Unbreakable: Women Share Stories of Resilience and Hope

by Jane Caro (Editor)

Every woman has a story of survival. In this revealingly honest collection, successful Australian women talk about the challenges they have overcome, from sexual assault and domestic violence to racism, miscarriage, and depression. While delving deep into these experiences and their personal cost, the contributors also demonstrate the strength and courage they had to move forward with their lives. In a time when bragging about sexual harassment doesn't preclude being elected president of the United States, we must stand together and speak out against violence against women. Unbreakable shows that every woman, no matter her success, has a story, and that together we are stronger. In Jane Caro's I want to pass on courage and hope to women who have also gone through such things by all of us speaking up about our own experiences. These things do not need to either define us or destroy us. We can find the strength to move forward, and this book shows how successful women have done just that. Contributors include Kathy Lette, Mariam Veiszadeh, Tracey Spicer, Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin, Rebecca Lim, Van Badham, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Susan Wyndham, Andie Fox, Dee Madigan, Catherine Fox, Zora Simic, Nina Funnell, Sandra Levy, Polly Dunning and Jacinda Woodhead, with a foreword by Tanya Plibersek.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 12, 2017

About the author

Jane Caro wears many hats; including author, lecturer, mentor, social commentator, columnist, workshop facilitator, speaker, broadcaster and award-winning advertising writer. Jane runs her own communications consultancy and lectures in Advertising Creative at The School of Communication Arts at UWS. She has published three books: The Stupid Country: How Australia is dismantling public education co-authored with Chris Bonnor (2007), The F Word. How we learned to swear by feminism co-authored with Catherine Fox (2008), and Just a Girl (UQP, 2011). She has also appeared on Channel 7’s Sunrise, ABC’s Q&A and ABC’s The Gruen Transfer.

Reviews

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes we read for the enjoyment of the story, sometimes we read to immerse ourselves in the beauty of the words, and sometimes what we are reading feels important and a necessary expansion of our comprehension of the world. Unbreakable: Women Share Stories of Resilience and Hope (UQP 2017), edited by Jane Caro, is a compilation of almost 20 stories told by Australian women about the challenges they have overcome. It falls firmly into that last category – stories we read because they provide a critical message – but some are also written in lilting, poetic language, and many feature gripping ‘plots’. In these honest, straightforward accounts, the well-known women – activists, feminists, journalists, writers, commentators, academics, businesswomen, advocates, indigenous and migrant, gay and straight, lovers and mothers and friends – recount personal stories of sexual assault, miscarriage, abortion, sexism, racism, violence and depression. But these are not accounts of victimhood and loss; rather each is a triumph of survival, a celebration of the fight, recognition of how far we have come as individuals and as a society, and how strong we can be when we support each other and demand to be heard. These are women who, for various reasons, have experienced terrible situations, but who have emerged stronger and more determined than ever to have their voices heard, and to encourage others to do the same. It is indeed a story of resilience and hope.
The book is edited and introduced by Jane Caro, with a foreword by Tanya Plibersek, and includes contributions by Nina Funnell, Tracey Spicer, Kathy Lette, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Mariam Veiszadeh and Susan Wyndham, to name a few. Van Badham’s story reads as engaging literary fiction, except of course that it is true. Rebecca Lim’s essay on intersectionality and privilege is incredibly informative. Andie Fox writes about playfulness and optimism.
In writing about their trauma, and more importantly how they have coped with traumatic events, these women help to open up the conversation about the powerlessness women often experience, and how best to move above it. Some of the stories tell of graphic sexual violations, and our tendency to minimise or excuse the behaviour because we are ingrained to be ‘good girls’. Some authors tell of the wonderful men (and women) in their lives who have helped them navigate the appalling behaviour of others. Some discuss the private pain of miscarriage, infertility and abortion. Some explore childhoods marred by neglect or abuse, and what that meant as they grew older. Many talk about shame, humiliation, degradation, grief, injustice and low self-esteem. Quite a few highlight the abuses of people in positions of power – doctors, teachers, psychologists. Nearly all of the stories feature perpetrators who – in different circumstances – come across as quite harmless and respectable; the stories examine the paradox of very ordinary-seeming individuals who are capable of monstrous acts. All describe the feelings of dread and fear that their experiences have fuelled, and how that has changed how they subsequently go about their daily lives. All but one of the authors writes under her own name – a courageous act that screams ‘We will not be silent! We will be heard!’
I really got a lot out of this book. It is informative, engaging, confronting, visceral and blunt. You could not read these stories and remain unmoved. Each allows you to look, briefly, through the eyes of another woman’s experience, to see how it was for her then, and what that has meant for her future. These women might all be well-known and successful, but beneath that, they are ordinary women from ordinary backgrounds who have faced extraordinary challenges. And most importantly, they have not only survived, but flourished and grown stronger, and they now champion the rights of other women who follow.

