WE GET IT SOME PEOPLE ARE UPSET BY THE WORD SLUT.
WE FUCKING GET IT. THERE IS SOME OLD FASHIONED CUNTING PURITY NONSENSE THAT MAKES YOU WEEP TEARS OF FUCKING PURE LIQUID SHAME AT THE THOUGHT OF BEING CALLED ONE
DOESN’T MEAN IT’S OKAY FOR CUNTS TO THINK RAPE IS OKAYJESUS CHRIST IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU’RE CALLED A SLUT, A WHORE, A NIGGER, A KIKE A FUCKTARD A GODDAMN RETARD OR EVEN A CUMDUMPSTER.
IF SOMEONE TRIES TO FUCK YOU WITHOUT YOU BEING OKAY WITH IT THAT IS BULLSHIT.THAT IS *ALL* THIS IS ABOUT. WOMEN DON’T BRING RAPE UPON THEMSELVES. PEOPLE *RAPE* OTHER PEOPLE.
FOR FUCK’S SAKE PEOPLE.
YOU CAN’T TEMPT RAPE.
THERE ISN’T A MAZLOW’S FUCKING HEIRARCHY OF RAPE INCENTIVE.FUCK.
WHY ARE WE HAVING THIS FUCKING ARGUMENT
YOU IDIOTS
STOP DEFENDING PEOPLE THAT RAPE OTHER PEOPLE
I AM SO ANGRY
YOU CUNTS
STOP FUCKING RAPING PEOPLE
This woman kicked ass
That’s my friend Tiara. She’s pretty rad.
Dissecting Rundle on SlutWalk
I really didn’t want to do this, but it seems I’ve been given little choice in the matter. I couldn’t resist.
So yeah, this is pretty much a BAM in my book. So thankful someone spent some time to do this and now i wish i had done pretty much this and/or written a comment to Crikey myself.
However i found one part of Squishie’s analysis i disagreed with, but i’m pretty sure it’s Rundle’s fault because his piece was just generally so incoherent. Specifically this:
There was no way to watch Reclaim The Night and feel like, or be, a voyeur, and there was no way that it could be subordinated to the process of being spectated. When it received media coverage at all, it was often met with mild hostility, which is not a bad thing to stir up if you’re trying to interrupt basic social assumptions and prejudices. Whatever media coverage it did receive did not consume the event. It remained at the time, and in the memory, a little bit separate, a little bit frightening.
Saying that the value of Reclaim the Night was basically because the women who participated and the statements they made were only mildly disruptive and — an observation he makes later — Reclaim the Night was about ‘ugly women’ and SlutWalk is about hot chicks hating on them, therefore Reclaim the Night was harmless because it bought into the perception that feminists are feminists because they’re too ugly to do anything else like ‘catch a man’.
I actually read that paragraph from Guy the other way around, that Reclaim The Night is more effective than Slutwalk because it did receive mildly, read “at least partially,” hostile coverage i.e. evidence that it’s proving a challenge to some people. This in contrast to Slutwalk being an event that is an easy option for commercial media and that could attract voyeurs and thus the event would be rendered a spectacle for derpy men rather than being a challenge to them.
Now if we assume that’s what Rundle is saying i think he’s approaching some of the reasonable concerns i’ve seen about Slutwalk, but as Squishie points out later on, he’s really wide of the mark and full of shit. Here he represents a stopped clock more than anything else.
And as an aside, i think it’s perhaps most telling that Guy remembers Reclaim The Night as “a little bit separate, a little bit frightening.” Seriously, what is frightening about a protest march? Maybe there was something about it at the time but mostly i can’t help but think that Guy was/is one of the “greasy men in vinyl jackets” only seeing Reclaim The Night as a chance to verbally harass women in public.
Many observers might think a more ‘sensible’ way to handle the emergence of groups such as the Brocial Network is not to take potentially compromising photographs, and certainly not to put them online. But people should never be forced to modify their behaviour to indulge those who refuse to respect them, and it’s equally abhorrent to couch this coercion in patronising terms including ‘sensible’, ‘careful’ and ‘prudent’.
The added pwnage of Guy Rundle is pretty sweet too.
Consistency to a point
Slutwalk: Some semi-formed thoughts
I’ve got to say I don’t like the word and I never have. I don’t use it. I try not to speak about people that way. I hate the double standard. I don’t like the word’s very sound. Yet here I am, planning on joining the Slutwalk in the city on June 13 in the name of my right to walk around without attracting abusive comments or sexual violence.
