Slutwalk marches on
Boston’s SlutWalk on 7 May, 2011. Photograph: Josh Reynolds/AP - from Guardian.co.uk
I’ve been giving the Slutwalk event a lot of thought, and it seems I’m not alone. The BBC and the Guardian have both devoted several pieces online to it and there’s a lot of talk in the blogosphere.
I came across this piece via Jezebel which I thought was really interesting. Some of the focus of Slutwalk has been around ‘reclaiming’ the word Slut - a concept I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Lindsay Beyerstein makes the point however that it’s not about reclaiming the word as it’s meaningless to begin with. Girls can be called sluts before they’ve ever had sex. If you deny being a slut, you acknowledge that sluts exist and imply that there is a benchmark for being a slut, but really, what is that benchmark? How many sexual partners? How short a skirt? This is a really great discussion on the word.
Last night’s Newsnight also looked at the emerging Slutwalk movement. Zoe Margolis (author and blogger) was fantastic in her debate with Conservative MP Louise Bagshawe, who largely seemed to miss the point. Ms Bagshawe seemed to focus on the fact that Slutwalks were promoting promiscuity which was damaging behaviour for men and women. It was unclear exactly what defines promiscuity though - unsafe sex is unhealthy and potentially damaging it’s true, but how many partners defines damaging if you’re practising safe sex?
Also, as I see it, the point of Slutwalk is that how you dress does not affect whether or nor you are raped, and does not excuse a rapist’s actions. As Ms Margolis points out, men are raped too (mostly by men) and no-one ever pauses to analyse what they were wearing, or tells the victim that he ‘shouldn’t have worn those jeans’.
Slutwalk is, in some ways, about reminding people that rapists don’t rape someone because of what they wear. Women (and men) are raped wearing jeans, burqas, tracksuit bottoms, short skirts, dresses, bikinis. Also, it belittles men to assume that they just can’t control themselves when confronted by a woman in a short skirt. If women are taught that they should dress appropriately to avoid being raped, it implies that men can’t help it. This simply isn’t true.
Ms Margolis also talked about how Slutwalk was about young women’s ‘expression of sexuality’ which is a good point. Some of these women aren’t necessarily sexually active or seeking to be, but expressing themselves and their sexuality through their clothes is something people should be free to do without shame. Worse, labelling women who dress a certain way as ‘sluts’ can affect reporting of rape as women feel they won’t be taken seriously or believed if they happened to have worn a short skirt that night (I refer you back to the Toronto policeman’s comments which started all this).
Slutwalk London has changed date and is now scheduled for 11th June so the debate will continue. Will I be there? I honestly haven’t decided. I’m still uncomfortable with walking proudly as a slut, which just highlights the power the word still has. The event in London is primarily being organised by a 17 year old woman, which is fantastic and I love that it’s a platform for young women to engage, walk proudly, debate and embrace their brand of feminism. I’m just not sure it’s for this 34 year old.
