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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

"SlutWalk Toronto... has come and gone and spawned imitators. Already though, some feminists are questioning it's efficacy and impact on both men and women."

A Metafilter post linking to:

"SlutWalk march planned for London."
The movement started after police constable Michael Sanguinetti, who had been giving a talk to a group of students in Toronto, [said] "I've been told I'm not supposed to say this - however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised."
"The 2011 Seattle SlutWalk."
Predators with compromised brain function are out there on the streets. They are there right now as I type this, waiting for you or I [sic] to do something risky. There is nothing that you or I can do to cure them. Nothing. Not marches, not crying, not rallies. The only thing we can do is jail these people when they commit crimes, and much more importantly, reduce our chances of being a target.

Telling these people to allow you to dress like a slut and not react is irrational. It ignores science and it ignores biology.
"Ladies, We Have a Problem."
I understand that SlutWalkers want to drain the s-word of its misogynistic venom and correct the idea it conveys: that a woman who takes a variety of sexual partners or who presents herself in an alluring way is somehow morally bankrupt and asking to be hit on, assaulted or raped....

To object to these ugly characterizations is right and righteous. But to do so while dressed in what look like sexy stewardess Halloween costumes seems less like victory than capitulation (linguistic and sartorial) to what society already expects of its young women...
"We’re Sluts, Not Feminists. Wherein my relationship with Slutwalk gets rocky."
Rejecting the word feminist but embracing the word slut sounds, to me, a lot like we’ve all drank [sic] the systematic kool-aid. I feel a little bit like all those patriarchal powers-that-be are snickering, witnessing the success of their hard work, having scared women away from labeling themselves feminist and instead taking on the oppressive language used to keep us down, to insult us, to objectify us, and to rape us. Hoping that they’ll stop. That maybe they’ll like us, respect us, and join us, so long as we don’t make them feel too uncomfortable. So long as we look sexy while we march.
And from the first link, a comment that got "favorited" 104 times (responding to an comment):
A question for the Metafilter hivemind before I post my usual awesome comment: A drunken woman walks alone thru an unfamiliar neighbourhood with a headband for a skirt. If she gets sexually assaulted, this is still completely 110% NOT her fault?

Responsibility for rape rests with rapists. Not with victims. Period.

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