These images are from a hand-made, Japanese stab-bound book that I created for a final project in 4x5 photography. All images were taken with a large format camera. Here is the introduction from the book: "Our society revolves around a strong gender binary that we rely on to establish requirements for acceptable comportment and appearance. Historically, masculinity has always been associated with strength and control. But femininity is also strong. How do we prove this strength without assuming the stances of a man? We live in a dance between who we are, what we are expected to be, and what we want to be. It's unseemly to cry in public, yet women are supposed to be emotional. We should eat when we are hungry but not too much. Women don't have bodily functions. So which is the fiction? Is it how we act? Or how people perceive us to act? Sometimes, it's hard to tell if the actions we take are a result of being socialized into our gender role, or a result of our own individuality. Should we be what society expects? How does that make us strong? If you move out of your gender box, if you let the mask slip for a moment, there is push back. Women: poised, in control, emotional, tough, put together, nurturing, loyal, graceful. Women: human. The truth is that it's all fiction."
