A BOOK on abuse from one who lived the life is currently on shelves in North America and the Caribbean.
First-time author Sandra Daley was recently in Barbados to promote her book Whose Vagina Is It Really?, which she said was just another way of asking Whose
Life Am I Living?
She said the real push to write the book came after a guy she had broken up with after they were dating for about a year, called her up after a few months still expecting something.
The Jamaica-born Canada-based Daley told the audience at a book- signing at Shades International Apartments, Paynes Bay, St James, last Thursday, that she lived through years of abuse, and at age seven the older of her two sons told her she had to leave the relationship withtheir father.
She did, and is around to offer advice to others through her newspaper columns, radio shows,and now the 130-page self-published book.
At 42, with two grown sons, Daley is single and is still in search of a partner. And having spent many years looking out for her boys who are both in Canadian universities, she is trying to be “Sandy”.
The radio and television personality said she was trying to help people make better choices.
“I only wish some of the things like what I wrote about, somebody would have said to me when I was 18, 19 years old. Because then I would not have to go through
so many things. Your experiences obviously shape you into who you are today, and I’m thankful for those things.
I always try to turn my negatives into positives,” she said, adding that she always advised younger women to make their own money and get out of abusive situations.
During the question segment, Daley said lack of finance and education continued to be the two main reasons why women in the Caribbean fiound themselves in abusive situations.
She said they were issues that had to be “tackled”, because they put women at a disadvantage.
With regard to how she spoke to her sons about the issue of abuse, Daley said she tried to be a good example to them and did not have to say much.
She said she also instilled the value of what a woman should be in both of them.
Daley said the book, which was inspired in part by The Vagina Monologues, has already reached No.20 in her native Jamaica. The sequel Whose Penis
Is It Really? is expected to be out by yearend.
(YB)
