SLUT VS. SLUTWALK

National MP Paul Quinn recently issued an apology for suggesting that ''there is a real issue with young ladies getting drunk' in a television debate on rape. He suggested that short skirts and drunkenness contributed to rape but, after a storm of protest, he claimed that he had misheard the question from a representative of the 'Slutwalk' movement and that he had been quoted out of context.

The Slutwalk protest movement was sparked by a Canadian police officer's advice to women students to "avoid dressing like sluts" to avoid rape and sexual assault.

Some 3,000 people took part in the first 'SlutWalk' in Toronto last month. The SlutWalk Toronto website says the aim of the movement is to 're-appropriate' the word slut.The goal, say organisers, is to highlight a culture in which the victim rather than rapist or abuser is blamed.

Trish Kahle argues that it is not a case of reclaiming the word slut but disempowering and eradicating it.

I can't tell you how happy I am to see women around the world organizing against rape culture, taking a stand against the misogyny that permeates our everyday lives, refusing to let other people do the labeling, finally saying, "Enough." In addition,women everywhere have finally been talking in a significant way about the issues the invigorated women's movement will face. The SlutWalks have brought some of these issues to the forefront.

SocialistWorker.org has been one of few to host a full and rich online debate among activists about what the SlutWalks mean, praising and criticizing them. I recommend looking over these before going on. I might refer to them, but so long as we're in cyberspace, there's really no point in my quoting most of the articles. The writers raise a host of different issues, but it seems we come again and again to the use of the word "slut."

So what's in a word? Can it ever have a place in a movement against sexism and rape culture? The thought process wasn't easy for me. It was three days of arguments with myself and others. While the SlutWalks themselves are not about reclaiming the word slut, and therefore not really the object of the discussion I'm having here, the questions that have been raised are important for women to consider going forward, because as an activist, and an optimist, I hope the movement will expand beyond the SlutWalks, a march in which I will be an organizer.

I kept oscilating between two things I felt I knew were true. First, that no one has the right to tell women how to dress, how to act, or how to refer to themselves. The second was that the word "slut" is--and has always been--used to degrade women, imply that sexuality is equivalent to deviance, and enforce structural sexism. And when I say oscilate, that's really what I mean. I went back and forth, back and forth.

This is the conclusion I was finally able to draw.

In the context of something like the SlutWalks, which were first organized as a response to a Toronto cop advising women to avoid getting raped by dressing less sluttily, saying "I am a slut," or "we are all sluts," is not an act of reclaimation. It is not telling women what to call themselves. Rather, it is a shortened way of saying "If the ability to be raped makes you a slut, we are all sluts. If dressing how you want makes you a slut, we are all sluts. If expecting the basic right to live without constant threat of rape makes you a slut, we are all sluts. Because what you have done is equated being a woman with being a slut." SlutWalk is about taking a stand for women.

This, to me, is radically different from the opposite end of the spectrum, which is attempting to claim the word "slut" as a term of female empowerment--whether that be indiviually or on a wider scale. As Jen Roesch states, "the word "slut" is a sexist slur that cannot be re-appropriated." The approach here, I argue, is that instead of trying to reclaim the word slut for the very plain reason Jen states, we should eradicate the word so it can no longer be used as a tool of sexual, physical, and emotional violence against women. The argument should not be "we are sluts and proud" but instead, we should say that regardless of how we dress, act, or speak, we are not "sluts," and neither is any other person.

I urge everyone to continue these discussions, and join with women worldwide fighting rape culture. Organize and march in a SlutWalk near you!

This article was first published on Trish's blog, I Can't Believe We Still Have To Protest This Shit