(TW: Rape, victim blaming)
I am in the early stages of thinking through a project that I’m interested in pursuing and I need your help to execute it. I want to create a fashion show called ”What were you wearing?” in which the models wear actual clothing that people were…
I really like the idea of this project, but it also exposes one of my biggest fears.
That I actually DID bring my sexual assault upon myself.
Not my ones in high school, but my most recent one. We were on a date. I was wearing something low cut, short, and tight. I know logically I didn’t ask to be assaulted, but I fear that what I was wearing will perpetuate the stereotype.
I don’t know. I’m thinking out loud. I totally support this idea, but I would be too nervous to participate.
Honestly, I think focusing on the clothing at all would be a mistake, because for every girl in a t-shirt and baggy sweatpants who’s been raped, there was one showing off cleavage and wearing stilettos. With victim blaming, pretty much any type of clothing that could even remotely be construed as sexual or revealing WILL be. As someone mentioned in the comments, what about women who are raped by their partners? They might have just been in their underwear or not wearing anything at all. Or, what about sex-workers who are raped?
While I think your heart is in the right place, I’m not sure that this would be the most effective method of combating victim-blaming. Because there are women who dress provocatively and are raped, but they aren’t raped BECAUSE they were dressed provocatively. And your only options really would either be to only include women who were dressed very conservatively, erasing women who were dressed provocatively and raped as well as partner and sex-worker rape, or to include ALL cases and have victim-blamers interpret it as you proving their point.
I feel rambly so I hope this makes sense. It would be nice in theory but I’m not sure if it would work to actually help or change anything.
I’m seeing a lot of commentary from people saying that it is a mistake to focus on clothing because some victims were wearing clothing that upholds cultural biases about victims deserving to be assaulted. I want to make it clear that I’m looking for all outfits. For me, I think the beauty of a project like this is that it exposes the fact that some people are wearing revealing clothes, some people aren’t. Some people are in a bra and underwear because it was their partner or started consensually. Some were in jeans. Some were in stretch pants. Some were in flannel nightgowns. Some were in suits. And when you put them all together, rather than there being a hierarchy of who is an “innocent” victim and who isn’t, you have a stage full of clothing that represents people who have all been assaulted and since they were all wearing vastly different clothes, clothing couldn’t be the reason why.
I’m interested to know if, rather than outright rejecting this project, people think there is space to do a project like this in a way that challenges the way that victims get put in an innocence>guilt hierarchy based on clothing? If so, what do you think that looks like?