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Caro has done an exceptional job in curating a collection of women's stories that cover a broad range of topics to do with women's rights, feminism and the inequality that women have faced and still continue to face in 21st century Australia.

This collection covers stories of sexual assault, rape, abuse, inequality, domestic violence, abortion, racism, xenophobia and male privilege. But most of all, this collection of stories is about survival, strength, intelligence and the vast social change that can result from women banding together in the name of better rights for all women, not just those who have been born "privileged".

For me, this book is incredibly important; it stands as a vehicle for change. It reduces the stigma around the issues that women face in our society, while also holding men who abuse their positions of power (doctors, educators, editors) to account.

The more we share our stories, advocate for those without voices and demand equality, the sooner we break down the walls for younger women, so that they can succeed where we have struggled.

[Gisela · Rating 5 out of 5]

@Cass Moriarty and @Hayley have written excellent reviews on this one. Reviews that I whole-heartedly support with a rousing "Hear! Hear!"

What a timely book this is, given the recent avalanche of allegations about famous men who abused their position of power to behave oh so badly! Although the spotlight was initially on big names in the UK and in the USA, I don't think anyone in Australia thought that this kind of abuse and maltreatment did not (or could not) happen here. And sure enough, we are now hearing from women, who are now daring to hope that their stories of sexual assault or bullying will be believed. How sad that it has taken so many years for them to feel it was OK to publicly report their experience.

How outrageous that big name male stars can be so confident that their celebrity status would ensure ongoing immunity against being exposed (pardon the unfortunate word choice) by less well known performers.

And of course, all those "behind the scenes" stories that we are now hearing about the Rolf Harrises and Harvey Weinsteins of the world are not confined to the media industry, and the abuse of power or status is not confined to sexual abuse or exploitation. We find examples of this kind of abuse and exploitation in every walk of life and in every profession, industry, social stratum and age group, as Jane Caro's collection of essays demonstrates so clearly in the broad range of women's voices and experiences it curates.

Sadly, a book like this can never be all-inclusive or completely representative though, can it? What about all those women who cannot or dare not speak out (there must be so many like the anonymous contributor who wrote about abuse within her family)? And women who cannot write or speak English? Or who do not have the literacy or support to tell their own stories of similar experiences? I can only hope that they have a circle of good friends or some form of social or community support to help them talk through their experience. Sadly though, despite the optimism of this book, I suspect that many women do not feel "unbreakable" at all. The increasing media and political focus on domestic violence and the media revelations about "men behaving badly" has got to be a good thing though to help reassure women who may be feeling borderline "breakable" that they are not alone and not crazy.

For me, the book was a sobering reminder that for all my own unnerving and frightening experiences, I did not have it as bad as many other women. And I'm not just talking about women who have been subjected to extreme sexual abuse or other forms of violence but also experiences like those of Rebecca Lim, for example, who not only had to put up with the kind of sexism that most (all?) women have encountered at some point in their lives, but also had to deal with cultural pressure to conform to expectations within the family AND offensive racism outside the family. Rebecca's essay was one of a number in this book that reminded me of my relative privilege and good fortune.

Although my parents were working class immigrants, I was never bullied or abused for my "difference" from the norm because it was not obvious from my appearance or the way I spoke that I was not Australian born and bred. I was also lucky that I grew up in a very diversely multi-cultural suburb where almost half the population was not Australian-born.

I was also lucky that, unlike most men of his generation and background, my father valued education, and encouraged me to have my own career. I was so lucky that he took it as a given that women were equals and never assumed that education was wasted on someone who was just going to get married and have a family. This is no longer unusual thank goodness, but when I was a teenager, many of my school friends came from families where the parents still believed in the old gender stereotypes.

