Hello Ladies

Here are some lovely ladies which I completed as part of a fundraising project for our local Neighbourhood Centre. These drawings of staff will be printed onto tea towels along with handprints of children who attend the centre. Drawing the women started me thinking about how we see ourselves is often different to how others see us. When I handed the drawings over to the centre, the staff remarked that they all looked so young. ‘There’s no wrinkles’, they chuckled. I told them that’s what they’d look like if they were cartoons. Cartoon ladies.

Do you remember the first time someone called you a ‘lady’? It’s a weird term, polite on one hand and slightly patronising on the other. We go from girls to ladies in one swift moment and it can happen anywhere, anytime and there’s not a thing you can do to stop it. Because it is how others see you. You might still feel like a rebellious spirited girl who likes to climb trees in your spare time, but that’s not how you look to your neighbour when you’re in your 30’s and perched high up in your pittosporum tree. You’re a weird lady in a tree.

Now that I am well and truly a ‘lady’, it still freaks me out to hear a kid talk about me as ‘the lady in front of us in the queue’ or to be collectively welcomed by someone with a ‘hello ladies’. Maybe it’s time to embrace being a lady. Doesn’t mean I’m always going to be ladylike.