The women’s prison is more than the place where society hides its errors. The prison warehouses hundreds of stories of abandonment, abuse, and unconditional love; stories echoed by woman after woman.

What does it mean to be a woman? Moya Goded’s career has, in part, been a search for an answer. She looked not among virgins or maternal figures, but among the broken exponents of a gender that is accustomed to enduring.

Adriana Lestido spent three years documenting the lives of four mothers and their daughters, entering the intimate, sacred space of their relationships. The work uses the tools of photojournalism, but is ultimately closer to art and poetry.

Gaby Messina photographed older, middle-class women revealing something profound about the society to which they belong: dreams, obsessions, fear, and loneliness.