SlutWalk Explained!

When the issue of domestic violence comes up - the first thing a...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:06:25 -0500

When the issue of domestic violence comes up - the first thing a lot of people ask is “Why don’t they just leave?”

From an outside perspective, it can be confusing and heart-breaking that people stay with abusers. This confusion causes a lot of people to blame those who stay.

However by blaming the people who stay, you’re reinforcing the cycle of domestic violence. Domestic violence is not only physical - it’s psychological. Abusers break down their partners self esteem, self worth and self confidence. They emotionally manipulate, they gaslight, they isolate their partners from people they know and love and control them very insidiously until the abused thinks they either deserve it, or they’re too stupid to leave so what’s the point in trying, or till they can’t see the way at all. It’s often very dangerous to leave an abuser - they often stalk, threaten and harass after someone has left… and when people try to leave and it can result in the abuser killing the abused.

If you’re sitting there with a blank expression on your face still thinking “But why don’t they just leave?” I urge you to do some research - because actively blaming the victim reinforces the cycle of domestic violence. It means when someone finally does reach out for help - they have their friends and family blaming them - so the cycle is reinforced (that the abused is worthless, stupid, etc) and they stay with the abuser.

By blaming the victim, you’re reinforcing the abuse and keeping them locked in that cycle. Please educate, please share this video and please help create a culture which supports people who are stuck in this cycle.

Center for relationship abuse awareness - Information to educate yourself and others as well as resources for wanting to leave abusive relationships (how to create safety plans etc) and resources for friends and family.

Bad Romance - Gas-lighting and Emotional Manipulation - Brilliant article.

A very interesting part of the video posted is where Leslie says she wasn’t made to feel stupid like many others, but she did feel like she was the only person who could help this deeply troubled man face his demons. This is another way abusers can gaslight and manipulate - they make it seem like they’re not abusing at all and like the victim has to be the one to save *them* and they often manipulate people into thinking they have to be the one to help them, or save them - all the time whilst they’re causing and inflicting pain upon them. There is a lot of information out there on the patterns and cycles of physical and emotional abuse - We need to shine a lot on it.

gaspundkiss: By moi.

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:38:50 -0500

gaspundkiss:

By moi.

Here's how I think of SlutWalks personally.

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:10:41 -0400

About two years ago, my friend thought he should tell me what a group of people I had known were saying about me. They were saying I was a slut - and my friend said he defended me and said I wasn‘t. My initial thought was “but I’m not, I haven’t even slept with that many people?!” but then only about 5 seconds later I thought “but so what if I was?! Like what… why would that matter? Why is that a reason to be awful to me?”

And that’s how I see SlutWalks. I agree with the sentiment that we’re either all sluts or none of us are - because “sluts” are mythical creatures, it’s just a way to silence someone. So by throwing it back at people and saying “so what if I am?!” it’s invaliding the purpose of the word - to silence.

What defines a “slut” exactly? Is it a certain length of skirt? Wearing a skirt at all? Is there a...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:09:26 -0400

What defines a “slut” exactly? Is it a certain length of skirt? Wearing a skirt at all? Is there a length of skirt where I’m a prude and you cut off two inches and BAM I’m a slut suddenly? Does my slut status change from when it’s winter and I’m in a coat to when it’s summer and I wear a bikini and I transform magically into a slut? How about if I sleep with one man? Or two? Or ten? Or a woman? If I’m a virgin? If I had sex out of marriage? If I have sex at all…? If I have male friends? If my best friend is male? If I have a partner? If I like a certain kind of sex? If I have sex for fun? If I use birth control? If I flirt with someone? If I dance with someone? If I accept a drink? If I say out-loud that I like sex? Being a woman?

Bingo! All of those things can get me labelled a slut.

On Reporting.

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 12:53:00 -0400

On Reporting. :

Recently someone said to a survivor, “Don’t you have a responsibility – a duty – to report it to the police and get the perpetrator arrested? To make sure the rapist is brought to justice and no other victim is subjected to the same treatment? Isn’t that what we tell rape victims?”

In a world where no-one victim blamed and reporting wasn’t often such a traumatic experience for survivors, sure. However “In no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny during an investigation or at trial; nor is the potential for victims to be re-traumatised during these processes as high in any other crime.”(HMCPS & HMIC, 2007)

No one has a responsibility to re-live their pain. We’re all human and surviving and coming out the other side of it IS the most important thing for survivors.

A huge part of raising awareness about rape and victim blame through SlutWalk and other similar movements will help cultivate a culture where we support survivors - which will lead to more people reporting their rapes and sexual assaults.

Currently we don’t have that, but in the over-all picture of things it’s something we all must work towards. This onus does not lie on individual survivors though, it lays on a society which will help protect peoples mental and physical well being if they do report and support them through every stage of that process. We have to create that atmosphere and culture.

