Denim Day returns to Pierce College today for its 14th anniversary in Los Angeles, nearly the age of the girl who inspired the cause.
The event will be centered in front of The Great Hall from 9:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. with educational crafts, speakers, private counseling for victims and survivors of sexual abuse and culminates with a Take Back The Night march on the Mall beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Fliers distributed by the organizers of Pierce’s event say in Rome in 1998 a rapist was exonerated because the Italian Supreme Court decided the teenage victim’s tight jeans had to have been willingly shed. It so outraged many women in Parliament that they all wore jeans in protest.
In what started in 1999 by Peace Over Violence as a show solidarity with Italian women over that egregious high court ruling, Denim Day, a nationwide day of rape prevention and education event suggests participants “make a social statement with your fashion statement,” their website http://denimdayusa.org says.
The event on campus is organized by members of the Campus Violence Response Team, Holly Hagan and Kathy Oborn as well as members from the Pierce College Feminist Club.
“Show you care by what you wear,” the Pierce College flier reads.
Holly Hagan is a dual survivor of both sexual assault and domestic violence.
“There are so many people who sit right there in that moment – they can’t get past it – my hope is to help someone to move past that moment,” she said.
Links and resources:
Denim Day
http://denimdayusa.org/about/history/
Clothesline Project
http://www.clotheslineproject.org/
Take Back the Night
LAPC sexual violence webpage
http://www.piercecollege.edu/offices/compliance/sexual_violence.asp
Peace Over Violence, Denim Day in LA and USA, website
http://denimdayusa.org/