They do not hide, they are not ashamed

Usually, they aren't given a name. They make do with an initial. If a newspaper publishes a photo of them on the way to or from the courthouse, it is blurred, blotted out with enlarged pixels. As though they were the ones who had done something wrong. The identities of women who go through sexual abuse are usually not revealed. Often, this is their choice, which must be respected, but the choice is indicative of social assumptions.

Photographer Alicia Shahaf decided to counter this tendency in project called "Heroines," showing portraits of women who have been sexually assaulted. Thus far she has photographed about 20 women. Each of them looks straight at the camera. They do not hide, they are not ashamed.

	Daniela Kroitoro-Machtinger. It could happen to anyone.
	Photo by: Alicia Shahaf

"Victims of sexual assault are heroines," says Shahaf. "Women who have been in hell and survived, who live the trauma every day and who try, in various ways, to live their lives and to live them to the full."

Shahaf is a native of Argentina. "In Buenos Aires of the end of the 1970s," she says, "men used to rub up aggressively and openly against women of all ages on public transportation. This was accepted, an integral part of riding a bus or a subway. A woman had to be wary of the men who came too close, rubbed themselves against her, groped her. I didn't think this had to be accepted as a fact of life. I often screamed at a man like that to take his hands off my body fast, as he and all the other passengers looked at me in astonishment, as though I were the one who wasn't behaving properly. Apparently then, at an early age, I began to develop my feminist awareness.

"Five years ago," she continues, "when I was taking a training course for volunteers at a help center for sexual assault victims in the Sharon (which is sponsoring the project ), I realized that not a whole lot had changed since the days of the gropings on the bus. The voice of the victim is still silenced and those who do dare to speak out are the ones who 'aren't okay'- they are ashamed of the harm done to them, as though they were the guilty ones and not the victims."

The photography project attempts to change this state of affairs. Shahaf published a call on her blog on Reshimot, in various forums and at help centers. "Each of the women I photographed came to my studio with the aim of saying, 'I am here, I was raped, I was harassed and I am not ashamed to show my face.' This could happen to anyone, young women and old, beautiful women and less beautiful women."

The photograph of each of the women she has documented thus far came after a process of getting acquainted, adds Shahaf. "I didn't ask questions. If someone wanted to talk about what had happened to her, she did, and anyone who didn't feel the need - didn't. All the photographs were taken in my studio. Beyond the technical issue, I thought - and this turned out to be true - that the safe, intimate space of the studio, with only the women and I present, talking, listening to music, would make it possible for me to get to know each of the women, get close, understand how I should photograph her, how I can bring the woman, her essence, into the photo.

As each woman chose

"In the photographs I was looking for the interiority of the woman standing before me, without the label 'victim.' The only instructions I gave were mainly about looking into the camera, at me. Each of the women was the way she was, with makeup or natural, as she chose. It was important to me to show them the photographs, so they would feel comfortable, so they would feel at ease about how they look in the photo.

"One of the women, a very beautiful woman, said to me what every one of the women I photographed said to me (in fact, what I hear from every woman I photograph, even not in the context of this project ) - that she doesn't photograph well. She is a woman who has had a hard life, with and without any connection to the damage she experienced in her childhood. Her attitude toward herself and toward her body is cruel and uncompromising. I was very afraid of her reaction; even if I see in her one of the most beautiful women I have photographed, I know she sees herself as ugly, charmless, repulsive. When I showed her the photographs she glowed. She said something to me I will always remember: 'Is this me? I look not at all bad.'

"I believe in the power of art, the power of photography, uniqueness, to bring about change. Here I saw this unambiguously: I saw her as beautiful, I photographed her as beautiful, the reflection of herself in the photo was beautiful and she at long last managed to see her own beauty. Of course, I am not talking only about external beauty."

One of Shahaf's subjects, Ruthie Lanu-el Marek, a musician who writes the blog "Life after the prolonged violence," says: "They taught us to keep silent, so much so that even when I spoke, they didn't hear me. People around me grew up, matured and built their lives. I couldn't hack it any more, I had nothing left, I had lost everything I had."

Initially she developed an anonymous blog called "Whisper" and later she revealed herself.

"That forced silence, the forced shame, makes every one of us into a woman without a face and without a body," she wrote.

"Instead of the attacker being ashamed of his violence, society is ashamed of the fact the violence was directed at our sexual organs. The rapist rapes not only the body but also the discourse and everyday conduct. Every woman who has chosen to reveal her name and her face is indeed a heroine."

Shahaf is currently seeking a suitable space and funding for the exhibition, which will be curated by Shulamit Lear.