The Clothesline Project

On April 2, 2009 just after our class Sociology, Brandi Redding and I were heading to the UC when she first mentioned the event that was going on in the Tech Pride Room. She was explaining The Clothesline Project and what all she knew of it and asked me if I would like to go see it. I told her sure because I looked at it as a campus event to blog about for English 1020 and I expected to be there for about five to ten minutes. Little did I know what was yet to come? We first walked in and it was completely silent in the whole room. There were these pamphlets about the program explaining what it was about. The Clothesline Project is a visual display of violence towards women using t-shirts. Each t-shirt is decorated to represent a particular woman’s experience. The can either be decorated by the survivor or by someone who cares about the survivor. There were many different colors of shirts. Each color represented a particular situation. White represents the women who have died of violence. Yellow or Beige represents battered or assaulted women. Red, Pink, or Orange is for the survivors of rape and sexual assault. Blue or Green represent survivors of incest and sexual abuse. Purple or Lavender represents women attacked because of their sexual orientation. There was a mass variety of colors that was on display to show the world just how these women and children had suffered. There was also a shirt that had a homosexual man explain his experience with his dad beating him because of his gender preference. Many victims had survived and lived to tell their story but many had died but their story is something no one could ever forget. I was in that room for about forty five minutes reading every single shirt, amazed at the unbelievable stories that were told by descriptions, stories, and drawings. Each shirt had a different story to tell. I greatly respect the women, children, and a few men that had the bravery to tell their story so people can see what they had been through and know that this is a serious matter than happens everyday.