Pants of Empowerment Healing Stories of Sexuality Kate Codrington

It is deeply moving to read the stories that arise from the body, they show us that we are not alone, that we all struggle with how to be our own person, how to stay afloat, how to love ourselves. Have a look for yourself.

The wearable artworks are made with vintage and recycled materials where possible to represent the renewal and re-birth that healing the feminine represents, and also for the sake of the planet.

Many of the stories are shared here anonymously to celebrate the cyclical creativity and complexity of being in a female body.

Why our stories matter

“There is nothing as powerful as coming together to share stories of loss and triumph.”

By sharing our stories we inspire others to accept their inner and outer beauty and deepen the conversation about how it is to be in a female body.

By sharing an images of ourselves in our pants we get to own our strength and contribute to the diversity of beautiful bodies.

Together we are pushing back the tide of reductive misogyny. Like placing a flower in the barrel of the gun, we use the most subversive tools we have; beauty, playfulness and truth.

Empowerment is deeply connected to our sexuality and at a time when #metoo and #everydaysexism is rising in the public consciousness, it’s incredible to think that 1 in 5 women have still some form of experienced sexual violence since the age of 16.

Birth trauma too, often ignored and unrecognised as an invisible wound in our society, making many feel their body is an enemy to be controlled by others.

Too often our bodies are controlled by external forces, medicated into submission, made to conform to a certain look, made to feel shame.

The Pants of Empowerment encourage the inner life of our creativity and femininity to be expressed and accepted.

Healing for our daughters

My hope that is by spreading the message of empowerment and self-acceptance, maybe our daughters will be able to truly love their bodies and feel the cyclical strength of the feminine rising in them.

How it came about

This project has been niggling away at me for ages and though I've often got frustrated and abandoned her, she keeps coming back and reasserting herself. After seeing a production of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues I found I had no choice, the project insisted that I got creative and birth her. Thank the Goddess for that!

All the women who share their stories have had their names changed here to protect their identity.

You can find the stories here.

Want to have your own Empowering Pants?

Here’s how it works

The Pants of Empowerment starts with a conversation to see if we’re a good fit.
We arrange a 50-minute session where I lead you in a meditative guided exploration process to explore your feminine landscape.
I then sit with your story and respond by making a pair of knickers that reflect the beauty and power of your feminine landscape.
The knickers are textile art created mostly from recycled materials, which is kind to the earth and also reflects the process of renewal and cyclical rebirth.
Your story is shared here anonymously along with a photo of you in your pants.

Get in touch to have a chat about it, or you can commission yours here.

Who is it for?

A mindful curiosity about your inner world is essential and it will be helpful for you if you are fairly well resourced in terms of health, support and self-care. You don’t have to have had an experience of menstruality or the deep feminine before.

The process has been used to dive deep into a challenge or health issue as well as to celebrate transitions, triumphs or just showing up every damn day. Pants are brilliant for:

Menopause celebrations and croning
Birthdays
Surviving troubled times
Divorce
Marriage
Menarche
Just because

This is not a project to engage with while you are in a crisis, if you’re deep in a really tricky place, then a menstrual medicine circle might be more appropriate for you.

What happens next?

The Empowering pants are wearable garments, made to your size, so you have a bespoke artwork. You might want to keep them safe to remind yourself of your resources in difficult times, or you might want to put them in a box frame to show off to the world on your living room wall, it’s up to you.