A woman in a 'ndrangheta family in Australia: the honour and its moon

 
She is a superwoman.

Her body is what she can control, how much she eats, how much she exercises, how much of it she shows.

The pictures, the dresses, the bikinis, the make-up for another face, body, soul.

Not all is what it seems with her. 

She experimented a lot, she had to, to find one - face, body, soul - that fit her.

She parties with her friends, dressed up like a doll, yet she isn't blonde like some of them, she isn't that pretty, but she tries hard to look like they look.  

She could barely walk in front of a camera, she was the moon of her own family, in the shadows.

Now she owns many shots, seeing the honour of what she made of her name.

Her legacy, she wears like a second skin.

She suffered a lot, the stigma, the rumours, the eyes of the people on them. What they said about her father, what they assumed about them all. 

But she won't be a victim for it. That's her legacy, another way to overcome hardship. Hardship is honour.

The honour and its moon, how could she not see it before, how interconnected they are?

She thinks, one day, they might try and look like her instead, those women. Wouldn't that be nice.

The rest around her she can't control, not that much, she did try and mostly failed. 

She grew up shy and proud.

    Shy, as a wog who had to apologise for her mother's inability to speak proper English.

    Proud, as a woman brought up in hardship, or so they told her.

She didn't know that pride was going to lead to her shame too.

She was told she had to be both, strong and gentle, to survive, masculine and feminine, to honour him, the father, and to honour her, the mother.
 
And now look at her, she is both, strong and gentle, masculine and feminine. 
 
Again, the honour has its moon.
 
    She acts like a leader while she sexes up.

    She throws punches while she cares for her eyelashes. 

She had to define her own agency.

    In a family that thought of her as compliant, as a good daughter is,     doing what she is asked, disappearing like wallpaper when cameras appeared. 

    And in an Australian society around her that expected her to conform     as most wog women until a while back did, educated, polite, a bit quirky, with their love for the nonni, and for home-made pasta.

She chose to transform instead

    to push her own boundaries and show them all. 

Show them that she could sustain the looks, by the police officers, by the authorities more generally, without backing down. 

Show them that she could train herself to be stronger. 

Show them that she didn't want to play the game others had set up for her.

    The game of shame, the game of hiding who she was, who her father         was, who her family was. 

She is reclaiming her identity, and if that means taking care of a few family things, things only she can do, she welcomes that. That's her own choice.

Everyone seemed to know more than she did, as she was growing up, and she never quite understood until it was too late. 

She hated being left in the dark, half-way in half-way out. 

Women are like that, in the family, at the margins until they are given some power. Power that feels like crumbles, feels like a handout.

What does power even mean?

    With her mother, it was about organising stuff, while he was away. She         would make the calls, arrange the cash, provide for her and her brothers, make sure they didn't lose face. Power to keep a good face. 

    With her brothers, it was about getting back up after the abuses they felt while growing up; getting stronger and richer, to get back at all of those who pushed them down.

    With her father, it was a different story. Power for him was respect. 

She didn't realise, until it was too late, how respected he was, to an extent she hadn't seen before he died.

There it was, that pride again that she was used to cherish as a little girl, proud of him, against all odds.

Yes she can be proud of his resilience, if nothing else. 

She loved him, and she shared so much with him, his impatience, his loyalty. 

She is stubborn like him, she has a temper like him. She won't be judged, by whoever calls them a mafia family. She won't take it. She does what she feels she needs to do.

He went to prison many times, and many times around her mum stood by him, proud, loyal, as we only have each other, dear, as they won't take care of him, if we don't. 

She grew up hiding behind the screens, behind the filters of the photo apps, in fear of people judging her, for her name, for her family. 

Not anymore.

Again, they expected her to apologise, when she was trying to get a job, or a friend, or a lover. What submission is that?

Did she deserve a lover? And what type of lover could she expect? Should she change her name?

She now embraces her vulnerability today and she claims she is stronger for it. That's the power of transformation, of meticulous control over her body, mind and soul, she says. 

She chose her own name now, she doesn't just suffers it, she wears it.
 
What they won't tell you, she thinks, is that her father's respect is all it's left, of him and his legacy. It shaped her. 
 
What they won't tell you, she says, is that you can't deny your past.

Between conforming and complying, you can transform. 

Emancipation is never fully formed, for women like her, and yet it feels like choice. 

Whether she chooses to "offend" or not now, whether she chooses to fight back the mafia stigma and "show them all" again, whether she chooses to avenge him, or to just live her life and leave it all behind, it's her choice. 

All of this is the product of her environment as much as her own dual strength, the feminine, the masculine, and the identity she is wearing now, from compliant and conformist, to transformative and disruptive.

A woman with choice is the strongest woman there is. 

 

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Photos of Glenelg, South Australia -  © Anna Sergi 

Text - © Anna Sergi

I am thankful to the real woman who inspired this text without knowing. Not everything is applicable to true course of events in her life, thus this text needs to be considered largely a work of fiction.

 

And you reader, did this text make you reflect?

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