Public Information Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

DATE:                          November 20, 2006

MEDIA CONTACT:     Donna Myers, (206) 546-4717

SCC Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance
offers The Clothesline Project
November 27 – December 1, 2006 

Shoreline, WA ─ The Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance at Shoreline Community College, along with several Women's Studies students and the Multicultural and Women's Center are sponsoring "The Clothesline Project" at the main campus,  November 27^th through December 1st, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  The “Clothesline Project” is a visual display that calls attention to violence against women. The project displays shirts designed by women survivors of violence and families and friends of women victims of violence.  The shirts hang side-by-side to "Break the Silence" and to bear witness to violence against women.  The project focuses on providing healing for survivors of violence, educating the public about violence, and providing solutions through individual action to prevent violence.

            Women survivors of domestic violence and their families and friends are welcome to create their own T-shirt and add it to the existing clothesline.

            Shoreline Community College is located at 16101 Greenwood Avenue North, west of Aurora Avenue and just north of Seattle city limits.  The project is located in the hallway outside the Women’s Center, located on the lower floor of the library in Bldg. 4000.  For more information, contact Lynette Peters at 206.546.4715.

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Backgrounder on the Clothesline Project:

The Clothesline Project began in 1990 when members of the Cape Cod Women's Agenda hung a clothesline across the village green in Hyannis, Massachusetts with 31 shirts designed by survivors of assault, rape and incest. Women viewing the clothesline came forward to create shirts of their own and the line just kept growing.

Since that first display the Project has grown to 300+ local Clothesline Projects nationally and internationally, with an estimated 35,000 shirts. The Clothesline Project has become a distinctive resource for healing from violence and creating social change. Lines have been displayed at schools, universities, State Houses, shopping malls, churches, and women's events. The first National Display took place April 8-9, 1995 in Washington D.C. in conjunction with NOW's Rally for Women's Lives.

Similar to the AIDS quilt, the Clothesline Project puts a human face on the statistics of violence against women. The Project increases awareness of the impact of violence against women, celebrates a woman's strength to survive, and provides an avenue for her to courageously break the silence. Families and friends of women who have died as a result of violence can make a shirt to express their deep loss.

Creating A Shirt

One of the beauties of this project is its simplicity. Survivors need not be artists to create a moving personal tribute. Whether they choose to use paint, magic markers or elaborate embroidery to create their shirt is up to them. The power is in the personal.

The Clothesline Project is about direct, personal violence against women and shirts are color-coded for different types of violence:

• White - for women who were murdered
• Yellow or beige - for women who have been battered or assaulted
• Red, pink, or orange - for women who have been raped or sexually assaulted
• Blue or green - for women who are survivors of incest or child sexual abuse
• Purple or lavender - for women attacked because they are or were perceived to be lesbian

(These colors are not mandatory if a different color has special significance.)

To Get Involved:

The concept is simple - let each woman tell her story in her own unique way, using words and/or artwork to decorate her shirt. Once finished, she will then hang her shirt on the clothesline. This very action serves many purposes. It acts as an educational tool for those who come to view the Clothesline; it becomes a healing tool for anyone who makes a shirt - by hanging the shirt on the line, survivors, friends and family can literally turn their back on some of that pain of their experience and walk away; finally it allows those who are still suffering in silence to understand that they are not alone.

Survivor = A woman who has survived intimate personal violence such at rape, battering, incest, child sexual abuse.

Victim = A woman who has died at the hands of her abuser.

The Clothesline Project honors women survivors as well as victims of intimate violence. Any woman who has experienced such violence, at any time in her life, is encouraged to come forward and design a shirt. Victim's families and friends are also invited to participate.

It is the very process of designing a shirt that gives each woman a new voice with which to expose an often horrific and unspeakable experience that has dramatically altered the course of her life. Participating in this project provides a powerful step towards helping a survivor break through the shroud of silence that has surrounded her experience.”

(Source: www.clotheslineproject.org)

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