Beginnings
Lives on the Line, The Birth of the Clothesline Project
A Global Movement to End Violence Against Women
By Rachel Carey-Harper
EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER THREE
Over the Bridge
When working on the Clothesline Project, it is natural to feel the immensity of the pain and horror. Yet we should keep present in our minds that many women survive. This can be a reason to rejoice. We have given these women a place where they can come together and realize they are not alone. We are creating the opportunity to share our strength and love. We are affecting people’s lives in very positive, profound ways. These reasons to rejoice. Let’s meet each other with joy. Let’s celebrate our survival, individual lives, being able to a positive difference in community, and love.
In January 1991, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) asked if the Cape Cod Women’s Agenda (CCWA), wanted to bring the Clothesline Project to participate in their early March legislative caravan to Washington, D.C.
I had learned from our earlier displays the importance of setting up the Clothesline, so people who view it felt safe and knew they had support. At each display, support people were present to provide one-on-one contact. The general strategy was as follows: When someone came to look at the Clothesline, one of us would hand them a brochure. Maybe we would tell them a little bit about what they were about to see. This allowed us to have some personal interaction and some eye contact in an ordinary, natural, human way. Then, as they looked at the line, we casually monitored their progress and process. If a viewer seemed to have trouble, the support person would go up to them, perhaps straighten a shirt and either ask how it was going, how they were feeling, or in other ways, make it understood that they were available to listen. Sometimes I would bring a stuffed bear. I always had tissues in my pocket.
When working on the Clothesline Project, it is natural to feel the immensity of the pain and horror. Yet we should keep present in our minds that many women survive. This can be a reason to rejoice. We have given these women a place where they can come together and realize they are not alone. We are creating the opportunity to share our strength and love. We are affecting people’s lives in very positive, profound ways. These reasons to rejoice. Let’s meet each other with joy. Let’s celebrate our survival, individual lives, being able to a positive difference in community, and love.
We do not have the luxury of saying that it is another’s problem. We cannot let fear and apathy silence us. We all have been hurt, those of us who are allies, the survivors, and the perpetrators. Ultimately, we all must find constructive, positive ways to heal. Perpetrators of abuse are often victims themselves. Obviously, trying to heal a wounded place by inflicting violence on someone else is irrational.
On this continent, Europeans brought their attitudes about women into the so-called New World. Against women of color, these attitudes were brutal, and they persist today. In most indigenous societies, rape, battering, and incest were unheard of until the European invaders killed and raped millions and millions of indigenous women. Millions and millions of African women were killed and raped during the crossing and later in slavery.
All people without color benefit from this system. Although it was the male who predominantly perpetrated the violence, European women also have responsibility. Our ancestors were the mothers and nursemaids who trained, educated, and sometimes sponsored the exploits of these males. Indeed, there were reasons for the collusion. During the burning time, women who didn’t conform to the patriarchy were hunted, tortured, raped, and killed. 12, 15, and maybe as many as 20 million women were murdered during this period. ( see EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER TWO: The Next Displays.)
Imagine what it would be like if violence did not exist. Imagine what the world would be like if women’s wisdom, vision, and energy had equal authority and power. Just imagine.
The 3/8/1991 send-off event at the Cape Cod Community College went well.
The next stop on the caravan was Long Island. On 3/9/91, Mary Stewart from WILPF, Connie, and I went to Nassau County, New York. We set up in a Unitarian Church.
On 3/10/91, we were in Philadelphia at a huge women’s expo at a newly refurbished and elegant mall called Borsch Hall. It was invigorating. I met a woman named Audrey Tucker and felt an instant rapport. I was no longer afraid. Audrey was a member of WILPF and attended a local Friends Meeting. I admired her strength, her beauty, and her formidable intelligence.
On 3/12/91, we arrived in Washington, DC. At Longworth House Office Building, many people came to the display.
