Cairns are man-made piles of rocks. Modern use of the cairn is to mark a trail or path that might be hard to follow. In ancient  times they have been used as burial monuments, ceremonial purposes and sometimes to mark or locate a position.

 

My Cairn is marking the trail and the uphill climb of women. My Cairn is painted pink to represent the use of the color as a mark of femininity. The stack of rocks are pressing down on a stack of books filled with the ideologies and stereotypes of women positioned to cow or play to the ego of men as the role model of women. These books were given to me by my mother, who embraced the ideas about the roles of women of the 1940’s and 50’s. The dialogue between the rocks and the books is the weight of the oppressive thinking projected onto the women who read and internalized these ideas. These books are jacketed in pink and further “genderize” the color pink.

Further dialogue about the path women of the past and women of today follow and the roles they choose accept are found in the Cairn, as either a marker pointing the way or as a monument of warning.