Nevertheless, despite this relative good fortune, I've had my own share of experiences like those described in the book: experiences I have never shared with others, not even close friends. So, if I'd never shared my stories, how many other women I know have had stories like this to tell too? I didn't realise, until I read this book, how reassuring it is to know that I am one of many who form the tip of a very large iceberg of women who have had frightening, difficult, challenging and sometimes downright traumatic encounters — just because we are women. But we've lived to tell the tale (or not tell - just yet).

As Tanya Plibersek writes in her Foreword:
"We all have stories like those in this book. I've had death threats, rape threats. I've been assaulted walking home at night. I received a fair bit of cyber hate. I'm certainly not the first woman to find my idea, or my joke, is considered brilliant it's repeated by a bloke!

Unbreakable celebrates women's ability to rise above these challenges, whether big or small, and move forward with their lives. Not because it's okay, but because on a personal level, we can't let ourselves be broken.

Being unbreakable is worth celebrating, women shouldn't have to spend their whole lives practising resilience. By standing together and speaking out about our experiences we can go from rising above to rising up. Together we are Unbreakable." (page x)

More Quotes

* Jane Caro on Nina Funnell's story: "[It] reveals how often women react with sympathy but with judgement, perhaps so that they can maintain their own illusion of safety. 'I wouldn't wear that, do that, be there,' they tell themselves, 'so it could never happen to me.' Shame itself may be a pervert kind of coping mechanism. To maintain our sense that we are in control, we blame ourselves for our suffering. 'I must have done something to cause this terrible thing to happen,' our inner voice argues, we'd rather carry shame than accept that life is chancey and we are nowhere near as in control of our fate as we would like to believe.

Indeed, this is not simply a 'men as perpetrators, women as victims' problem, as is made entirely clear by the many male victims who bravely came forward to testify at the Royal commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I think it is about the opportunity and temptation to misuse power, which has been distributed and equally for centuries. In our society and most others we know of, men still tend to hold more power than women and, of course, children. I don't believe that men are intrinsically more likely to behave badly than women. It is their greater access to power that enables them to do so more often. Women in positions of power have also been known to misuse it; it is simply that there are fewer of them with the opportunity. This is not so much about good and evil as it is about injustice." ( page xxii-xiii)

* Nina Funnell on her experience of sexual assault (the strongest and most confronting piece in the book, I think):
"The nature of trauma means that survivors often have memory gaps or recollections that don't add up. One counselor explained that if your memory is like a filing cabinet, a traumatic event will effectively toss all the files onto the floor, miss them around, and then shove them back in. Some files get lost. Others get out of order. She also told me that she's never once met a sexual assault survivor who had perfect, chronological recall. Such is the nature of trauma.

I've also been told that if I ever do go to court, defence lawyers will almost certainly try to use my memory gaps against me. I can look forward to some smug lawyer arrogantly trying to discredit me by painting me as an 'unreliable witness'. The fact that I'm even classified as a 'witness' frustrates me to tears. I wasn't sitting outside my body, eating popcorn and watching this happen from the sidelines. It was very painful. It was embodied. It physically hurt. I didn't witness violence, I endured it.

I've also been advised that in addition to my memory gaps, the fact that I had been drinking that night will almost certainly be used against me. I'll be painted as licentious. As slutty. As stupid. As a liar. But to be very clear, my memory gaps are not evidence that I am lying. Contrary, they are evidence of the traumatic nature violence I have experienced." (p. 7-8)

* Nina Funnell (cont.): "In the months and years immediately following the assault I suffered from a range of trauma impacts. I was having intense nightmares and flashbacks of the assault. My eating and sleeping patterns were severely disturbed and I was paranoid about safety. I didn't want to be left alone, but I couldn't stand to be in crowds or any environment that felt chaotic or out of control. Places and things I'd previously enjoyed, such as music festivals and concerts, were suddenly unfathomable.

Some weeks after the attack, I accidentally got off the train at the wrong station and was so overwhelmed at being in an unfamiliar environment that I burst into tears and couldn't be consoled for over an hour. This happened more than once. I also couldn't concentrate or study. I would read the same sentence on a page over and over again and realise I'd absorbed none of it. I would have lengthy conversations, and realise I couldn't remember a single word of what was said. As a result of this, I had to go part-time to finish my degree (I graduated a year behind my peers, but still managed to gain first-class honours in the end).