It’s up to ALL of us - not just survivors, they have enough to deal with.

All includes everyday people who should be supporting their friends, family or partners if they come forward about a sexual assault. All includes not taking part in victim blame on any level and to actively fight against it in all forms and the systems that enable it to exist. All includes reminding survivors everyday how strong they are. All includes raising awareness about rape myths and advocating and fighting for better support systems in place for survivors. All includes the police and the CPS and the court systems and the juries (who often buy into rape myths). This is a societal issue - we all need to help.

There was recently a twitter campaign on this theme called #IDidNotReport (alongside #IDidReport and #WeBelieveYou) where people used the hashtag to say say what they didn’t report, and sometimes why. It gave an incredible insight into the problem and made many realise they were not alone in their fears and doubts.

If you are a survivor, your mental well being comes first. Surviving comes first. We will fight to make this a better world which supports rape survivors every step of the way.

To avoid being victimised, don't dress like sluts? Really?

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:47:00 -0400

To avoid being victimised, don't dress like sluts? Really?:

It may interest you to know that rape and dress sense aren’t linked at all.

When most people are raped by someone they knew (85.7%, sometimes found to be higher, depending on study) then dressing differently or more conservatively isn’t a preventative measure at all. You’re speaking of the much much smaller number of stranger-rape cases, and in those cases, if you look at this study, you’ll realise that not only are clothing and your chances of getting raped not linked statistically what-so-ever (women, men, children and people of all gender identities are raped regardless of clothing) but “While people perceive dress to have an impact on who is assaulted, studies of rapists suggest that victim attire is not a significant factor. Instead, rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing.”

“This conclusion is inconsistent with the common belief that how a woman dresses has an impact on whether she will be sexually harassed or sexually assaulted. Why then, do many people, including psychiatrists, assume that dress plays some part in who is a victim of sexual assaults? In particular, why do women believe this? Social scientists believe this is the result of the “just world hypothesis.”

The just world hypothesis and attribution error basically explains the reason this rape myth has been around for so long is because, as human beings, we like to believe we’re rational and that the world is logical, therefore we try to attribute certain characteristics to certain victims to believe that not only could we never be a victim of sexual assault ourselves, but that there was some logical reasoning behind what happened. This is really a defence mechanism. No one deserves rape, no one brought it upon themselves - rape only happens because there is a rapist in the room.

The basis of SlutWalk is against victim blaming and slut shaming – it’s about shifting the focus from the victim to the perpetrator. Rape is a crime, cleavage is not.

Telling women how to dress is really a flimsy band-aid over the problem, and one that doesn’t actually statistically or logically make sense. As a society we need to reject this band-aid and focus on real threat management.

(Looking at structural violence and sexism, the objectification rather than celebration of sexuality within society, education systems which don’t have healthy and open dialogue on issues of consent, relationships and abuse are good places to start so we can start to pave our way to a consent culture.)

“When you shame women who dress “too slutty”, guess what you’re doing? You’re perpetuating a culture that blames victims of sexual assault and rape. You’re basically saying that if that woman were to be raped, well, she was kinda asking for it. YOU are the reason why rapists target those women: because you make it easier for them to get away with a horrible fucking crime. Rape is a fucking crime; cleavage isn’t.”

SlutWalk Explained: The Name, The Aims, The Facts.

"You want to show solidarity with women? Acknowledge their right to be sexual beings without being..."

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:20:09 -0500

“You want to show solidarity with women? Acknowledge their right to be sexual beings without being sexual objects. That’s a start.”

- Unknown.

"As a society, the questions are always on ‘should a girl be wearing that?’ or ‘is she going to be..."

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:53:00 -0500

“As a society, the questions are always on ‘should a girl be wearing that?’ or ‘is she going to be able to avoid the attention?’. The question is never ‘why does a guy think it’s acceptable to treat a woman like that just because of what she’s wearing? Why do we constantly sexualize women without their consent? Talk to any woman and she’s gonna have a story about being shouted at in the street or being harassed in some way because of what you’re wearing. When that happens to you regularly it dehumanises you, it’s not a compliment. We should really be focusing on teaching young boys, y’know, if you see a girl wearing that, then she’s still just a girl wearing that. She’s not ‘fair game’, you shouldn’t treat people differently based on what they’re wearing.”

- My ramble on The Joy of Teen Sex. We also talked a lot about the diversity at the event, the problems relating to slutwalk and about how it’s not just cis-women who are affected by slut-shaming. We talked about whether we’d feel differently if we were bringing up daughters (um, no, I will never teach a child of mine that they are responsible for being raped) and about whether we really can change people’s attitudes. This is the bit they picked. It’s…well, it’s better than nothing! We’ve already got people coming to the Slutwalk group because of it.

