Why the slutwalk misses the point
By Anna Friedler
By Luke Buckley
Women of Oxford! Do you think that you are intelligent? Do you think that you are free? Do you think that you have a place and a purpose in a world that has begun to move beyond the rigid socio-sexual divisions of old? Beyond a time when women were defined solely by their position in a gendered division of labour; a time when women were sexual beings whose looks gave them place and whose ovaries gave them purpose?
Believe this myth all you like, because the Slut Walk is in town, and it is here to remind you that no matter what you achieve or how brilliant you are, you are always a victim, and in the eyes of men, you are always a slut.
No other feature matters… Your wit, your charm, your finesse, your intellect, your presence, your confidence, or your personality writ large. What the Slut Walk tells us – with dodgy statistics and fiery rhetoric – is that none of this matters. You are a woman. And being a woman means that you are a sexual object. Being a woman means that you are a potential victim. Being a woman means that you are a potential slut.
Far from reclaiming the streets or fighting a campaign against victim blaming, the Slut Walk materialises and hardens the symbolic division between men and women, recasting sexual submission as an over-arching modality of life, because whilst men can support the march, they can never be a slut.
It is an articulation of that most perverse feminism, in which all dreams of equality and emancipation are exchanged for a hyper sexualised world, where the only source of honour, power or respect for women is sex, which they are encouraged to dangle tantalisingly in front of the men in whose image they are created.
This is the most powerful illusion: that to utilise your sex is empowering, when it is in fact a tragic submission; a last gasp resignation to Otherhood in which the self is stripped of everything that makes it unique and all that is left is a perverse caricature of the sexual mores of men and a pithy residue of your choice and personality, gauged in the evaluative gaze of drooling men by the colour of your tights or the size of your heel.
It is as if the greatest achievement on the horizon of women is to become like Rinsers; masquerading their aggrandised sexuality in exchange for luxury goods to satisfy their petty, consumerist desires.
Oh how the misogynists must laugh! Not only have they convinced women that emancipation consists of self sexual degradation (win!), but that they must buy things to achieve this; fishnet stockings and Jimmy Choos (double win!!). And they like to receive gifts too? What better pretence for introduction (triple win!!!). Such is the nature of our Monstrous Liberation.
If only we had listened to Barthes, long ago, we might remember that the reproductive capacity of women – their sex – is the lynchpin of patriarchy, and that unlike other aspects, it is not something that the patriarchs will allow to be disturbed. And so the slut walk tells us: Women. You can go to Oxford. Just never forget that somewhere, and to someone, you are a slut.
“Love, work, write, be business-women or women of letters, but always remember that man exists, and that you are not made like him; your order is free on condition that it depends on his; your freedom is a luxury, it is possible only if you first acknowledge the obligations of your nature” (Barthes – Mythologies)
Womsoc member
28/05/2012 at 11:46
Talk about missing the point!
I am *not* a slut-walk supporter, because I am a feminist, not a slut, thank you very much. At least I can comprehend their message though, which seems to have eluded you:
revealing clothing is not an invitation to rape.
The message is not that women are always victims. Quite the opposite, the message is that our sex does not make us victims, does not make us fair game. Nor does slut-walk contend that men only view women as sluts. The point is that it doesn’t matter how men perceive women, that their perception is no license to rape. The point is that our value and rights are not defined by the male imaginary.
Comprehension fail, Mr. Buckley.
Hazel
28/05/2012 at 13:54
My goodness does this article miss the entire point of SlutWalk; did the author even bother to google it or did he just make it up as he went along from the word ‘slut’? Luckily the above commenter understands.
Evie
28/05/2012 at 15:21
Oh my goodness, do you even know how this movement started? You have completely misunderstood it to an almost offensive level. I am a Slutwalk supporter, and although I recognise that there are issues with its method and I accept that there is valid criticism, I am not going there to suggest that revealing clothes are empowering. Quite the opposite, I would go there to show that the clothes I wear do not define who I am, my sexual background, my morality or my willingness to have sex. The slutwalk started because a policeman in America told girls that to avoid being raped they should avoid dressing like sluts – something you did not even mention in your article. YOU are the one who has missed the point entirely.
