Denim day👖

In today's post I would like to talk about an event that always takes place on April 29 each year. Maybe some of you already know it or associate it, but I personally haven't heard of it before and I regret it! This event is called "Denim day" and its goal is to encourage a million people around the world to wear jeans on this day, to support survivors and to raise awareness of rape and sexual assault. 

I was very interested in the history of this event and started looking for information on this topic. After reading a few sentences of one of the articles I was shocked. So the story began in the 1990s in Italy when a 45-year-old driving instructor took an 18-year-old girl on her first driving lesson. He took her to an isolated road, pulled her out of the car, then pulled her jeans off and forcefully raped her. At first, after reporting the rape, the perpetrator was arrested and prosecuted. However, a few years later he decided to appeal the sentence, claiming that they had consensual sex. The Italian Supreme Court overturned the sentence and the perpetrator was released from prison.

And what shocked me the most... In the release statement, it was argued that the victim wore tight jeans that day and she had to help the man take them off, so removing the jeans didn't mean rape but sex with the consent of both. (What? I'm sorry, what?) This became known throughout Italy as the “jeans alibi.” 

So after this situation, women wearing jeans began to protest all over Italy to resist all of the myths about why women and girls are raped. Denim day was born in LA, its first day took place in Los Angeles in April of 1999 and has been continued every year since then. If you want to read more about it, here is the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/16/world/ruling-on-tight-jeans-and-rape-sets-off-anger-in-italy.html