If you want to see it, it’s about 36mins in: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-joy-of-teen-sex/4od#3264188

And I think that’s just about enough self-promotion/slutwalk-promotion for one night.

(via loveintheshadowsistheonlykind)

Reclaiming our sexuality. Thoughts on the word slut.

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:06:00 -0400

When people run scared from a label, from a social construction, it can further stigmatize it. When people run scared from a word because they believe it cannot be ours, ever, that it is that powerful, then they further perpetuate that it isthat powerful, that it isa bad thing to be.

It seems harmful to state unequivocally that we can never claim slut for ourselves, we can never subvert it, we can never take away its power, we can never use it to challenge the status quo. That very sentiment is taking our voices away. Saying we cannot define it, cannot claim it as our own takes away our power. We realise slut was never ours to begin with, but in claiming it as our own, I see that we are reclaiming our sexuality. Reclaiming the fact that a promiscuous woman is not a bad thing. Reclaiming that a woman who decides how many partners she sleeps with is not a bad thing. Reclaiming that a woman is not defined solely by how many sexual partners she has. It’s a direct challenge to the social construction, to a word that has been used to silence us, shame us and blame us. It’s not labelling ourselves something to further perpetuate it - but to break it completely apart.

It’s about reclaiming our voices. Saying that a label does not define us, cannot hurt us. Slut is entrenched with abuse as it is - but it is a construction. It’s a word designed to silence us - and by using the SlutWalk name we’re saying we will no longer let it silence our voices.

SlutWalk: Summarised!

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:39:00 -0400

Let’s talk about sex baby! (Let’s talk about you and me uh-huh) *does a little dance*…*ahem*

What does the word slut mean to you? Have you ever heard a person use slut in a positive sense? Why does a male equivalent not exist? Why do people feel the need to label a woman for her sexual choices, why is it any of their business and indeed why is it viewed as a bad thing?

If everyone is consenting and healthy, then other people’s sex lives are really none of our business. Why as a society are we so intent on putting our morals onto other peoples personal lives when it has no effect on us?

Hey guess what guys, sex is healthy!

Everyone does it! Shock horror! Most people find it fun ;D

The word slut is only ever used to damage, outcast and dehumanize women. We need to question its very existence. It puts a rule down on them regarding personal choices…You can’t do this, you can’t do that, because you will be called a slut, and you will have to deal with the ramifications of this… even if it means being sexually assaulted. Your sexuality is being controlled.

The people involved in the SlutWalk Movement are marching to prove that “a slut” does not exist – it’s a term of abuse catapulted at women for so many different reasons, with countless different definitions. It’s a word that shows that female sexuality is still controlled, that is objectified rather than celebrated. By coming together and putting us all under a SlutWalk label so to speak, celebrating sexual diversity and choice, we’re highlighting that not only can women be called a slut for such irrelevant reasons, but that by using words like slut, society is ignoring the real causes of rape.

We’re confronting the word slut. After all, if we don’t confront the word and break it apart, how are we ever going to get rid of a word that adds so much fuel to the fire of victim blaming and slut shaming?

Sexuality and objectification!

Sexual objectification is using someone simply for sex, ignoring every other element of that person and seeing them as an object rather than a person.

This sounds horrible, doesn’t it? It’s something that is incredibly prominent in our culture though, because sexuality is shamed rather than celebrated, we end up with this sex negative objectifying culture.

We grow up in a society where words like slut (whore, tart, etc etc etc) are used to brand women for their perceived sexuality, by branding them, we are out-casting them, which leads to a mindset of them being lesser people - less deserving of respect somehow… and that leads to a culture where people feel it’s then okay to objectify them, where society feels it’s okay to see their body as public property if they choose to display their sexuality outside. Sexuality can be celebrated, the human body can be celebrated without leading to objectification – but this sex negativity is so ingrained within us that it’s hard to break free from.

As a society we then tend to break apart people in our minds that display sexual qualities. We are sexual creatures, it’s how we reproduce and it’s a fundamental part of human life. We want to feel attractive, want to feel desired, and that isn’t inherently wrong. You can be a sexual person, a desirable person, a person who wants to have sex and be intelligent and have a thousand other varying qualities. Shaming sexuality means that anyone who exhibits qualities which show they’re a sexual person is then deemed as unworthy, and unrespectable - we then start to break that person down - because they exhibit their sexuality in public we think “oh that person can’t want anything else OTHER than sex” - and that is what then leads to the idea that sex is all there is to that person, all that person has to offer, and all that person wants. We stamp public property on them.

Arrives the sex positive movement!

Society needs to realise that everyone thinks of sex in different ways; there isn’t one way it should be done or one type of sex that is good for everyone - and there is nothing wrong with wanting sex and attention, this acceptance that everyone is different is the way to beat objectify. What others do with their sex lives shouldn’t matter. It’s their body, their life, their rules.