Gerry Studds (D Mass) remarked,
“If this is reminiscent of any one thing, it is of the AIDS Quilt in the ways in which that put a human face on the tragedy of AIDS in this country. I think in very much the same spirit and very much the same kind of emotional impact, this is putting a human face on a problem that, in its own way, is as invisible as AIDS was a decade ago.”
EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER FOUR
Back on the Cape and On to the State House
“As we pass these shirts from our loving hands to yours, they journey with the hope that we can break the silence so completely that the roar of our pain will forever still the forces that do violence to our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls. These shirts have spirits that were sewn into them that in part, transcend the strong, beautiful, courageous survivors who are quiet no longer. Your contribution is a splendid display of dedication to peace and freedom at home.”
Back on the Cape at the end of March we rested and worked at getting the shirts organized, developing a database to be able to keep track of them but the political work continued.
Honora, Elenita, and I accepted an invitation from WEAVE, a Worcester, Massachusetts group concerned with violence against women, for May 11. It was a beautiful day. Many, many people came to see the display that was on a green just outside Clark University. The wind was gently blowing. Women and children picnicked on the grass. Many people made shirts.
On 6/29/91, we hung the Clothesline on the green at Bryn Mawr College. We filled most of the space between the buildings where all the programs were taking place. This display moved the hearts of many people from around the country.
Having seen the Project when it was in Philadelphia, a group from Newtown, Pennsylvania, decided to start a line. I was asked to design and lead a small ceremony at the close of the conference to transfer the shirts we had from this area to them.
“As we pass these shirts from our loving hands to yours, they journey with the hope that we can break the silence so completely that the roar of our pain will forever still the forces that do violence to our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls. These shirts have spirits that were sewn into them that in part, transcend the strong, beautiful, courageous survivors who are quiet no longer. Your contribution is a splendid display of dedication to peace and freedom at home. “
We also talked about the shirt we had received from a man. We decided not to hang it. Sexism is a system of oppression characterized by a belief in the inferiority of women. It holds the belief that men are inherently dominant and powerful, and women must be subservient, submissive, weak, and vulnerable.
Oppression is connected to power and domination. We see the need of the oppressors to preserve and maintain their privilege and the status quo. A link between certain oppressions can also be observed. An example is the link between racism and classism. These oppressions intersect in the aspects that they have in common, which include economic, educational, and aesthetic exploitation.
Another example is the link between sexism and homophobia. One mode where these oppressions intersect is misogyny. There are other links as well. Classism links with the oppression of people by judging their physical appearance especially prejudice against over-weight people; (such as the myths of the lazy, sloppy, or jolly fat person). This link is especially apparent in the maxim, “You can never be too rich or too thin.” This links with ableism which links with ageism which links with sexism (elderly men are distinguished; elderly women are scorned). So, it looks like this, a chain within a sphere of oppression. It’s up to us to figure out how to break the links and dissolve the chain, then pop the bubble of unthinking.
We were getting ready for the October 28, 1991 display in Boston at the state capitol building – rotunda. It was quite a day. Many, many people, politicians, lobbyists, and others read the messages on the shirts.
I wrote the following speech and presented it at the press conference:
Governor Weld;
I stand before you today in the tradition of Mary Dyer, in her words, to “look their bloody laws in the face.” I stand here, a Quaker woman, to speak truth to Power. When the State of Massachusetts bound Mary Dyer, whose statue stands here, in chains and took her to the gallows, the drums intentionally played loudly along the mile route so that no one could hear her speak. Today there are no drums. I ask that you listen. Listen to my words and to the words of other individual women from different or no religious traditions, with a variety of values, opinions, and lifestyles. We are standing here together, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women committed to challenging our own outward and internalized homophobia, racism, sexism, and other oppressions. We make the connections between these types of violence and the types of violence we experience as women. Our aim is to stop the war against women, a war waged too long against the bodies, minds, and spirits of women and girls simply because we were born female. Listen to the words of the women whose shirts hang on this line. Listen to their stories. Feel their pain.”
