Editor’s note: This story include mentions of sexual violence. A list of reporting options and on-campus resources can be found on the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross websites.
As part of the Raise your Voice Symposium, Saint Mary’s hosted a “What Were You Wearing?” exhibition on Monday featuring anonymous stories of sexual violence from students, staff and faculty.
Liz Baumann, Saint Mary’s director for harassment education and response and Title XI coordinator, explained that the exhibit represents a national movement originally inspired by Mary Simmerling’s poem, “What I was wearing” and the question of “What were you wearing?” that is asked as a means of victim blaming.
“When we decided to bring Raise Your Voice to our campus in 2022, we wanted a visual exhibit to go with it and the ‘What Were You Wearing?’ exhibit really fit quite nicely in it, so we have kept it ever since,” Baumann said.
She said the hardest part about the exhibit is where to put it. The placement is intended to keep the location accessible but cause attendees to make an “intentional commitment” before walking in due to the gravity of the content. This year’s exhibit was located in the conference room attached to Stapleton Lounge.
Precautions for the online version, which features illustrations of the outfits alongside the survivor stories, also exist. The top of the page includes a warning of its contents, and Baumann said “it is also a click through on the website. You cannot just come to it.”
Baumann advised people who wish to explore the exhibit to “take it at your own pace. Take breaks as you need to, and recognize when you need to take a step away and do some self-care.”
“It is a little hard to walk through, seeing the diverse clothing being so small to wearing a nightgown,” senior Ivory Muñoz, Saint Mary’s student body president, said.
Senior Kayli Zelinske-Mader, Saint Mary’s student body vice president, noticed how different everyone’s experiences were.
“Yes, some of them are very similar, but each one has very different experiences internally, both physically and mentally,” she said. Many survivor stories emphasized the pain and time it took for survivors to realize what had happened.
The story connected to a pink t-shirt, sweatshirt and gray sweatpants read, “Everyone seems to think they know what sexual assault does to a person, but in reality they don’t. The countless reminders of it when I look in the mirror and see the scars not only physical, but the ones hidden. Sometimes it’s hard to look at myself in the eyes because I often see the girl I used to be and it scares me to see who he created.”
Muñoz said she lives by a motto from actress Elizabeth Olsen: “No is a full sentence.”
“No is no at the end of the day, and going around the exhibit and reading everybody's stories, almost everyone said 'no’ or ‘stop’ and unfortunately, that was not the case,” she said.
In the story connected to the red crop top, black leggings and black and white converse, the survivor said that to her boyfriend, “‘no’ did not always mean no. It became something he negotiated, pressured, and wore down.”
Baumann and Shay Jolly Schneider both helped organize the event. Schneider, associate dean of students, also serves on the Committee of Sexual Violence Prevention, alongside the subcommittee responsible for planning Raise Your Voice symposium.
“We ask them to talk about what they were wearing when they were sexually assaulted and to tell their story, whatever that means to them,” Baumann said, describing the anonymous Google Form used to collect stories for the exhibit. “Sometimes we get really long narratives, and sometimes just one sentence. That variety is really impactful to see that this is something that takes a lot of different forms and can happen to anyone in any situation.”
After collecting the stories, the clothing is purchased for the physical exhibit, and Saint Mary’s student artists illustrate the outfits for the online exhibit. Jolly Schneider helps Baumann shop, put together outfits, set up and tear down the exhibits.
“We do all the things so it is really something I get to see from start to finish which is very emotional, but it just brings me joy every year that we are given permission to hold new stories in the ways that we need to,” Schneider said.
