In her dissertation at Arcadia University, Katherine Cambareri took on a project that confronts the alarming ease with which society blames victims of sexual abuse. It is a disturbing reality that society often tends to shield – and indirectly absolve – the perpetrator, by portraying them as being led astray by the provocative or revealing attire of the actual victim.
Cambareri’s photographic series, Well, what were you wearing? addresses the question frequently posed to victims of sexual assault. This question is not only asked by law enforcement officers and legal professionals dealing with such cases, but also by friends and family members. The series displays the clothing worn by female victims, highlighting the fallacy of such insinuations and the way they trivialize a devastating incident in a person’s life, inflicting additional psychological harm.
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