MILWAUKEE – Today marks Denim Day, an international day commemorated on April 24 to raise awareness for survivors of sexual assault by wearing jeans. Dawn Helmrich is the founder of Denim Day Milwaukee, which has been marking the day for 13 years. She joined Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News to talk about her experiences and her work.
“I just think it’s really important that individuals, whether they choose to tell their story or not, feel like they are being heard,” Helmrich said.
Helmrich said she’s delighted to see how Denim Day has grown in Milwaukee since the first year, which she described as only a handful of people in a room sharing their experiences.
“Last year, we had a large press conference and hundreds of people were there and now when I walk in a room and and I ask people if they know what Denim Day is they say ‘Yeah, that’s that jeans thing that supports survivors,’ where 13 years ago nobody knew what it was at all,” she said.
Wearing jeans to honor survivors is a reference to the incident that inspired Denim Day, where an 18-year-old girl was raped by her driving instructor in Italy in 1992. The criminal case went all the way to the Italian Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction.
“The girl was wearing tight jeans and had to remove them and [the court] considered that consent,” Helmrich said. “And the women of the Italian parliament were appalled by that and they all went to the steps of the parliament wearing tight jeans in order to raise awareness.”
Helmrich is a survivor herself, and her experiences with victim-blaming after her own assault are what motivated her to get involved in Denim Day.
“From the time that the first responders got there through the court cases, by police officers, by medical professionals, and a lot of unintentional victim-blaming by friends and family,” Helmrich said. “It just felt really important to me that survivors felt like they had a voice, that they were heard, and that they were believed.”
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