Saturday, June 18, 2011

"Slut Walks? More like Smut Walks!"

This is one article I do encourage you to read. Not because it's good, but because it showcases very clearly, just how deep the "she was asking for it" mentality runs.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/O-zone/entry/slut-walks-reinforcing-not-changing-sexist-attitudes

First, a short overview of what the "Slut Walks" actually is. It is a movement by women against the notion that being "slutty" invites or deserves degradation, denigration, or violence of any kind. It is a movement for the notion that what a woman wears should not in any way erode her right to feel safe in public. It was sparked by a Canadian police officer who publicly claimed that in order to feel/be safer, women should stop dressing like "sluts".

And the revolution begins!



Or so I thought. Little did I know how fundamentally misunderstood this movement is. By women, even.

Let's give you a little sample of what the aforementioned article says. The article is long, and covers several points, but this one, I feel, is most salient;

Feminist movements have ensured that no woman need be ashamed of her feminity, but never implied that she has the right to strut her wares with an impunity that invites derision and, debatably, even aggression.

"Never implied she has the right to [...] invite derision and, debateably, even aggression". 

But that is PRECISELY what the entire movement is about! The thought process that interprets 'revealing' clothing as "inviting derision and aggression", piling blame on the victim instead of the perpetrator. The author, unwittingly I'm sure, misses the entire point of this rally, and instead gives a glaring example of why it is needed in the first place.

 The feminist movement was NEVER about telling women what or what not to wear. The feminist movement was ALL about women being free to make their own choices without being harassed or violated. 


The Slut Walks aren't saying that women should bare their skin, that they should walk around in micro-minis, that they should go topless. They are saying that IF a woman chooses to do these things, for whatever reason, she is well within her rights, and HOW DARE anybody heap the blame on her when she is raped, or harassed, or abused. 


Let me quote some more, because I can scarcely believe what mine eyes read;


A woman who bares more skin than the norm is definitely using her body to advertise her sexuality and sending out the message that she wishes to attract interest. 

Perhaps. But so what? Is advertising ones sexuality a bad thing? Do we all not seek to be sexually attractive to potential mates every time we apply lipstick, or shave our legs? This harks back to the medieval notion that female sexuality is something to be hidden away. 


But wait, wait. It does get more ridiculous. The author goes on to say how men are the victims of sexism, here, not women!


 Meanwhile, men, obviously mesmerised by the female charms on display globally, haven't even taken cognisance of the implied insult to them in the beleaguered cop's statement. The Canadian cop's statement seems to imply all men, without exception, are likely to jump the next woman they perceive to be dressed like a 'slut'.

a) That was not what was even remotely implied by the police officer's statement. When people advise women not to walk down dark alleys at night, are they implying that darkness makes all men, without exception, jump the next woman they see? No, of course not. Yet that is exactly the kind of claim the author is making here.

b) If anything is insulting to men, it's the implication that you show them a pair of boobs, and their brain function for the forseeable future shuts down to the extent that they are unable to recognise insults to their masculinity.

Christ on a freakin' cracker.  

11 comments:

  1. This just in: public beaches are closed. reason cited, massive gang rapings when men were unable to control their rape like tendencies as some ladies put on bathing suits and went for a dip.

    The entire movement is absurd and it makes me embarrassed to be human. further, the fact that men are trying to create allowances for not being able to control their wieners in public due to a flash of bare skin makes me more deeply embarrassed.

    if women have to cover up all their naughty bits then men should be relegated to cages. fair trade.

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  2. That's what I've been saying SINCE FOREVER! Instead of women in burkas, men should be in cages, if that's how they wanna do it!

    Although I'm confused.. why do you then find the movement absurd?

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  3. "The Slut Walks aren't saying that women should bare their skin, that they should walk around in micro-minis, that they should go topless. They are saying that IF a woman chooses to do these things, for whatever reason, she is well within her rights, and HOW DARE anybody heap the blame on her when she is raped, or harassed, or abused. "

    I couldn't have said it better myself.

    My opinion, yes, you (men and women) should dress the way they want and not be harassed for it. Why a woman would want to wear little to nothing and act as if nothing is out of the norm, I don't know. Will I mentally call her a tad skanky if she bends over and I can see her undies? Probably.

    But that doesn't mean she was asking to be raped or violated or harassed. It just means she's more comfortable in those things than I am and may or may not have a bit of less respect for herself (like if she's walking around in a micro-mini and a tube top with 6 inch platforms. Just saying.)

