Wear an "I was Raped" T-Shirt? Not a Chance!

I consider myself a feminist. I believe in equal pay for equal work, holding doors for both men and women, and the separate but equal nature of the sexes. I don't believe a woman's place is in the home or that the man should be the provider. I have heroes that are both men and women. I don't expect less out of one gender and more from the other. I have one daughter and two sons. I treat my children fairly and with regards to the sensibilities inherent to their gender, but with no special treatment for either. The boys have to do dishes and the girl has to take out the trash. I fish and do yard work right along side my significant other and he cleans the house as often as I do. I will vote for a woman for president as soon as one who is worthy of my vote runs for office.

Having said that, I must look askance at Jennifer Baumgardner, a prominent feminist activist who I have long held in high regard. Her writing is thought provoking and straightforward. But I have to wonder now how she, how any woman really, could believe that sporting a t-shirt advertising a victim's admission of a violent and despicable act would somehow be empowering.

Baumgardner is the catalyst for a rape awareness project that features the sale of t-shirts that state, "I Was Raped." In an interview with The New York Times, she claims the pale pink t-shirt will help more women talk about their tragedy, maybe even be more likely to report the crime. She hopes the t-shirt will help victims "divest themselves of some of the shame and secrecy of it. By having an object like this, so mundane, it sort of forces it into everyday conversation." [Source: Susan Dominus, "Rape Worn Not on a Sleeve, but Right Over the Heart," The New York Times, April 4, 2008; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/nyregion/04bigcity.html?ref=nyregion]

On one point, I agree one hundred percent with her. We need to find a way to make reporting this crime less shameful, less traumatizing. One out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. [Source: http://www.rainn.org] Only thirty-six percent of rapes, 34% of attempted rapes, and 26% of sexual assaults were reported to police between 1992 and 2000. [Source: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rsarp00.pdf] The stigma associated with sexual assault is still so strong more than sixty percent of women would rather suffer in silence than admit she was attacked. Looking at those statistics, it's clear that Ms. Baumgardner is right. Something must be done.

That is where our common beliefs end. Three years ago, Baumgardner promoted and distributed another t-shirt that said, in block letters, "I had an abortion." Again, the t-shirt was meant to shed light on a subject spoken about in hushed whispers and with downcast eyes and spirit. Empowering women to freely acknowledge a legal choice they made and encouraging the general populace to accept that right is one thing. But to turn around three years later and use similar methods to encourage women to speak about an act in which all power is stripped from them is beyond ludicrous.

I am a survivor of sexual assault. I am also one of the sixty percent who did not report the crime at the time it occurred. Two decades later, I would no sooner wear a pink shirt advertising the crime I have spent a lifetime trying to forget than I would remove my eyeball with a spoon.

Regardless of what Ms. Baumgardner thinks, a t-shirt is not going to help us open up about sexual assault. "The wearer isn't advertising that he or she was raped, but rather opening up to you, the viewer, and also saying that this is a small part of who he or she is," she claims in her interview with The New York Times. [Source: Susan Dominus, "Rape Worn Not on a Sleeve, but Right Over the Heart," The New York Times, April 4, 2008; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/nyregion/04bigcity.html?ref=nyregion]

Seeing a woman wearing that shirt isn't going to make me walk up and give her a hug while we sing "Kumbaya" and trade war stories. It's going to make me wonder why the woman needs to advertise an event that is so intensely personal. It's going to make me pity her, both for her past and for her need for sympathy. And it's going to make me angry, all over again, at the men who prey on women in this most intimate and damaging way. If Ms. Baumgardner intended to encourage anger with this t-shirt, her job done before she started. Survivors are already angry. If she intended to encourage women to report the crime, she would have been better off volunteering at a rape crisis hotline or women's crisis center. She would have been better off funding self-defense classes for college students or petitioning colleges to provide adequate lighting for their facilities. She would have been better off finding ways to stop the crime from happening in the future rather than encouraging women to advertise their past.

"I was raped" is a sentence that no woman or man should ever be forced to utter. It is not a marketing tool to promote a cause, even a worthwhile movement such as education and awareness of this life altering crime. It is not and should not become a punch line for late night talk show hosts, as it undoubtedly will once these t-shirts gain popularity. Or should I say notoriety?