After trauma, women’s stories
In 2013, Jackie Clark launched The Aunties, a grassroots charity helping women to rebuild their lives after a period of trauma. She quit her job, turning her back on her comfortable life, to focus on The Aunties full-time, becoming Aunty in Charge and assisting hundreds of women with material needs and emotional support. Jackie has long dreamed of a publication that gives these women a voice.
Her Say is a powerful book featuring the stories of a number of very different New Zealand women, told their way. The collected stories chart their narrators’ lives and personal histories, through the lens of having lived with — and escaped — an abusive relationship.
Her Say is spoken from the heart, uncompromising but offering hope, redemption, personal triumph. It’s a book for all women, showing how owning our stories gives us the power to write daring new endings All royalties from the book will go to The Aunties to support their work.
Who is this book aimed at?
Everyone who needs to read it — cis men, and people who are in abusive relationships, or ever have been, in particular.
What was it like for you, emotionally, to put your story into this book?
I have told my story, or bits of it, before. I was glad it would be out there in a bigger way.
How were the other contributors chosen?
I told the women of The Aunties whana¯u that a book was being written, and were they ready to tell their stories. Thirteen of them were. One of them is someone Sonia knows, and someone else has been a big part of our Aunties donor community for years.
And what was it like for the contributors to write their stories?
They tell me it was cathartic. All of them have self-edited very heavily, so the bits they told were the parts of their story they were comfortable — well not comfortable, but okay — with telling.
How do their stories vary, and is there anything that is the same across them all?
They all have very different backgrounds. A couple of us never experienced physical violence.
But all of us have survived the most extreme physical, sexual and psychological violence.
Other than The Aunties, who else has inspired and helped you in your life?
My mentors for this work are Caroline Herewini and Hazel Hape, who both run very effective refuge organisations. My biggest other influences are Dr Rosemarie Pere, and Celia Lashlie.
The royalties from the book go to support the work of The Aunties.
What sort of things does the money get spent on?
We are very purposely only spending the money on taking the authors to book events centred around Her Say, around NZ.
What do you think it will take for NZ’s domestic abuse statistics to improve?
The Family Courts to recognise how problematic their judges are.
They seem not to understand domestic violence as much as they should.
We need to stop excusing and defending Pa¯keha¯ cis men in particular for abusive behaviours.