The Clothesline Project Combats Violence
By Julianna Wind
White represents women who have died of violence. Yellow or beige for women who have been battered or assaulted. Pink, red or orange for those raped or sexually assaulted. Blue or green for survivors of incest or child sexual abuse. Purple or lavender for women attacked because of their sexual orientation. Black for women handicapped by violence.
From 9:00 a.m., to 5:00 p.m., on March 29 and 30, shirts will hang side by side on a clothesline on the Drillfield. Each one with messages and images by survivors of violence on them. According to the program, these shirts bear witness to the violence committed against women on a daily basis.
“The green and blue shirts are really hard to look at,” Chelsea Benincasa, a junior Honors student in the Communication major and Urban Affairs and Planning minor at Tech said. “Shirts that say things like ‘Daddy's Little Princess’ hurt so badly. Sometimes when you think their story can't get any worse, it does. Keep reading and you will see things you never thought could happen in this world; and they have, right here in Montgomery County.”
The Clothesline Project, which originated in New England, is primarily a silent event. It may be the first time many stories of rape, incest and abuse will be told using t-shirts publicly displayed on campus. This project, along with workshops preceding the Drillfield viewing and the 17th annual Take Back the Night Rally are sponsored by Montgomery County National Organization for Women (NOW), Womanspace, Women’s Center at VT, and Women’s Resource Center.
Benincasa is the president and acting secretary of Womanspace, spending most of her time organizing and facilitating the Clothesline Projects' volunteers. Benincasa said she became involved with Womanspace and the Clothesline Project three years ago when she was a freshman.
“I walked by the project and read the shirts,” Benincasa said. “They impacted me in a way that nothing ever had before. I was deeply moved by the stories, images, cries for hope, and brief glimpses into survivors' lives.”
“Women and men are welcome to make a shirt,” Susan Anderson, the faculty advisor for Womanspace, coordinator of the local NOW chapter, and instructor in the Mathematics Department at Virginia Tech said. “You don’t have to be a woman to be a survivor of sexual assault and you don’t have to be a woman to have lost someone to sexual assault or murder. We want to encourage both women and men who feel that they are ready to make a shirt to do so.”
It is the programs belief that the project not only educates the public of violence against women but also gives the survivors of violence a chance to heal and celebrate their strength and courage to overcome the past.
Anderson told Planet Blacksburg that, Womanspace, a registered student organization on campus, helps staff and volunteer for the event. Women’s Center helps by allowing for a space to have the workshops to make the shirts, and the Women’s Resource Center also provides counselors so that people who are viewing the Clothesline Project can have someone to talk to.
“Violence is not an urban problem or a poor problem,” Anderson said. “It really does go across all ethnic lines, religious and socio- economic lines.”
“Every shirt on that line is made homegrown, is made by somebody here with some connection to our area, and I think that is a huge impact because when people look at those shirts, they realize again every shirt was created by someone with their heart somewhere in the New River Valley. And it hits home that violence happens in our community.”
“Making a shirt helps a victim become a survivor,” Benincasa said. “We hope that victims walking by will gain the strength to take the first steps into healing by realizing that others have gone through such pain as well.”
Former leader of Tech’s Clothesline Project, Lisa Barroso, once read about the event and decided she liked the idea. Barroso then took the idea to a NOW meeting and everyone agreed to take on the project. Barroso had to back out of the project after five years because of health issues, which is when Anderson took on the project.
“It really helps the survivor in their healing process,” Anderson said. “A survivor who feels ready to create a shirt is well along the way in their healing. It takes a lot of emotional energy to describe what happened to you on that T-shirt… To have that courage and determination takes a lot… It can also help with closure. We also have shirts that are made by friends and family members of women who have been murdered, for that family member or that friend who makes a shirt in that friend’s honor, or that mother’s honor, or that daughter’s honor, again that person has gotten a little farther along in that healing.”
Supplies to make a t-shirt are provided free of charge due to funding by NOW.
The Clothesline is displayed every October and March. The National Website for the event is http://www.clotheslineproject.org/.
“Seeing the shirts and knowing that every single shirt tells a story of a real person just doesn’t leave anyone untouched.” Anderson said. “It just makes you feel like crying… You realize how incredibly wide-spread violence is.”
For questions about Virginia Tech’s Clothesline Project contact Susan Anderson at anderson@math.vt.edu or Chelsea Benincasa at cbeninca@vt.edu.