    But that's just me.

    Anyway. Women are indeed the victims of most sexism. Men are too, probably more than we think, but definitely not as much. Their excuse is "I'm a guy." Sometimes I believe it. There are just some things guys do, and some that girls do. It's not bad, it's what makes us different.

    I'm off topic now, but that's my opinion. It's in clumps but it's there lol.

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  4. I don't know if Drone comments back, but what I THINK he means, from reading his comment is that the whole thing is absurd because we have to make it blunt that just because a girl is dressing in sexy clothes or short skirts, tight tops etc doesn't mean she's asking to be raped.

    And it is. It's absurd that we have to make that clear.

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  5. Chia; I know, right?! You NEVER see someone tell a guy that's just been bashed "Oh, well, maybe you shouldn't have been walking alone at night!", but you see that all the time with girls who've been raped. It's fucked up, and I don't quite understand it.

    Angela; Personally, anytime I see a girl out in public wearing something much more revealing than anything I'd be comfortable wearing.. I think she must have so much MORE respect for her body than I do. Fuck, I wouldn't be confident enough in my body to go around half-naked. I'd be all insecure and shit. If anyone disrespects her for dressing the way she does, that's THEIR lack of respect, not hers.

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  6. I always read the comment sections on articles like this, and I have to say it's nice that halfway through they totally changed perspective. I was getting pissed that the commenters were agreeing with the article, but then a bunch of people came in that were like, "Yeah, no." It's heart warming :3

    "This would be like if we blamed a car jacking victim for driving a nice car through a bad part of town. I'm sorry, the person who is guilty is the person who jacked the car. "

    The problem with this analogy is many people will say the car jacking victim was to blame. "It's your fault for being stupid," they would say. "You should have expected it, driving a car like that around a neighbourhood like that."

    I think it comes from human's inability to accept that we don't have 100% control over our lives: many people think that, as long as they play by "the rules," they'll be okay. It's easier to blame a victim of a crime of being stupid than it is to accept the fact that terrible crimes can happen to anyone - even yourself, even if you DO play by all the cultural rules. The former reinforces the idea that you're safe as long as you comply, and the latter is the terrifying idea that you have no control over what other people do to you.

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  7. Ah, yeah, the "Just World" fallacy. People are fucking stupid. Things like this (JW fallacy) should be taught to everyone somewhere during the course of high school.

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  8. You guys are so funny. I still don't get the issue, I mean are they really fighting against the choice of clothing? I get the idea of that some womens clothing are a make of men's ideas of what sexy is, or how women should appear in public. But, society (both men AND women) dictates what the other sex, age, and even job placement, should or should not dress, act, etc. I don't how many conversations I've been dragged in by women/girls talking about how they dress/makeup is based on not for men, but for women (blew my mind the first time). That women dictate how women should act and dress. I also agree, of what you guys are saying, they should address women being forced to wear burkas, instead of whether or not they can or should wear short-skirts. Personally we should all be nudists that way there is no problem that clothing gives us. hahahaha

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  9. Except the difference is, when women don't like (or especially like) the amount of skin a man is showing, he doesn't typically get called a slut, or raped. And 'slut' is not used against men in order to take responsibility to harassment away from the perpetrator. So no, it's not the same thing at all.

    I'm not sure anyone here has brought up the burkha, but even so, it's not a 'this-or-that' situation. Multiple issues can be addressed at the same time within society. Besides which, not many women in the western world are forced to wear the burkha. Also, everybody with a mind is already dead-set against women being forced to wear burkhas, there's no disagreement there, whereas there's plenty of disagreement here, which is why a movement is needed.

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  10. The notion that women dressing provocatively or wearing sexually attracting clothes inevitably causes men to sexually assault women is absurd. Yes, when some women where skin-bearing clothes it probably attracts more eyes than they otherwise would, but it is a falsehood that women are being assaulted by men because of what they're wearing. Women shouldn't be more or less afraid of their physical security based on what they're wearing because men who assault women are not representative, or even should be considered apart of, men as a genus.

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  11. The walks don't really suggest that women get assaulted BECAUSE of what they're wearing, what they suggest is that attitudes towards women change based on what they're wearing. Women definitely get harassed on the basis of what they're wearing, and if a woman is assaulted, whether or not she is a "slut" factors into public perception. Slut walks rail against the notion that women should be demeaned or degraded or blamed for sexual assault, just because of what they choose to wear. It literally has no bearing on anything. Or it shouldn't.

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