Actress
Kerry Washington has tried her hand at design for a good cause. The 'Scandal'
actress created a purple handbag to raise funds for Allstate Foundation’s
Purple Purse Program which aims to end violence against women. She commented
that she hopes to help empower women to walk away from abusive relationships:
"For many years I've worked with VDay… We've always said we wanted to put
ourselves out of business at VDay by ending violence against women. So when
this opportunity came along, it just felt like a way for me to be a part of a
very tangible, concrete solution; giving women the tools they need to be more
economically self-sufficient and more empowered to take care of themselves and
to walk away."
Kerry
explains that she chose to design a bag because it's "where a woman's
economic power lives". She believes the piece is quite symbolic: “It's
where we keep our keys and our phone and wallet; all of that, our economic
well-being, lives in our purse. So the bag is really a symbol of taking your
purse strings back, taking your strength back in the face of abuse.”
The
actress admits that it isn't an easy situation for women who are being abused,
and she is thinks men often use finances as a way of controlling women which
can be just as abusive: “I don't want to make it sound like this is a quick
fix, but 98 per cent of domestic violence cases involve financial abuse. When
we say financial abuse it means controlling finances, destroying someone's
credit, jeopardising their employment, these are all ways money is used to
control in an abusive situation and make someone feel like they can't leave or
making it almost impossible for someone to leave."
