clearly at serious risk. One of the doctors, with a crucifix as a necklace, actually threatened to report her.

Us For All in 2004:

“I am not a religious person, therefore my perception of life includes multiple determinations, it is not just biological. I cannot see this as taking a life away or stopping the birth of a living being. For me, life involves many other questions: social relations, conditions to exist, emotional relations, etc. To live is different than just to exist.”

In her opinion, the law won’t change reality, in terms of the religious influence on our society. Changing the law, however, would have a big symbolic weight to change the way we see abortion.

Us For All in 1999:

"When the nurse looked at me, I felt all the weight and judgment a woman can experience for making this decision without the support of the law or public health."

The resentment she feels against the handling of her experience in the hospital is very strong specially because it came from another woman.

Us For All in 2001-2:

“You cannot go through this unscathed. It’s about responsibility, but not only our own, it’s society’s responsibility. We empower ourselves to demand the right

to a choice, but this is something that needs to be discussed collectively. It cannot be something exclusively ours anymore. There’s too much pain, too much sadness.”

People make choices and suffer the consequences of those choices all the time in life, but for her, the most important things in those moments are information, responsibility and support.

Us For All in 1991:

“I don’t know how to explain. I don’t feel ashamed, I don’t feel guilty. I feel that there is a gap, if I think of it in the spiritual sense."

She asked for the support of her family and partner, but the only ones who helped her were a few friends. This experience showed her how illegal abortions put women in a position of physical and psychological vulnerability.

Us For All in 2017-4:

"My choices were either to have a baby alone again while he would be a father when it’s convenient, because he was not ready to change his life style, or not to have a baby. But what a wanted was to have a baby with him.”

They wanted to have a baby together, but when it happened, he was not ready to be a father and didn’t want to continue the relationship.

Us For All in 2017-3:

“We don’t get pregnant every two minutes, it’s not like that. There are contraceptive methods around; people do not get pregnant necessarily because they want to. The circumstances are different for each person.”

She thinks that the number of abortions in Brazil is that big because it is mostly illegal.