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Q: As a woman, have you ever experienced violence or sexual harassment? What happened?
A: Yes. I am a survivor of domestic violence. I was raped, beaten, gaslit, robbed and invaded. I survived. I told the truth.
Q: As a woman, where do you feel safe?
A: No place is safe. I wasn’t safe at work or home as cyber tactics and other tools were used [against me].
Q: What have you done or what could you do to stop violence against women?
A: Be a voice and share my experience.
Great art doesn’t just ask society’s toughest questions: It inspires answers.
With disturbing headlines in the news every day about men in power mistreating, manipulating and abusing women, the exhibition El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project, now at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., through Jan. 5, 2018, feels more important than ever. The work is the brainchild of Mexico City-based artist Mónica Mayer, who has been developing the concept for the past four decades in different venues across Latin America and the United States, asking women of all backgrounds to contribute, whether in English or Spanish. Visitors are prompted to write responses to questions about pressing women’s issues on pink notecards, then pin them to clotheslines that surround the exhibit, creating an intricate web of personal narratives.
The cards are a call to action against sexual harassment and violence against women, with gripping words from those who know the subject matter all too well. The museum in D.C. specifically performed outreach to local advocacy groups, including House of Ruth (an organization that provides safe housing for survivors of domestic violence) and La Clinica del Pueblo (a facility that seeks to build a healthy Latino community through culturally-appropriate strategies), organizing workshops around the installation. “Having these groups as the core audience made the message resonate even more,” said Melani N. Douglass, Director of Public Programs at the NMWA. “We asked for solutions and treated them as the experts. That’s made a big difference.”
Mayer participated in these workshops, met with local artists and was present at the exhibition for five days to guide the storytelling process. She does not sell the project, nor does she store the notecards. Once the exhibition is over, El Tendedero will go into the museum’s archives—and the clothesline-turned-powerline will spark up a conversation somewhere else.
That conversation began well before the most recent exposure of toxic men, including Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore and Louis C.K., as the process to bring El Tendedero to D.C. took over a year and a half.
“[The exhibition] was brewing almost in parallel with what was going on in the country,” said Douglass. “Unfortunately, this is a topic that will always be relevant.”
But the main purpose of the socially active forum is to push these issues toward a resolution. So here’s a question to add to El Tendedero: What can you do to make sure the voices from the clothesline continue to be heard?
1. Learn. Statistics from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should raise alarms, if national news hasn’t done so already: 88% of women in the U.S. report being sexually harassed, with 1 in 4 women saying that the harassment occurs in the workplace. Even more disturbing: According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), every 98 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in the United States, while approximately 17,700,000 women have been the victims of rape since 1998. Get informed about the issues to be part of the solution.
2. Give. In addition to the NMWA, House of Ruth and La Clinica del Pueblo, there are other local D.C. organizations that follow the thread from El Tendedero, including District Alliance Resource Center (DASH), DC Coalition for Domestic Violence and DC Safe (Survivors and Advocates for Empowerment). National organizations that could use monetary support in this realm include Futures Without Violence and the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Original contribution by Gabe Guarente, Content Manager at Giving Compass; photos by Kevin Allen, courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.