In walks SlutWalk…

“You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here…women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.” – These are the infamous words uttered by a Toronto Police Officer, to a group of Law students which sparked off a series of SlutWalks that have now gone global.

Lots of people are saying that the police officer was just speaking about safety precautions; but what people are objecting to here is the language he used, how language speaks volumes about our culture and the views held in society, and how he is perpetuating a rape myth rather than a safety precaution. The larger problem is indeed not that particular police man, but our society, and the views of that police man is a part of the problem and by using words like slut – he is maintaining a rape myth and an incredibly harmful view of women’s sexuality.

We’re not saying one police man or one police department are the problem; we’re saying that their views reflect the views of the larger society.

The people involved in SlutWalk believe ignoring a words existence because it’s a part of misogynistic language is not going to work. Just because we ignore a word, doesn’t stop it existing or take away its power. We believe you can attack a word and render it meaningless. It’s just like standing up to a bully; you metaphorically attack it head on. Like playing the system, you have to get inside, use the term, break it apart, take away its power and that’s when we can start to create a society that doesn’t use such terms at all.

Slut is a socially constructed term. If we come together - people of all different kinds, in all different clothes, anyone from a-sexuals to those who sleep with 100’s, it’s dispelling this “slut” myth and showing that it holds NO relevance over rape cases.

So, rape, you say? What has this got to do with “sluts” or the shame and blame game?

In no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny during an investigation or at trial; nor is the potential for victims to be re-traumatised during these processes as high in any other crime.”(HMCPS & HMIC, 2007)

We are protesting against victim-blaming, against slut-shaming, against a sex negative culture which is perpetuating rape myths and therefore ignoring the real issues, and a justice system that is incredibly unjust!

The UK currently has 47,000 rapes reported a year; this number is steadily rising, despite the fact that the conviction rate is steadily lowering. At 6.5%, the UK now has the worst conviction rape in Europe besides Ireland, despite the fact that there is supporting evidence in 86.7% of charged cases of rape.

Those are the facts – we’re also hearing more and more stories of how dreadfully victims are treated by police and within the justice system and they are often put off from reporting their attacks at all! It is estimated that even only 5% of rapes are ever reported – and of course men are victims too! Anyone can be, but in a society that perpetuates a sexual double standard – everyone is put off reporting what happens to them for fear of how they will be perceived by the courts and by society as a whole. When you read the statistics about people’s attitudes to rape victims, it’s shocking.

Victims of sexual assault need society’s support, not its scrutiny.

The biggest rape myth is that the victim does something to provoke a rapist. This is not statistically backed up and makes no sense. Dress sense does not affect rape, it’s a common misconception. So much emphasis is put on the victims of sexual assault and not enough is asked of the rapist – SlutWalk is highlighting this injustice and trying to show society that nothing a victim does made them a victim – someone was raped because a rapist decided to rape them. There is no such thing as an invitation or a provocation for something that, by definition, is forcing someone to do something that they don’t want to partake in.

All kinds of people get raped, women, men, genderqueer people, children, the elderly, disabled people – and people of all shapes and sizes, ethnic origins, backgrounds, sexual orientations, dress senses etc etc etc. Anyone can be a victim as rape isn’t about sexuality; it’s a hateful act about power and control over someone, using their sexual anatomy as the vehicle to express that. Most victims know their perpetrator, something that a lot of people often overlook. (Check the end for links to statistics and information to enhance your mindlings!)

What will SlutWalk change?

SlutWalk is a social movement. As with any movement, protest etc its aims are to change the social landscape. It aims to raise awareness of the facts of rapes, bust rape myths and create social change in the minds and laws of our society. It aims to make people question.

We’re not saying it will cure sex negativity, slut shaming or victim blaming forever of course; it’s a smaller part of a larger picture.

The justice system and social attitude changes don’t work independently of each other; one affects the other. Laws change when people fight them and when they no longer reflect the views of that society. These two changes work together which is why raised awareness and campaigning and protesting does create real change.

We need change in education, in the justice system, in politics and in the minds of the people that make up our world. We need sex positivity.

Check the SlutWalk Satellitte to find out if there is one happening near you!

Statistics on rape, survivors, pubic attitudes, conviction…

Rape – The Facts (statistics on all issues of rape, including public attitudes).

The Havens Wake up to Rape Report Summary.

Rape Statistics, trending and common myths and misunderstandings.

Social Science and Myth - Breaking apart the Myth that sexual assault and dress are linked…

Why We Need SlutWalk: A study in comments.

Other articles on the SlutWalk name and why it’s important!

SlutWalk: Challenging misogyny and institutionalised sexism.

SlutWalk London - reclaiming our bodies, reclaiming our selves.

Feminist Critics of SlutWalk have forgotten that language is not a commodity.

I’m a Foxy Feminist.