I was using alcohol to self-medicate and was avoiding any situation, place or thing that caused me distress. Out of nowhere, I had developed a fear of flying. Most of all, though, I was terrified to walk anywhere alone. Walking to bus stops, or through car parks, was absolutely debilitating.

I remember walking down the cereal aisle at Coles one day. It was around lunchtime and the store was busy except for the aisle I was in. The only other person was a man who was walking towards me. I froze. I felt paralysed, utterly convinced that when he walked past me he would pull a knife out and attack me right there in front of the Weet-Bix display. I could feel my heart race, my pupils dilate and my adrenaline spike to the sorts of levels that a person who is actually being attacked might experience. This time my feet wouldn't move. When he reached me, and then walked past me without incident, I was overcome with such intense relief that it was all I could do not to cry.

Of course this all seems completely irrational. But the problem with trauma is that it isn't logical - it's physiological. And the body's response - my body's response - was to return to the same physical state that I was in when the assault happened. As if I was reliving the attack in real time. This happened frequently, and without warning. Often in response to the most banal environmental stressors. How can I even begin to explain how exhausting and disruptive this is? Perhaps imagine yourself walking down a dark alley alone at night and suddenly seeing a group of three or four suspicious-looking characters loitering just up ahead. When they notice you, they stop talking and stare in your direction. You are now hyper-alert: you can feel your breathing change and your heart racing. You pay acute attention to every micro-gesture and motion they make.

You begin to weigh up your options: should you turn and run, or walk confidently past them? You clutch your handbag tighter as your adrenaline soars. And then they pass you by, leaving you unharmed. What follows next is a tremendous whoosh of relief, as all that stress, anxiety and apprehension is released. But then comes a lingering bitter aftertaste of the fear and terror you just experienced. Sound at all familiar?

Now imagine a life where you don't need to walk down dark alleyway to experience that rollercoaster of terror, because your whole world - right down to the cereal aisle at Coles - has become one giant dark alleyway. Imagine a life where you experience a terror attack of that intensity multiple times a day, almost every single day. And imagine what it's like when the triggers are not menacing strangers but the most innocuous, everyday details: the smell of cut grass, a telephone that rings unexpectedly, a waiter who taps you on the shoulder.

This is PTSD. A world of jumping at shadows. And for several years after my assault, this was the dark place I inhabited. It affected and infected everything: jobs, family, relationships, friendships, sleep ... basic existence. Looking back I sometimes wonder how I made it through those early months and years. Counselling helped immensely but, if I'm honest, I suspect what really kept me going was the anger I felt, the injustice I recognised, when I saw those women in that sexual assault counselling room.

Yes, anger is often frowned upon in women. But anger can be a productive emotion too. With heat comes light. And the simple fact is that women should feel angry about these crimes. We should feel outraged that women around the world - and in our own backyards – continue to be raped and violated in such staggering numbers. It occurs to me that being angry about these crimes doesn't make you made, or bad, or a silly woman. Not being angry about them does." (p. 15-18)

* Nina Funnell (in conclusion): "We absorb the stories of other women too: our sisters, our friends, our mothers and aunties. Their experiences are imprinted upon us and we carry them with us also.
We absorb news coverage - reports of women like Jill Meagher, raped and murdered while walking home in Melbourne. And when we hear these reports, we also hear that constant, persistent whisper in the background: It could have been you. It could easily have been you.

Yes, all women know this fear: this white noise drumming quietly in the background of our lives. What we don't know, what we may never be able to know, is the full cost - psychological, social and
economic - of living with that constant subliminal fear across a woman's lifetime. Nor are we likely to ever know exactly how much time, energy and logistical resources women are forced to expend in order to manage this fear.

But what is abundantly clear is that rape-fear forces women to modify our behaviour. It limits our options and opportunities. It twists our relationships, our private selves and our intimate lives. Yes, not all women will be raped or sexually assaulted. But one in five will. And the other four will live in dread of it happening to them also.

