Editing Jeans (section)

===Italian rape trial===
In [[Rome]], Italy, in 1992, a 45-year-old driving instructor was accused of rape. When he picked up an 18-year-old girl for her first driving lesson, he allegedly raped her for an hour, then told her that if she was to tell anyone he would kill her. Later that night she told her parents and her parents agreed to help her press charges. While the alleged rapist was convicted and sentenced, the Italian [[Supreme Court of Cassation (Italy)|Supreme Court of Cassation]] overturned the conviction in 1998 because the victim wore tight jeans. It was argued that she must have necessarily had to help her attacker remove her jeans, thus making the act [[consensual]] ("because the victim wore very, very tight jeans, she had to help him remove them... and by removing the jeans... it was no longer rape but consensual sex"). The court stated in its decision "it is a fact of common experience that it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them."<ref name="Faedi_2009">{{cite journal |author-last=Faedi |author-first=Benedetta |title=Rape, Blue Jeans, and Judicial Developments in Italy |journal=Columbia Journal of European Law |date=2009 |url= http://www.cjel.net/online/16_1-faedi/ |access-date=April 26, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110828180548/http://www.cjel.net/online/16_1-faedi/ |archive-date=August 28, 2011 }} {{Cite journal |author-last=Faedi |author-first=Benedetta |title=Rape, Blue Jeans, and Judicial Developments in Italy |journal=GGU Law Digital Commons |volume=104 |pages=1–4 |url= https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/pubs/104/ |access-date=October 17, 2021 |date=2009 |archive-date=March 8, 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220308123342/https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/pubs/104/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The ruling sparked widespread feminist protest. The day after the decision, women in the [[Italian Parliament]] protested by wearing jeans and holding placards that read "Jeans: An Alibi for Rape". As a sign of support, the [[California Senate]] and the [[California Assembly]] followed suit. [[Patricia Giggans]], the executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (now Peace Over Violence) soon made [[Denim Day]] an annual event. {{as of|2011}} at least 20 U.S. states officially recognize Denim Day in April. Wearing jeans on that day has become an international symbol of protest against such attitudes about sexual assault. In 2008 the Supreme Court of Cassation overturned the ruling, so there is no longer a "denim" defense to the charge of rape.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Italian court reverses 'tight jeans' rape ruling |url= https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/italian-court-reverses-tight-jeans-rape-ruling-26464014.html |date=July 23, 2008 |first=Richard |last=Owen |access-date=January 23, 2021 |work=Irish Independent |location= Dublin}}</ref><ref name="Faedi_2009"/>