IMOW - Winner Best of Oceania

Stories

Themes

Love
Relationships in changing times. See the Stories>>

Money
Working women talk finances. See the Stories>>

Culture and Conflict
Are we destined to disagree? See the Stories>>

The Future
Envisioning the next 30 years. See the Stories>>

Highlights
Highlighted stories in film, art, music and more. See the Stories>>

War & Dialogue
Speaking from war. Advocating peace. See the Stories>>

Young Men
Our generation: young men speak out. See the Stories>>

Motherhood
Women get candid about pregnancy, parenting and choice. See the Stories>>

Image and Identity
Appearances aren't everything, or are they? See the Stories>>

Online Film Festival
31 films from women directors around the world. See the Stories>>

A Generation Defined
Who are young women today? See the Stories>>

Best of Contest
You came, you saw, you voted. Here are the winners. See the Stories>>

Conversations

What Defines Your Generation of Women?

selected theme

Search:

REGISTER \| LOGIN		Change Language» Invite a friend »

Winner Best of Oceania
Nina Cullen

Australia

GALLERY

CONVERSATION

Sometimes I think my mum looks at me and thinks she hasn't taught me anything. She shakes her head with the disappointment of a...

When the rest of the world was staging radical change and a new cultural order, my mum was going through her own private revolution. At thirty-eight she took herself off the shelf and caught a plane to Australia. After years of letters, a few photos, a visit, and a proposal, she married my dad, whom she had met in Africa five years earlier.

She arrived in Australia in 1974, a farmer's daughter from Bavaria. She didn't know what to think. Her new home was a one-story house with a square of yellow grass out back and a rotating clothesline. Cheese was cheddar, coffee was instant, and cakes were sponge. This was Australia. She was saved from being called a Nazi because she was part of a whole postwar generation of migrants who moved to Australia. She still got funny looks sometimes.

The graveyards had weeds so high you couldn't read the inscriptions. It was a disgrace. The memory of neat parish plots in her hometown made her sad. It still disappoints her that my uncle doesn't have a tombstone twenty years after his death.

My mum and her brothers were spared from the Hitler Youth because their dad said they had too far to walk home from the meetings. In big regimes you forget the little people and their own quiet disagreement.
See Full Story »

RELATED ITEMS (6)

Tessa Lewin
Zimbabwe
Conscious Dreaming
GO TO STORY »

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Pakistan
Terror's Children
GO TO STORY »

Irina Patkanian
Armenia
Armenian Lullaby
GO TO STORY »

Nefin Dinc
Turkey
I Named Her Angel
GO TO STORY »

/ / /

The content in this exhibit does not necessarily represent the opinions of the International Museum of Women, or its partners or sponsors.