By Kenady Craig – Staff Writer
In 1999, an Italian eighteen year old girl was picked up by her forty-five year old married driving instructor for her first lesson. Instead of teaching her to drive, he takes her to a secluded road where he forces one leg out of her jeans and rapes her. Even though threatened to death if she told anyone, later that night she tells her parents and they press charges. The culprit is then arrested, charged with rape, and sentenced to jail. Everything is good right? Well he then appeals the sentence. The lawsuit goes all the way to the Italian Supreme Court where the defendant is overturned and dismissed. The Chief Judge disputed that, “because the victim wore very, very tight jeans, she had to help him remove them, and by removing the jeans it was no longer rape but consensual sex.” Infuriated by the verdict, the following day women from the Italian Parliament protested that women wore denim jeans to the workplace. Peace Over Violence, a non-profit organization caught wind of this and developed the Denim Day campaign in response to the trial. Wearing jeans soon became a symbol of protest against faulty and destructive attitudes toward sexual assault.
“Two months ago [Ms. Coyle’s advisory class] and I have been working to create a campaign”, said Carson Complex social worker, Mrs. Gonzalez. “They’re making buttons, cutting out little [pairs of jeans], and people have been donating denim jeans and they have been writing and drawing on them; and we’re also making posters.”
In this generation, there is a big lack of communication. It is a very sensitive topic however it needs to be discussed; among both sexes. Every ninety-eight seconds an American is getting sexually assaulted. Eighty-two percent are females under the age of eighteen and eighteen percent are males. While only six out of one-thousand culprits will end up in prison. Lets keep this going in hopes to reduce these percentages and remember that you never need to feel obligated to go through with something. No means no.
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