Peter
28/05/2012 at 16:43
“you are always a victim, and in the eyes of men, you are always a slut.” – is that the way you think of your mum or your sister too? My friend, if you always think of a woman as a victim this is highly pathological and I would advise you to consult a psychiatrist.
Emstar
29/05/2012 at 06:36
“I am *not* a slut-walk supporter, because I am a feminist, not a slut, thank you very much.”
– “Womsoc member,” above
Slut-shaming is bad and you should feel bad.
Womsoc member
29/05/2012 at 08:54
@ Emstar:
Nor am I British, thank you very much.
Is that British-shaming? “Slut” is not a label by which I self-identify.
Do you really think that people who don’t identify as sluts are slut-shaming? I’m not grunge, I’m not anarchist, I’m not hipster, I’m not a punk…
If you’re not a bibliophile, are you book-shaming?
Also, I believe you intended to use the adverb ‘badly’. Do you want me to feel naughty or contrite?
Molly
29/05/2012 at 11:02
Oh dear Oxford… oh dear oh dear oh dear.
The point of a slut walk is to protest the ‘victim blaming’ attitude that is currently swarming around. The whole ‘well she deserved it because she was drunk and/or was dressed like a slut’ premise needs to stop.
Alex Bramham
29/05/2012 at 11:36
Much of the confusion and disagreement with these sorts of issues comes down to a naive perspective of behaviour and ethics. The “all rape and harassment is absolutely wrong” is naive to different behaviour being acceptable in different situations. It’s reasonable for drunk communication in a club to be different to sober communication in daytime life. Just like how you talk to your parents is different to your friends, it’s different situations. Rather than abstract protocols and rules for all situations, best to consider them separately. Dressing like a slut and going to a club is different social protocols. Clothing IS a form of communication, and consent is more complex than some sort of written contract the slutwalk protestors perceive it as. All a very gray area. I’d also question why girls would want to dress like sluts, I wouldn’t want to walk around in a spacesuit because I don’t wish to communicate being part of NASA. If I were connected with NASA, it would occur to me to consider donning a spacesuit. If someone made the mistake of assuming I was on a NASA mission, they’d be very justified in doing so! Do I have any right to go round in a space suit and complain when people assume I’m in NASA? Of course not.
Womsoc member
29/05/2012 at 12:38
@ Alex,
Your analogy is inane, and astronauts do not walk around in space suits. I am guessing that you want to say that astronauts wear space suits as a uniform of being an astronaut. Or perhaps you want to say it is safe to assume that someone in a space suit wants to go into space.
The implied extensions of these analogies are that women wear “slutty” clothes as a uniform of women who are raped. Or that it is safe to assume that someone in “slutty” clothes wants to be raped.
Both arguments are ignorant and hurtful. There is no uniform for a rape victim. Women in all kinds of clothing are raped. And no one wants to be raped. If someone wants an act performed on them, then they consent, in which case it is not rape. Rape is by definition against someone’s will.
Your idiocy is precisely what slut-walks want to challenge. Clothes are neither a symbol of or invitation to rape.
Tara
29/05/2012 at 12:38
It’s a shame to see an Oxford student so stupid. Can he really not work Google, to say he couldn’t even look up what a Slut Walk is and what it represents? I feel sorry for the person who missed out on a place in such an amazing school because they let this guy in instead.
Luke
29/05/2012 at 13:33
i know Tara, and i get paid to be here too. it’s an outrage. though LOL at your shallow analysis.