“Three hundred and thirty years ago, the Governor of Massachusetts executed Mary Dyer*. Governor Weld, I hand to you a shirt I made in her memory. As this shirt goes from my hands to yours, it journeys with my vision that the silence will be broken so completely that the roar of our pain will forever still the forces that do violence to our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls.
Together we can stop this violence.
Together we are making a tangible difference.
Together we will change the world.
Governor Weld, I ask that you hang this shirt on the clothesline and commit yourself to ending violence against women now.”
The Governor took the shirt I had made in honor of Mary Dyer and, after asking for help in working the clothespins, hung it on the Clothesline.
EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER FIVE
Losing Steam and Gaining Momentum
People were viewing the line with their hearts open. They really saw the shirts with more than their eyes.
While the work at the State House was refreshing to both Honora and me, the energy of other women for this work on the Cape was continuing to dissipate. Although interest and activism on women’s issues and around the Clothesline Project were diminishing on Cape Cod, we learned that two more lines were started in other communities. Yvonne Simmons had started one in Portland, Oregon, and Nancy McClintock had started one in California.
Yvonne Simmons and Mary Rose, were moved and pained by the experience of seeing the shirts tied between trees and blowing in the wind. … On Women’s Equality Day they held their first shirt-making session. Soon more shirts joined their line. The similarities of the stories told on the shirts amazed Yvonne. So many shirts made by other women about their particular experience told her personal story. When she had been in the abuse, she had thought she was the only one. She thought that no one could possibly understand.
Yvonne delighted in seeing women blossom and grow from this important healing exercise. That this Project could break through cultural boundaries and barriers also amazed her. The African American women in her community were excited about the Clothesline and joined Yvonne in the work.
Later, after years of doing this work, of seeing shirts and hearing stories, she is still strongly moved by what she sees. Purposely, when she hangs her line, she will deeply look at only one or two shirts, meditating on their import. More than that would be too overwhelming. At these displays, she sees how many people are moved by the Clothesline. A certain reverence is present.
One of the most exciting and successful events for their group was an invitation to take it into their state senate. A bill was to be voted on and they hoped the Line would be an inspiration for the passing of this bill. They walked through the senate carrying the line forming a human clothesline.
Yvonne has also been led to bring the Clothesline to communities outside Portland and outside the country. She has helped organize lines in Missoula as well as in England. Perhaps the most challenging has been her work with the Clothesline in the former Yugoslavia.
11/8/91, Honora and I were invited to bring the Clothesline to the Delaware State NOW convention. A most interesting thing about this occasion was that a man, Fred Kozma, organized the event. Fred told us a little about the NOW group and brought us to a small UU Church where the conference was to take place. Hanging the line was a challenge. It had grown from the time when I had taken it on the road to Washington. I found that it would work well if I tied it to sturdy door hinges.
On the 18th of November, Honora and I were at Smith College. This was the most intense and awesome display we had done. We set up in the front room at the library around 10am. By 11, waves of people, mostly young women, were coming to see it. Some made shirts. They went back to class and talked about the experience. Pretty soon we were mobbed. By early-afternoon we had handed out all 400 brochures that we had brought and copied more on the photocopy machine. We heard about entire classes suspending their regular studies and devoting the time to talk about the Clothesline Project. More people came. Not only was our attendance good in terms of numbers but there was another quality present. People were viewing the line with their hearts open. They really saw the shirts with more than their eyes. Many, many people used the semi-secluded spaces we had set up in the corners of the room to process their feelings. It seemed that Honora and I spend our entire afternoon holding people as they cried.
To commemorate the 1990 Montreal massacre, on 12/06/91 Honora and I took the Clothesline to Radcliffe College. Marie who had organized the event, met us there. After the experience at Smith, it was a disappointing display. Not only did fewer people come but most seemed to see it only through their eyes. It was quite a contrast to the Smith display.