T-shirts tell stories of violence

"Held at gun point for four hours, brutalized, violated, raped, forever changed."

"Uncle Bert, you said it was my fault, I was too sexy -- I was only 9 years old."

"Remember Nicole."

These are the voices of women who have survived violent crimes and are speaking out by painting T-shirts, with their own experiences of violence, to hang on public clotheslines and air their "dirty laundry" as part of the Clothesline Project.

Bringing the Clothesline Project to SF State for the first time, the S.A.F.E. Place will hang 200 T-shirts from clotheslines on Oct. 9 through 13 in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

The shirts will be hung among the trees at 19th and Holloway avenues by the Business building, and in Memorial Grove. There will also be indoor displays in the student center and Housing's Dining Center.

"There's a lot of students who are dealing with battering, domestic violence, rape, and they think they're the only ones," said Nina Jo Smith, coordinator of the S.A.F.E. Place. "They're really afraid of talking to anyone about it. I think the Clothesline Project will really help bring what is kind of thought as a private problem into recognition that it's a public problem for all of us to deal with."

The Clothesline Project was founded in 1990 by the Cape Cod Women's Agenda in Massachusetts after one of its members discovered, while visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, that during a period when 58,000 men were killed in Vietnam, 51,000 women were killed by men in the U.S. during the same time period.

Last April, the project had its first national gathering in Washington, D.C., and during the opening ceremony domestic violence activist Denise Brown hung a shirt memorializing her sister, Nicole Brown Simpson.

"It (Nicole's death) turned the spotlight on domestic violence, and has made it impossible to look away," Smith said.

Other statistics show that in the U.S. four million women are physically assaulted by a partner each year; a woman is raped every six minutes; and every 15 seconds a woman is battered, according to the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and the National Victim Center.

Nicolette Toussaint, a member of the National Council of Unitarian Universalists Acting to Stop Violence Against Women, said that even though the statistics are alarming, the Clothesline Project gives a real human response.

"These issues cut across all race, class and religious boundaries, and it happens in many families," said Toussaint, who is also a co-sponsor of the project at SF State. "Rape statistics peak on college campuses, and that is where the prime ages for perpetrators and victims are -- in college. One of the T-shirts says, 'Four out of my five college friends,' that's right on the money," she added.

The shirts are not only created by women who are survivors, there are shirts painted on child-sized garments by children who are survivors of violence. Friends of survivors have also contributed shirts.

Each shirt is a symbolic color for different types of violence: white for murder, yellow for battering or assault, red for rape or sexual assault, blue for incest or child abuse and lavender for attacks on lesbians.

The shirts are hanging in all 50 states and in seven countries, including Australia, Canada, England and Cuba. According to organizers, if all shirts made in the U.S. were hung on one clothesline, it would stretch from Denver to Washington, D.C.

Jessica Jarecki, a 21-year-old SF State student, is a survivor of a rape that occurred when she was 16 years old. She will make a T-shirt to hang on the clothesline.

"I feel a little leery of exposing this aspect of my life, because there is still a stigma attached to the subject of violence against women," said Jarecki. "But as more and more women speak out, society has to begin paying attention in order to stop violence against women. By individually standing up and speaking out, we can create a powerful impact on society about the growing problem of violence against women."

Following an educational rally on domestic violence Oct. 7 at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, Willie Brown, Speaker Emeritus, candidate for mayor and SF State Alumnus addressed the impact of the Clothesline Project.

"The Clothesline Project is a magnificent way to get the message that obviously has not been conveyed to most of us in society, particularly at the public policy-making level," Brown said. "I'm sorry that it is not available on the floor of the legislature so some of those right-wingers could walk around and see it."

"I'm going to extend the opportunity for it to be displayed in the capitol for that purpose. Believe me, public policy-makers need to see the real human story, that these are real human beings telling their experiences," Brown said.

Speaking at the same rally, Pamela Chism, 36, who survived being stabbed by her male abuser in 1987, said she supports the Clothesline Project.

"I'm really for the program," said Chism. "By making a T-shirt, this way I can tell people yes, I've been hurt, I've been abused, but I did get help."

Shirts have already been made at other Bay Area colleges, including the University of San Francisco, City College of San Francisco, CSU Hayward and UCSF.

"The most important message I want the students at SF State to get is that every single one of these T-shirts represents a real woman who felt real pain because of the violence inflicted upon her," said Jarecki, who is a women studies major. "Next time you pull a T-shirt over your head while getting dressed, remember that violence against women is really just as common as that white cotton undershirt."

[ Golden Gater Online October 10, 1995 ]

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