Luke
29/05/2012 at 13:47
as an aside, for all of these shallow numptys who go on about “message” and “intention”, have you lived on your own all your life? because these two things don’t really apply in the real world, which is first and foremost social, and therefore intersubjective (i.e. requiring communication). messages are not absolute and mobilise a whole array of supporting ideological structures (did we not get over this theoretically in the 60s?), which are often very different to that was intended, hence the possibility of miscommunication and indeed misdoing (if doing is apart from communication of course). So we have an argument i say one thing you take it to mean another, that isn’t simply wrong interpretation, that is because of the supporting discursive or ideological structures upon which your position is premised through which your position is articulated and in which your position (in this case an utterance, a speech act) takes root and makes sense. I’m not saying that this exonerates my argument (there’s a great response in this paper, that kind of misses the point, but I take that in ironic jest), but it is an important part of it that many responses seem to miss, and is a quite elementary idea within any reasonable theory of language, communication or social behaviour (see for example, Mary Douglas essays on risk or purity and danger; Bourdieu – Pascalian Meditations; The State Nobility, A Theory of Practice, Wacquant – Punishing the Poor, Prisons of Poverty, Body & Soul; Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations; Veena Das – Trauma and Testimony; Nancy Scheper-Hughes – Death Without Weeping; Bell – Ritual Theory Ritual Practice; Turner – Aspects of Ndembu Ritual; Marcuse – One Dimensional Man; Althusser – On Ideology; Foucault – Madness and Civilisation, The Order of Things, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish; Rose – The Politics of Life Itself, Governing the Soul) and that’s just at the top of my head. This most basic assumption, that underwrites this article, and is missed by most responses, is elementary to pretty much any social theory i can think of in fact (they’re just some biggies that make it an essential part of their thesis, but you could also look at the anthropology of development, especially the stuff on the implementation of technology, and anything in the copious literature on signalling and the fear of crime)….
Alice
29/05/2012 at 14:44
That would be really great, Luke, if that had anything to do with your article. You can namedrop and trot out theories, but the fact of the matter is that you missed the point of SlutWalk — a message very, very many people actually did understand and internalize — and made a big mess on a website about your misunderstanding.
Luke
29/05/2012 at 15:04
LOL @ alice.
Luke
29/05/2012 at 15:06
i’ll make it simple for the children. third world development. the point and what was done were very different things (Escobar, Ferguson, Scott). same logic. see. not that hard!
Alice
29/05/2012 at 15:11
What a consummate point-misser you are. It must be so nice to be magically privy to the ultimate truth of understanding of “what was done”! And to be given space online, lovely privileged space, to make a priori arguments and appeals to authority about “what was done”, despite many, many counterpoints given — must be so nice to be able to merely contradict people by saying “but things are SUBJECTIVE and SOCIAL” and have the cognitive dissonance required to not see the irony in saying this immediately after attempting to deliver us the absolute truth about “what was done”. What was done, Luke, was something obviously beyond your comprehension. Don’t lecture us about the practicality of words when you’re trying to operate out of pure mishandled theory.
Luke
29/05/2012 at 15:27
http://mondediplo.com/1998/10/10bourdieu
alas, he is better than i. maybe i should have used the term symbolic violence. then you would have understood. understanding of course the theory upon which i draw and how i subsequently mishandle it
a consummate point misser, well that’s a new one, but maybe i will adopt it as a persona for a day and see how it goes. a kind of meta satire on knowledge. as for magically privy to the truth, no, just clear critical thinking and logical deduction, which could all be a fallacy, but i’ll stick with it.
Ruby
31/05/2012 at 21:09
I personally found this really interesting Luke. I think many of these comments have totally misunderstood your article. I agreed with a lot of what you’ve said.
Ruby
01/06/2012 at 00:38
P.S CHECK OUT MY WANKY BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
just_a_girl
03/06/2012 at 13:05
you suck bro. you can mention barthes and bourdieu and other people i dont understand but truth is youre not as smart as you think you are, you don’t even understand the basics of life for women in this country which is quite simply that being a woman DOES make you a potential victim, of rape and of police and courts who acquit and encourage rapists. who is this douche bro and why doesn’t he take a seat. evidently going to a fancy university DOESN’t make you smart.
Oedipa
05/06/2012 at 09:51
I do not think Luke misses THE point. I think maybe he misses a point. Which is the use of terminology itself; the term “slut” is degrading and many women feel uncomfortable with it. Whether it can be subverted and used for the emprowerment of women rather than their oppression (as it has up to now) is questionable. Personally, I wouldn’t want to protest at a “SlutWalk”, but I would want to protest against rape. Terminology is important because words are not white noise and often bear cultural burden that cannot be alleviated from one day to another
Anonymous
07/06/2012 at 15:04
do u all *actually* think he’s missing the point (i.e. what ‘Womsoc memeber’ said in the first comment)?
really? i mean, it’s a pretty simple point.
