Book | Austria

English title: I am me
Keyword(s): marriage| family| housewife syndrome| motherhood| abortion| physical violence| sexual violence| depressions| emancipation| empowerment| divorce| consciousness-raising groups
Languages(s): German
URL: http://www.stichwort.or.at/
Manifest: view document
Copyright:

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Summary:
Through an unplanned pregnancy the twentytwo year old J.J., a woman with diverse interests and skills, finds herself in a marriage that turns into years of disaster for her. Without practical support from her husband, she raises her children and, in the beginning, is the sole breadwinner for the family while he studies, develops his political career, and has numerous affairs. The autobiography describes the loss of self-esteem, the depression in the humiliating and violent relationship and the isolation of being just-a-housewife.
After seventeen years she leaves her husband and moves to the city with the two younger children. Here she is able to organize self-esteem courses for women at an adult education center again, as she did in her hometown, which are in high demand, and she is also able to gather strength and support for her new life from the network of women. She is slowly able to establish independence and develop new professional goals and relationships.