Women need to take to the streets to condemn violence, but not for the right to be called 'slut'
SlutWalk is not sexual liberation
It wasn't long ago that being called a "slut" meant social death. No "nice" boy would take you home to meet his parents and no "good" girl would ever be your friend. At the same time, refusing to submit to sex meant you were a "prude" or "frigid". In short, there was no right way to be. Things have improved a bit in that young women are more insistent on their right to sexual autonomy, but sexually active women remain vulnerable to harsh social judgments even as the mass media celebrate and encourage such behaviour. And research shows that the label "slut" still has long-term negative consequences, especially for younger girls.
Nevertheless, a group of activists organised an event called SlutWalk, that took place on Saturday in Boston. It followed on the heels of a similar event in Toronto earlier this month, where women rallied in response to a comment made by a representative of the police that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised".
To be sure, such a comment from law enforcement is highly offensive in suggesting that some victims of rape are responsible for the criminal acts of their attackers. Rather than admonishing women to dress a certain way, police should be warning potential offenders that they should "avoid assaulting women in order not to go to prison".
The fact that more than 2,000 turned out to march around Boston Common suggests that women are, indeed, hungry for sexual autonomy. But something else was at work here: many of the banners protested the ubiquity of sexual violence in the lives of women. Signs made by protesters showed that women are angry with being blamed for male violence and fed up with the failure of the culture to hold men accountable. Clearly the theme of the SlutWalk has struck a nerve, with similar events being planned around the world, including one in London in June.
The organisers claim that celebrating the word "slut", and promoting sluttishness in general, will help women achieve full autonomy over their sexuality. But the focus on "reclaiming" the word slut fails to address the real issue. The term slut is so deeply rooted in the patriarchal "madonna/whore" view of women's sexuality that it is beyond redemption. The word is so saturated with the ideology that female sexual energy deserves punishment that trying to change its meaning is a waste of precious feminist resources.
Advocates would be better off exposing the myriad ways in which the law and the culture enable myths about all types of women – sexually active or "chaste" alike. These myths facilitate sexual violence by undermining women's credibility when they report sex crimes. Whether we blame victims by calling them "sluts" (who thus asked to be raped), or by calling them "frigid" (who thus secretly want to be overpowered), the problem is that we're blaming them for their own victimisation no matter what they do. Encouraging women to be even more "sluttish" will not change this ugly reality.
As teachers who travel around the country speaking about sexual violence, pornography and feminism, we hear stories from women students who feel intense pressure to be sexually available "on demand". These students have grown up in a culture in which hypersexualized images of young women are commonplace and where hardcore porn is the major form of sex education for young men. They have been told over and over that in order to be valued in such a culture, they must look and act like sluts, while not being labeled slut because the label has dire consequences including being blamed for rape, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-mutilation.
Women need to find ways to create their own authentic sexuality, outside of male-defined terms like slut. The recent TubeCrush phenomenon, where young women take pictures of men they find attractive on the London tube and post them to a website, illustrates how easily women copy dominant societal norms of sexual objectification rather than exploring something new and creative And it's telling that while these pictures are themselves innocent and largely free of sexual innuendo, one can only imagine the sexually aggressive language that would accompany a site dedicated to secret photos of women.
While the organisers of the SlutWalk might think that proudly calling themselves "sluts" is a way to empower women, they are in fact making life harder for girls who are trying to navigate their way through the tricky terrain of adolescence.
Women need to take to the streets – but not for the right to be called "slut". Women should be fighting for liberation from culturally imposed myths about their sexuality that encourage gendered violence. Our daughters – and our sons – have the right to live in a world that celebrates equally women's sexual freedom and bodily integrity.
Gail Dines, a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boson, has published a sharp critique of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat movie. In CounterPunch magazine, Professor Dines argues:[W]hen Cohen makes misogynist jokes about rape, prostitution and incest, they feel anything but funny. Okay, so Cohen may well be trying to satirize American sexism by unveiling the dark side of American men but when the audience laughs, I feel rage because I know that some of the men in the audience may well be on the prowl that night ….Violence against women, unlike violence against Jews, is a major public health issue of our time and the costs to women makes it a very unfunny topic. In recent school shootings, girls were specifically targeted by men, though few newspaper reports highlight this. Had the killer selected only Jews to kill, there would have been a national debate on the resurgence of anti-Semitism in America …. In Borat, the jokes about women dying (his wife), being raped (his sister) or being stalked by a crazed fan (Pamela Anderson) are passed off as business as usual in the life of being a woman….I do know that the fear I feel in the world is because of my gender, not my religion. This is what separates me, a Jewish woman, from Sasha Baron Cohen, a Jewish man.
Professor Dines’ full article is available here.
Gail Dines is a feminist anti-pornography activist, author, professor, and lecturer. An academic, she has also been described as "The world s leading anti-pornography campaigner".
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