The only way to fix this is to work to reduce sexual assault. Prevention - not silence - is what will eliminate the fear. Tackling sexual assault is a complex and multifaceted task - it requires that we address gender inequality, male entitlement, patriarchal attitudes, consent education, bystanders and the judicial system. It also means being willing to listen to the stories of survivors, and as a community we must say again and again and again:
I believe you.
This is not your fault.
You're not alone.
We've got your back.

It is ten years now since I was assaulted. In that time I've been fortunate enough - privileged enough - to be able to transform my experience into a platform to campaign for the rights of all people to live a life free from sexual violence, and free from the fear of sexual violence. I am fortunate too to be surrounded by strong women - feminists - who have patiently mentored me, taught me, guided me, and called me in - not out - when I have made mistakes. But by far the most empowering thing I ever did was to politicise my own experience by speaking about it. In a culture that systemically blames women for the violence we experience, choosing to speak out, or choosing to believe another survivor, is still a profoundly radical act. It shouldn't be." (page 21-22)

* Dee Madigan: "What I eventually learnt, through the help of psychologists and my own experience, was that living in constant fear has no impact on whether or not the worst will happen. It just means you live scared and tired a lot of the time. And it is so very tiring to be always on the lookout for something to go wrong. For the plane to crash, for the spot to be cancerous, for the man next to you on the train to have a bomb.

Ironically, people often say how I was strong and brave and outspoken but inside I felt none of that. I felt I was leading a double life." (p. 38)

* Rebecca Lim: "It's hard to escape the things that influenced you growing up. The poison gets in one way or another, and your writing, in one sense, will always be a struggle against the poison. You find yourself forever writing antidotes, in the hope of kinder times." (p. 147)

* Andie Fox (in an exquisitely written piece in which she describes her discovery of genuine and tender love after too many years of the opposite):

"This is how kind he is. In our first year together my then-boyfriend cleaned up my son's vomit, bought my daughter hook series he enjoyed, disposed of a dead thing the cat brought in before I'd be faced with it, grew a beard for me, learned to make crème caramel, picked up a million new vegetarian recipes, drew pictures for my children and me that we put on the walls, chased snakes away from hens, posed naked for me while I drew, put up shelves in my kitchen, took shelves down and moved them slightly over that way when I changed my mind, loved my borscht, brought his heater over when I was cold, carried boxes for me, bought me a necklace and a book and lots of lingerie, left me love notes with foxes drawn on them, calmed me, opened himself to me, gave me space and came right in.

Just shy of our first anniversary, we shared one of the most intimate and ceremonial moments I've ever experienced with a partner. You see, there is closeness in a relationship, and then there is helping him write a eulogy for his mother. (Being a writer can occasionally be helpful in a crisis.) Staying up in the night together, editing words of grief And then, standing beside him and hearing him read that speech aloud at a funeral. Life is very, very tender.

We are filled with desire for each other, and I think that has to be related to the near-death experience of divorce and re-partnering. It's the appetite you have after deprivation, after endurance, after survival, after re-entry through the atmosphere.

This piece doesn't end, not properly. My life is not a trajectory mapped across the constellations of men. I don't know where this goes next. I just know I'm here, my life folding in with his, and there we are, hopeful and invested and not as afraid of dependency as we once were. 'In life there is no real safety except for self-belief,' Madonna said recently. She said this not in her twenties, but in her fifties. In other words, there's false security and no real freedom in trying to control for misadventure.

My safety tips for women, my qualifications, are these: if you fall (or are pulled) apart, be open (resilience and tenderness are interwoven); be proud of the risks you take; don't deaden yourself (if at all possible); fortify your sexual imagination; follow kindness." (p. 224-225)

[Clare Stead · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read.

[Dragonladymoi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings; there were some very confrontational, honest accounts that I could relate to. There were some other stories disguised in language that I found dishonest for their lack of explicitness and really wondered why they were included in this anthology. Some I persevered with and I am glad that I did as the story came out in its honesty. Overall, this anthology confirmed my own feelings for the very great divide between male and female viewpoints, although there are sometimes, refreshingly, exceptions.

[Alexandra Daw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read and a good break from fiction.

[Duncan Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good to gain understanding of other people's experiences. I hope this will be a two way process between women and men.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Sami · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of personal essays. Took me a while to read it, as it is easy to pick up and put down again. Well worth the read.

[Fabio Attura · Rating 5 out of 5]

A harrowing must read. Unbreakable left me emotionally broken.