Airing society's dirty laundry: The clothesline project

Off Our Backs, Dec 1998 by Ruby, Jennie

Airing Society's Dirty Laundry: The Clothesline Project

From a distance, the bright shirts flapping in the breeze call to mind laundry days with the clean smell of detergent and sun-dried sheets. From close up, however, the atmosphere is that of a war memorial, with quiet groups of people, men and women, reading the handwritten messages on the shirts in subdued respect.

The Clothesline Project is having its quiet impact on the passers by and participants in a city park in Washington, DC. The 500 shirts that were on display October 31 represent the work of women and children in the local community who survived assaults and abuse by men. Some of the shirts are memorials to those who did not survive. Participants in the project decorated and wrote messages on the T-shirts as acts of healing and of sending a public message that private abuse will no longer be tolerated. One shirt reads, "Roy, nobody knew! Now, I am through protecting you! You can never hurt me or hit me again. -- A.K."

The Clothesline Project was initiated by members of the Cape Cod Women's Agenda in 1990. The group displayed 31 T-shirts designed by women survivors of assault, rape, and incest across a village green. Viewers of the display added their T-shirts to the line. The organizers of the project had three objectives:

Educate the public about the extent of violence against women and the impact it has on individuals and their family and friends

Encourage survivors to come forward and break the silence by creating a shirt for the Clothesline Project

Help survivors with the healing process

I am 4 years old and I AM DEAD

The man who murdered me was MY FATHER

Alone in the middle of the night he came and Killed my soul...

AND NOW SHE SHALL BE REBORN

I AM ALIVE

I was afflicted by the abuse

I survived to feel sunshine and compassion

I Know now that it wasn't my fault

Love Doesn't hurt

No means no!

I thought family members protected me. I didn't know that love could hurt. Sexually abused at eleven, raped at eighteen. I thought I was being safe. I used the buddy system. We weren't drinking. I thought he was my friend, but he raped me. Speak out!!! Break the silence.

The project soon went national, and Carol A. Chichetto, chair of the National Clothesline Project's steering committee, who has noted that the project was partly inspired by the concept of the AIDS Quilt, describes the underlying concept this way:

"Doing the laundry has always been considered women's work, and in the days of close-knit neighborhoods, women often exchanged information over backyard fences while hanging their clothes out to dry. The concept of the clothesline Project was simple, let each woman tell her own story in her own unique way. It was and is a way of airing society's dirty laundry."

The Washington, DC, area Clothesline Project is run by My Sister's Place, a shelter for battered women and children. Organizer Suzanne Marcus told oob, "We display the shirts and we conduct shirt making sessions with women both in and out of our shelter." Some of the shirts had been in storage when My Sister's Place took on the project as part of its community education activities. At the shelter, staff and residents unpacked the shirts and catalogued them. Now the project is twice the size.

"The display becomes a site for complete strangers to share personal stories and cry together. It's healing for some, some get very angry, or are shocked," said Marcus. She noted that the project is unique among the community education efforts of the shelter because of the way it elicits emotion and motivates viewers to donate money, clothing, and their own time.

"For some women it's the first time they have ever spoken out against their abuser," said Marcus, "and broken the silence around their experiences. For others it may be closure....shirt making sessions mean something different to every woman. The volunteers who work on the Clothesline Project committee try to create a supportive space where women feel comfortable to tell their stories and share them with other women. It's also a priority for us to express how their words carry power and the shirts will be displayed at government buildings, community centers, high schools, and churches and people will read their words."

National organizer Chichetto says that the impact of this project on young women and men is significant. In the more than 300 Clothesline Projects all over the United States, and some in other countries, about 30% of the organizers are new to activism. For many, the Clothesline Project is their first move into political organizing.

To volunteer or to donate shirts and paints to the Washington, DC, area project, contact Suzanne Marcus at

My Sister's Place

PO Box 29596

Washington, DC 20017

202-529-5261

National office for the Clothesline

Project: 508-385-7004