Why call yourself a slut? You have other people to do that for you.

Sign reads: Society teaches “Don’t get raped”, rather than “Don’t rape”.

The Glasgow SlutWalk was held on the 4th June 2011, and I attended with about 200 other people – a varied mixture of men, women, and children.

Over the past few months I have read and listened to a variety of debates over the SlutWalk movement: Is it highlighting a problem or adding to it? Is it doing an injustice to the feminist movements that have gone before it? Is it giving men free reign to call women sluts? And what message is it giving to young women and girls? Despite its name which is intentionally provocative, the messages at the heart of the SlutWalks are sensible and relevant. The SlutWalk phenomena began in Toronto, in retaliation towards a statement made by PC Michael Sanguinetti at a Health and Safety talk, “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.” Quickly glancing these words you could perhaps mistake Sanguietti’s statement as a poorly worded tale of caution, this is certainly how some journalists have interpreted it: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown writes for The Independent, “The Canadian policeman surely was only saying women need to be sharp and savvy.” However this statement does not scan as advice on safety, it reads as: don’t be the problem. And he did not mince his words either; he admits in the same breath that he had been warned against voicing this opinion, and who by? Other police officers who do not share his viewpoint, or members of the force wary enough to have foreseen the flame it would ignite.

The main issue here is that this statement was made by a law enforcer in regards to the safety of women, and as a number of articles have shown this quoted opinion is shared by other members of the public and the media. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in her article, How does dressing like a ‘slut’ help protect women? asks “Does it make any sense for us to teach our daughters that they can get pissed and wear whorish garb and still expect to be completely safe?”. This question puts the emphasis on the wrong people, and in spite of good intentions towards women, I feel completely misses the point. Rape is illegal, dressing “like a slut” is not illegal, no one has taken to the streets to fight for the right to wear provocative clothing! People have walked in peaceful protests for the right, no matter how extreme their fashion tastes to not be violently attacked or vindicated for crimes they have not committed. This is not about fighting for short skirts and high heels it is about standing up for women.

There are concerns that these walks may be dangerous to how men view women, and how women feel they should behave. I think the only real danger from these walks is in stirring up some debate, and that can only be a good thing. Understandably there are some concerns voiced by feminists about these particular strategies for gaining greater sexual equality and liberation, everybody has a different way of doing things – when fighting for the right to vote the Suffragettes and the Suffragists had conflicting tactics but it was at least towards a common goal. However, the articles that read as though penned in a moment of clarity as the voice of the people, imagining they have caught feminists out in their own word play, these articles tend to highlight the problem. Brendan O’Neill writes for the Telegraph, “These are prudes disguised as sluts”, in his article These are the most anti-social sluts on Earth. He states, “The SlutWalk organiser says that one of the “main messages” of her campaign is that “a woman’s appearance is not a sexual invitation”. But it is. When women wear revealing gear in a pub or a nightclub, they are definitely issuing a sexual invitation. And why shouldn’t they? They want to pull, get off, cop off or whatever the crazy kids call it these days.”

He then helpfully goes on to explain how the chatting up process works with a man spotting an attractive woman and offering to buy her a drink, or issuing a come-on. I think what O’Neill has failed to realise, with his male and somewhat outdated perspective, is that thousands of women have not taken to the streets because they are unfamiliar with nightclub etiquette, nor that they are misguidedly protesting on behalf of women who do not want their help, they are marching for themselves. And in doing so they are not trying to stop men from being able to talk to women, they are not trying to stop men from having sex, it is about women not being told what they mean by their appearance, and about not having to play a game of Russian roulette every time they step outside their door in anything more revealing than a full-length anorak.

The British Crime survey shows that over 80% of rape victims know their rapists. The outfits worn by most rape victims are not what would ever be classified as “whorish garb”, however, it is only once someone is raped that this factor starts to be scrutinised. It is alright for someone to wear a short skirt unless they get raped whilst wearing said short skirt because then they become the instigator of a violent crime. It evades logic. Semi-naked women adorn billboards and the front pages of magazines, and men, women and children are exposed to this on a daily basis. The intention of these female images is to project a sexual invitation, and to play to male fantasy in order to sell things, so when a man sees a “fantasy” woman he may project onto her this “sexual invitation” – but we are not selling anything, and we are certainly not giving anything away. Women constantly face the brunt of pressure laid down by society to act and look a certain way, but not only are we expected to live up to these expectations, we are expected to take the responsibility for the effects of them. France recently hit the headlines with the French ban on the niqab, this was implemented for the protection of Muslim women and because covering up in this way was found not to be in keeping with French values. As one given reason is to protect women from oppression, it seems ironic that she is then the first in the firing line if found wearing the veil. If a woman wears too much she is oppressed, or frigid, and is she wears to little she is a slut. In Brendan O’Neill’s article he also takes offence at the SlutWalk organisers admonishing wolf-whistles and comments hurled in the street, “as if a builder saying “nice bum!” is an act of unspeakable violence”. Is this a real opposition? Defending the rights of builders to shout “nice bum!” in the street. Comments of this nature are rarely received as complimentary as it is not a normal form of communication, and they are often designed to single a woman out – if a group of men were to shout “nice suit” at a middle class man walking down the street, he too would feel singled out and threatened. We live in a democratic society: women are not asking for a troop of thought police to reprimand men, they are asking not to be issued with or forced to live by a dress code. We will not be pigeon-holed as victims, nor will we allow victim blaming because society isn’t willing to tweak its outlook on the laws of femininity.

Germaine Greer in an article for The Telegraph says, “The rejection by women of compulsory cleansing of mind, body and soul is a necessary pre-condition of liberation.” In Ancient Greece and Rome, it was considered better if a woman was raped than committed adultery as then only her body had been defiled and not her mind. Lucretia was upheld as a woman of true virtue – she was raped by one of her husband’s friends and after detailing the attack to her father she committed suicide so that no other woman in the future may be able to use her as an example to cover up their promiscuity. Laws have changed, men and women have changed, but this notion of virtue still hangs heavy in the air. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown commented in her aforementioned article, “I bet there weren’t many women on the march who endure domestic rape or have been trafficked”. I don’t know about that but there were definitely women who had had first-hand experience of sexual attack on the Glasgow SlutWalk, as one woman spoke up about it in a speech made to the crowd. In denying the voice of the SlutWalkers seems to be further highlighting that the more ‘virtuous’ victim is viewed as more worthy of our sympathy. No other crime, in a court setting at least, sets about scrutinising the virtuous qualities of a victim, to see if they are worthy of having their assailant brought to justice.

The SlutWalk movement is just a group of people saying fine, we’ll take the badge of slut, but we will wear it as we want to, and yes unfortunately that means we’ll make a big song and dance about it so that we’re heard – as Germaine Greer puts it, “taking part in what looks like an endless “vicars and tarts’ street party is not just bad-ass. It’s fun.” Obviously this ironic style of retaliation ruffles feathers, after all women are also often accused of not having a sense of humour, but when people take an objection to what you wear, and take that more seriously than what you are trying to say, what else is there to do, if you didn’t laugh you’d cry.

Sources mentioned:

‘How does dressing like a ‘slut’ protect women?’ – Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

‘These ‘SlutWalk’ women are simply fighting for their right to be dirty’ – Germaine Greer

‘These are the most anti-social sluts in the world’ – Brendan O’Neill

Sign reads: Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes, and no means no.