Embrace your inner (or outer) slut, reclaim the word, reclaim the night, take to the streets. But watch out for the unintended consequences of the planned SlutWalk rallies.
Passionate protestors too often get caught up in their own hype and do themselves and their chosen issue an enormous disservice.
Last week a father who just wanted access to his children instead earned the wrath of a city after his one-man protest closed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and left irate drivers stuck in traffic for hours.
Critical Mass bike rides have done more to deepen the hatred die-hard drivers feel for cyclists than any belligerent, middle-aged Lycra-clad gang riding four abreast ever could.
Earlier this year about 1000 cars did a ‘protest cruise’ to highlight their desire for an Adelaide motorsport complex. Unsurprisingly, their plans to drive slowly down the city’s main thoroughfares in peak hour did not garner them much sympathy.
And now the SlutWalk phenomenon, born in Canada, is set to take off in Australia. Another protest with the potential to go horribly wrong.
The protests were sparked by some dill of a policeman who said to a group of about 20 students that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimised”.
One stray comment from a buffoon and now cities worldwide will be hosting SlutWalk protests. Melbourne protest organiser Clem Bastow says the aim is to stop the victim blaming, the belief that women are ‘asking for it’ if they wear skimpy clothes.
She says they also want to reclaim the word slut, and rid it of derogatory connotations.
All of which is worthy.
Victim blaming is a horrendous compounding of the original crime, an archaic misdirection of shaming. It’s hardly a widespread sentiment outside fundamentalist Islam, inbred Bible Belt communities, and apparently the occasional police station.
Still, where it happens it should be loudly condemned.
There is also something to be said for appropriating the term ‘slut’, which the Macquarie Dictionary defines as a woman who has many sexual partners (it says this with a sublime lack of judgement but helpfully adds that the term is, in fact, derogatory).
The appropriation of the word ‘nigger’ by black people is widely hailed as a successful subversion, a way for people to empower themselves and disempower those who would subjugate them.
So by all means, take slut – although it’s also true that it has been appropriated for years by loud and proud grrrrls. Or womyn. It’s all in the name, apparently.
And the name of the protest has done wonders for the press coverage of SlutWalks, of course, and has generated controversy and comment across the world.
Much criticism has focussed on the word’s irredeemability. People say it is just too negative, and no matter how many women march in their underwear they won’t win it back.
I think the name has a far bigger problem than that. People’s attention spans are spread so thin these days that everyone except the already converted will probably miss the point entirely.
Many will simply take away the idea that it’s now OK to call women sluts if they’re showing some cleavage.
Others will see it as an easy opportunity to perve on a bunch of semi-clad chicks. Older people and conservatives will see it as proof of the moral laxity of today’s women.
But worst of all, it will enforce the idea that women should be defined by their sexuality.
It will have an effect on girls and young women who will see these protests in the papers, online and in the news. And it will reinforce the already widespread impression that sex, for a woman, is power. Or the route to power.
That it is cool, and tough, and desirable to label yourself a slut. That a woman should aspire to be sexy at all costs. That if you are not a slut, you are not cool, you are not powerful. That sex equals success - and a paucity of it, therefore, failure.
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