| April 21, 2010 |
The exact date varies from city to city and school to school, but each year in the 3rd or 4th week of April, politicians, activists, students, celebrities, military personnel, survivors, and concerned citizens go to work or school wearing a pair of jeans to protest sexual violence and the social attitudes that support it.
Rape and sexual assault are not the only human ills remembered with denim. Each year Lee Jeans sponsors a breast cancer awareness day in May. In India, activists where jeans in December to raise awareness for HIV and AIDS. In September of each year, the Irish Youth Foundation promotes denim day to raise funds for underprivileged Irish youth.
The use of jeans to protest rape and sexual assault has its origins in a 1999 decision of the Italian supreme court. In February, 1999, the Italian supreme court overturned the rape conviction of a 45 year old driving instructor because his 17 year old student had been wearing tight jeans at the time of the rape. The judges argued that the woman had consented because the jeans were tight and could not be removed without the victims cooperation. The effect of intimidation or psychological coercion was not considered.
Italian members of parliament protesting the 1999 court decision that let a rapist go free because his victim was wearing tight jeans.
The decision spawned an outcry in Italy and around the globe. In Italy, several women members of parliament wore jeans to parliamentary sessions. In April of that year, activists in Los Angelos, California (USA) organized the first ever Denim day in solidarity with the women of Italy.
The Italian supreme court eventually overturned its infamous “jeans” decision in 2008. This decision was the final step of a series of court decisions that have gradually undercut the 1999 decision. A summary of these decisions can be found on line in the Colombia Journal of European Law.
Rape never exists in a vacuum. It often forces us to think beyond the specific issue of rape to larger principles. This case was no exception. The deep discrepancy between the Italian court’s endorsement of the “jeans defense” and evolving social mores in Europe and around the globe forced some to re-evaluate the relationship between legal process and social norms. An example of this is Kitty C. Calvita’s 2001 article published in Law and Society review: Blue jeans, rape, and the ‘de-constitutive’ power of law.
In the USA Denim Day continues to be honored with rape and sexual assault awareness activities. The specific legal decision that inspired it is thankfully part of history, but the need to raise awareness of rape and the role of psychological coercion continues.
Colleges, rape crisis centers, and even military bases in California, Guam, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Nevada, and South Carolina all actively promote Denim Day both on and off line. Two organizations in particular, Support Denim Day and Peace Over Violence are working to make Denim day into a national event.
Although Denim Day began with the protest of Italian parliamentarians, it does not seem to have caught on outside the USA. Perhaps there are efforts on the ground and out of the sight of the web, but so far the only mention of Denim Day for the sake of sexual assault comes from a blogger in in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia who wrote a post promoting Denim Day in 2008.
If you or your organization would like to promote Denim day, please consider visiting either Support Denim Day or Peace Over Violence. Both sites are keeping a registry of Denim Day participants and have a number of programming and promotion ideas.
The March of the Living Proceeds
Later today, thirty-seven miles west of Krakow, Poland, ten thousand high school students, representing forty countries, will join adults of all ages and participate in the March of the Living. There, the “marchers” will retrace the steps of the “March of Death,” the actual route which countless numbers of people were forced to take on their way to the gas chambers at Birkenau, the largest concentration camp complex built by the Nazis during World War II. As is tradition, the March begins at the gate of the Auschwitz I site, with its inscription Arbeit macht frei (“work will set you free”), and concludes at the site of the Auschwitz II – Birkenau camp.
The March will go on as planned, despite Saturday’s air tragedy that took the lives of the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, Maria Kaczynski, and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders. Poland has declared a week of mourning and March participants will express their solidarity with the Polish people by observing a moment of silence.
This year, The March marks 65 years since the liberation of the death camps and the end of World War II and will pay special tribute to the memory of the million and a half children who were killed during the war. Additionally, this year’s program will call attention to survivors from different professional and social fields in order to emphasize how the Jewish community has succeeded in rebuilding a new world out of the ashes of the Holocaust.
A delegation from Israel, led by Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and former Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, includes both Holocaust survivors and a cross-section of young Israelis, including internationally ranked tennis player Shahar Peer and film and television actor, Ohad Knoller. Black ribbons have been attached to the delegations’ flags as a visible sign of recognizing, and remembering, Saturday’s tragedy.
about: The mission of the March of the Living is to challenge a new generation of Jews with two of the most significant events of Jewish history – the Shoah and the birth of the State of Israel. It is achieved by bringing Jewish teenagers to many of the key places where these events took place, in order to understand the world that was destroyed and how Israel was established. This is intensified by sharing these experiences with Holocaust survivors.
The program strives to create memories, leading to a revitalized commitment to Judaism, Israel and the Jewish People; allowing March’ers to educate their peers about the Holocaust and to fight those who would deny its history, while forging a dynamic link with Israel.
This article originally appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy.com; reprinted with permission.
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