But for me the Slutwalk movement is not about declaring oneself a slut - rather it is saying, it doesn’t matter what women wear or do or say or go or how they dance or who they talk to or when they talk to them or what they’ve been drinking or how much, there is a certain section of society who is always going to feel it’s ok to pass comment on them in the street, to grab an arse at the bar or just, you know, hey, I figured she was up for it in those clothes. Because for some people all women are sluts, one way or another.
Oh, I hear you cry, but dignity invites respect and if you dress “appropriately” (and what is that, might I ask?) you’ll avoid unwanted attention. And in response to that, I ask, what planet do you people live on? The last time I was called a “slut” in Sydney I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I was walking down Oxford Street and a gentleman inquired if I would be interested in having sexual relations with him. I ignored him and strolled on, only to hear “Fuck you, slut” yelled at my head. Clearly whorish behaviour, I know. I guess I should have been wearing a muumuu and a headscarf.
If you want to take an even clearer example of the uselessness of the term “appropriate dress” when it comes to commentary on women’s dress and unwanted attention, how’s this:
A few years ago, I was an English teacher in Jakarta. I lived in a respectable lower middle class neighbourhood, and walked down to the main road every morning to catch a cab to school. I was highly aware that I was in a foreign country, in a culture that was not my own with far more conservative standards of dress - and I was teaching small children. One day (as I walked past the local mosque, no less - I hope Allah saw you, you creep), wearing my schoolteacher best, a black skirt that went to mid calf, and a white blouse that covered my shoulders and my upper arms (an outfit carefully selected to mimic the Jakartan office girls I saw around me, and in fact purchased at the local mall) a man rode past me on a motorbike, slowed as he reached me, leaned over and grabbed my right breast, before driving off. I looked down to see the dirty handprint smeared across my shirt as evidence.
I am lucky that this is really the worst thing that has ever happened to me, a drive-by groping. But I have friends who have been raped and assaulted. The suggestion that any of them are “sluts” (god that term! She sleeps around so she deserves it. She doesn’t sleep around enough, she wants it. She should sleep around more, I deserve the right to comment on her body) is ludicrous. They were not asking for it. But they were treated that way by those men. Just like the man on the bike thought he had the right to grope me and the men who scream “slut” and “bitch” at women who refuse their advances think they’re ok to do so.
Oh I know. You don’t condone rape. But you think women need to take responsibility for some of what happens to them, there are standards, you know, if you want respsect… really? Tell me how I stop the man screaming at me on the street. Tell me how to stop the guy on the bike groping me. Tell me how to stop the dude at the bar grabbing my arse.
The Slutwalk is so named not because all women are sluts but because that’s how we get treated, because being a woman, with her own sexuality and desires and inclination to dress however the hell she wants is apparently a threat. I know you don’t think that way, dear reader. But someone you know does.
What am I going to wear to the Slutwalk? A pair of jeans, my Docs, my favourite t-shirt with the glow-in-the-dark monsters, and a sign that says “This is what I was wearing last time someone called me a slut”.
Why We Need SlutWalk: A study in comments
trigger warning
There’s been some controversy over the SlutWalk protests taking place across the world. There’s a lot to say, but until I have the time to write something comprehensive, I thought I would let oh-so-lovely commenters from around the globe demonstrate why SlutWalks are so desperately needed.
“I kind of feel sorry for the police officer. I understand that he wasn’t blaming victims but it has all been blown out of proportion. I mean we prosecute thieves but we also tell people to lock their doors when they go out.”
“Seriously if you wish to dress sexy and strut your stuff you should expect sexual violence. Yes you can blame the man who cannot control himself but if he is found guilty you should also be found guilty of being so inviting.”
“you women that dress provocatively will attract the pervert/rapist whatever nearby. simple as that. when they see boobs and thigh and butt they all go nuts. so dont entice them as much as possible.”
“you shows your assets off you are just as much at fault if you get raped.”
“Do not just blame the person doing the assaulting if you are going to run around strutting your stuff.”
“if i didn’t want my car to be broke in. i would lock the doors and keep valuables out of site. will that save it? no, but it lowers my risk. ladies, carry mace and learn to fight otherwise you might make yourself a victim by giving wrong impressions.”
“You wouldn’t be walking through a safari park smelling of bacon, would you?”
“If you dress like a billboard, you are going to get customers. You can’t just do whatever you want and expect everyone to think what you demand. You are not that special.”
This one is my favourite. (via The 30 Best Signs At Slutwalk Toronto: Pics, Videos, Links, News)
Brilliant.
