Victims speak out against domestic violence
Shirts of every color, as creative and diverse as the makers, were hung in the International Lounge in the TSC Monday and Tuesday. The shirts symbolize empowerment in abused women and children and has been a tradition of the Women’s Center for more than 15 years.
The Women’s Center was established in a tiny room on USU’s campus in 1974. It has expanded to a suite of rooms on the third floor of the TSC and has expanded with the many things it offers to the community. The Women’s Center has participated in the Clothesline Project, which is an international project and was founded in the 1980s, since 1993, according to the Women’s Center Director Patricia Stevens.
The shirts in the project vary in their messages. Some rant, some are empowering and some don’t say anything at all, she said.
“While a lot of T-shirts talk about the pain and despair, many celebrate life,” Stevens said.
All of the shirts are from Cache Valley, magnifying that the problem is in Logan, not just in far away places, Stevens said.
“We have students who can’t believe that they are all from here, that the problem is that big here,” she said.
Throughout the year, anyone is invited to come and make a shirt, Stevens said, and three shirts were made on campus at the Women’s Center this year.
Among the display of shirts, many booths were set up that help to encourage, resolve, heal and shelter the abused, Stevens said. The Clothesline Project serves two purposes: to raise awareness of all types of violence against women and to serve as a healing process to those that have been abused and participate, as a form of therapy, she said. Ryan Barfuss, prevention specialist at USU, said the point of the Clothesline Project is to raise awareness.
“We are doing this during Alcohol Awareness Week, knowing that alcohol is a big contributing factor in domestic violence, sexual assault and rape,” Barfuss said.
The reactions to the Clothesline Project among the student body were varied.
“It’s very interesting to see the ebb and flow, to watch the people who come through. The students who choose to be a part of it get a raised level of awareness and commitment. Some students however, look and look away for whatever reason and choose to not become aware of what’s going on,” Stevens said. “So it is interesting to see the different reactions that occur.”
As students walked around the display of shirts, a gong was playing in the background along with a whistle and a bell.
“Each of the sounds represents something and helps you to have a better understanding,” Barfuss said.
The sounds were brought by a student who was really impacted by a different display at Utah Valley University that had the sounds, he said.
A sign in the display informed students of what they were hearing. The gong, sounding every 10-12 seconds, represented a woman reporting being assaulted. The whistle, going off every two minutes, indicated someone being sexually assaulted. The bell represented a woman being killed by an intimate partner, noting that three to four women are killed every day by their intimate partner.
Other statistics were reported throughout the display. One read “If all the women in the United States who had been assaulted stood hand in hand, they would stretch from New York to Los Angeles and beyond.”
“One statistic I saw was that only 74 percent of males would intervene if they witnessed an assault, which I thought was strange. It should be more like 95 percent,” said Joe Sherwood, junior in psychology. “It’s sobering, it’s really depressing. It opens your eyes to a world most people aren’t even aware of.”
–beck.turner@aggiemail.usu.edu