For all the hand-wringing about feminism not having a pulse, this is a pretty powerful moment.
What was she wearing? Shouldn’t women take some responsibility for their safety when it comes to sexual assault? Are there degrees of rape? Are some women “asking for it”? If you dress like a slut, aren’t you asking to be treated like one? What is a slut? Is there such a thing? How many is too many sexual partners? How can one little word have so much power? By using it, aren’t you just hurting women more?
These are some of the questions I’ve been trying to answer over the last couple of weeks in my capacity as an organiser of SlutWalk Melbourne. They’ve been put to me by journalists, activists, commenters, strangers and friends. I don’t claim to have an answer to all of them but I’m taking part in a huge conversation about what is essentially a feminist issue — ending the culture of victim-blaming, slut-shaming and rape apology, which is the core message of SlutWalk.
Many have chosen instead to focus on the word itself and I understand that. It’s almost irresistible. The license to use the word “slut” has had the media in a lather and SlutWalk has created a Situation that people cannot help but comment on. We owe the name for that. But we can’t forget the origins of the protest — a police officer’s casual reference to women as sluts who invite sexual assault. The Toronto activists made the right call in choosing a name that reveals so much in people’s response to it.
So who are the critics of SlutWalk? There are many and they make strange bedfellows. A high-profile one is visiting author Gail Dines, who denounced the SlutWalk movement as capitulating to the worst desires of men — to see women dress as “sluts”. (Incidentally, calling your book Pornland is a pretty savvy marketing decision, not unlike calling your protest SlutWalk. Just saying.) The mainstream media, who love our concept for its ability to sell newspapers and generate clicks, have been wilfully obtuse to the central aim of the protest (to condemn victim-blaming) focusing instead on the titillation factor of what somebody might wear on the day.
Other feminists have dismissed it as an expression of white privilege, or as brainless, sex-positive, third-wave regression, which plays into the worst stereotypes of feminism as earnest, petty and humourless, even though I share some of their concerns.
You can’t have it both ways: if you want people to be feminists, and engage in active political protest, you can’t then police the way they choose to do it. It’s incredibly patronising to dismiss the thousands of people who’ve supported SlutWalk globally as being equally deluded and alienated from the “right” kinds of feminism, activism, and Continental theory.
Guy Rundle attacks it from the Left, essentially arguing that the movement is not authentic enough, not genuinely radical, and not what he wants it to be. What all these criticisms have in common, besides failing to engage with the point of the protest, is an anxiety about not being able to control it. I can’t control the movement either, even as one of the organisers, and I’m okay with that.
I’m not into policing other people’s feminism, nor should they mine. We have made the central message of the walk clear and worked hard to engage constructively with all criticism. The whole concept is not perfect but it’s here and it’s happening — so you can either work to invest it with power or you can stand outside and heckle. I’ll be inside this tent.
It is not without its problems but it has single-handedly triggered a debate in the public sphere about the ubiquity of sexual assault, harassment and shaming of women and their right to push back against it, female (and male) sexuality, and the freedom to express it without fear of retribution.
But if criticism has come from every direction, so has a kind of intuitive, organic support. We’ve welcomed a diverse cross-section of people into the SlutWalk community. We’ve got grandmothers marching with their whole families, women marching in hijab, young people, old people, gay, straight, trans, bi, black, white, male, female, sluts and their allies all coming together for one moment to stand together against victim-blaming.
And if you don’t like it, don’t come.
Karen Pickering is the host of Cherchez la Femme, co-founder of The Dawn Conspiracy, and one of the organisers of SlutWalk Melbourne.
Way to go Karen. You’re doing great work.
Having read Guy Rundle’s supercilious piece, claiming the high moral ground for Reclaim the Night, I am really pleased to see your realistic and grounded summary of the aims and moral grounding of the SlutWalk movement.
Some time ago I took issue with the fact that men are not permitted at Reclaim the Night rallies. The justification from the organisers was that it was essential to ban men in order to ensure that “all women could feel comfortable”.
I understand that victims of sexual assualt and other forms of violence perpetrated by men, against women, could be made more comfortable by banning the presence of men from such an event.
However in my opinion this needs to be balanced against the negative connotations of banning men. It sends a clear message that all men cannot be trusted, all men are a problem, It is us (women) against them (men).
I am not ignorant of the point that violence against women is almost exclusively perpetrated by men. This does not mean that the Reclaim the Night organisers were being constructive in creating an atmosphere which implicitly impugned ALL men.
When I queried the attendance ban I was told that children were permitted. I asked, at what age does a male child cease to be a family member who can participate in a rally supporting women’s right to freedom from violence, and become a dangerously violent MAN who must be prevented from attending? No age limit was given. I can only assume if you look like a man, you’ll get turned away.
The imagery I’ve seen of Slutwalk, on the other hand, clearly contains men who are welcomed and participate freely. This is essential to the cause as, at the end of the day, it is men whose behaviour has to change (although the attitudes towards sexual morality, of large percentages of our female population, are, frankly, every bit as repressive as those espoused by their male peers). It is great to see the expression at the rallies, that there is a large component of the male populace who support the aims of the SlutWalk movement. Denying men a voice and a presence in Reclaim the Night created the impression that all men opposed it’s aims.
It is a shame your article is titled “A defense” as it illustrates that the SlutWalk movement, which is self – evidently completely morally correct, is coming under attack. How any rational human could disagree with it sufficiently to want to attack it, is beyond me.
Good on you Karen. I saw Ms Dines on Q&A last night and was bewildered by her machine-gun verbocity and surprised at her aobjections to your movement. Any action that highlights the issue of violence against women and getting it into the mainstream media is to be applauded.
“You can’t have it both ways: if you want people to be feminists, and engage in active political protest, you can’t then police the way they choose to do it.”
What a ridiculous statement! Of course we can police the way you choose to do it. If a political response does more harm than good, it shouldn’t be accepted as an empowering expression of civil unrest… it should be shut down.
For instance, if it became apparent that initiatives like slutwalk were encouraging man-hate, breeding a new wave of feminists-for-equality-as-long-as-women-get-the-better-deal… then you should stop conducting the slutwalk!
We have enough man hatred in the world just from the fringe elements of feminism, thanks very much, we don’t need it creeping into the mainstream.
“If you dress like a slut, aren’t you asking to be treated like one? What is a sl-t? Is there such a thing?”
Whatever the chosen definition of slut, a slut, let alone anyone who chooses to simply dress provocatively, has an absolute right to say no to any sexual proposition.
Nobody has a right to violate that decision. A woman’s dress, or actions in other circumstances, are absolutely no defence to rape or sexual abuse.
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Thank you for your summary of what Slutwalk represents. I have not been to the right media to get ant understanding of the movement. It probably speaks poorly of me, but my first encounter with the term / movement was through Guy Rundle’s article in Crikey.
When watching Q and A last night I had one comment on changing the name: Don’t change the name. The controversial name has made this issue wag tongues across the globe. Who wants to talk about “Wear what you want walk” or even “dress as you feel day”? The controversial name has given soooo much voice to the victims, now the whole world knows what an ass the Canadian police are.
Does any one know if the perp has been caught?