Anonymous
07/06/2012 at 15:05
oh
dan
08/06/2012 at 13:37
Buckley is wrong to condone Slut Walks (Comment 24/5/12). Attitudes towards rape are still unacceptable, with 12% reported cases being classified as ‘no crime’ by the Police in 2011. Slut Walks originate from a comment that women should avoid rape by ‘not dressing as sluts’; women in mini-skirts, jeans, trousers, burqas and dungarees are raped: you cannot have innocent and less-innocent rape victims, neither can clothing be a criterion. Whilst Buckley seems frustrated that Slut Walk participants are defining themselves solely as victims, they aren’t fighting against thin air and the point needs to be made that women can celebrate their sexuality just as men can; one only has to visit Camera to see the deplorable and objectifying attitudes that ‘lads’ hold against women, as perpetuated by your Agony Lad column, albeit in a humorous manner. Said lads can visit the gym every day, wear ridiculously tight t-shirts to show of the benefits, but it is women who are harassed from all sides in a nightclub. Just as dressing up as, say, a pink fairy for a Gay Pride march cannot be said to facilitate and excuse homophobia, dressing like a ‘slut’ cannot be said to show women’s self-imposed and perpetual victim status, nor can it excuse certain rape victims as ‘asking for it’. Of course Buckley does not suggest the latter, but he fails to address it in his piece.
Philippa
11/06/2012 at 14:39
Neither men nor women should be going around public places wearing revealing clothing, the exceptions being swimming pools/beaches etc. Just as a woman who walks along a street wearing skimpy skirts and “f&8k me” shoes will attract unwanted attention (like it or not), so it’s also unacceptable for men to be walking along same street with tight shorts on and bare chests. Neither case is justifiable or particularly appealing.
It comes down to the biology of sexual attraction at the end of the day: deal with it.
Anonymous
11/06/2012 at 16:16
What does a father or mother say to his/her son when the son enquires about the hypothetical situation of meeting a woman at a party say, both parties getting drunk and then indulging in mutually consensual sex. The woman regrets this in the morning and feels that the man may have taken advantage of her and calls him a rapist. Is he a rapist? If so, why and what to do about the mutually consensual sex the night before? Comments welcome. BTW: I have two PhDs in psychology and philosophy respectively so I have some intellect, at least I hope I do.
Alice
12/06/2012 at 16:09
Thank you Phillippa, next time a man is accused of asking for rape because he wore flip-flops and a tank top we’ll ask for your opinion.
And anonymous above, thanks for bringing up the hypothetical situation that literally never happens. That’s what this discussion needed, more divorce from women’s lived reality.
Anonymous
12/06/2012 at 18:26
I’m sorry to differ with you Alice, but I raised the “the hypothetical situation that literally never happens” issue precisely because my experience in this space dictates that it does indeed happen and is alas more prolific than one may realize. The fact that cases such as this do occur, and often, denigrates the status of genuine rape. Consequently, we are left with the vicious circle of rape gaining and regaining its present immanent status. Were it not for confidentiality restrictions, I should be delighted forward you several cases in which the above scenario occurred.
womsoc member
12/06/2012 at 23:13
Yes, sometimes laws are abused. That’s no argument for abolishing the legal system. Moreover, it is depressingly difficult to get a conviction in a rape case. Those falsely-accused rapists are well protected.
Anonymous
12/06/2012 at 23:54
yeah right, got some more “stats” for that?
womsoc member
13/06/2012 at 00:21
Your distrust of statistics explains so much. By all means, don’t let evidence cloud your beliefs.
Abe
13/06/2012 at 19:38
You sound rather mysoginistic.
Pip Pip
Eagle
13/06/2012 at 22:34
Consider a crime that is less controversial – car theft, for example. If someone steals your car, he obviously commits a crime and deserves a lengthy prison term. So if you left your car wide open on the street with the key inside and then it got stolen, would you still be the victim of a crime? Of course you would be. And would people still condemn the car thief? Yes, they would. Would they deny your “victim status”? No, they wouldn’t. Would they question that the thief had absolutely no right to steal your car, despite all the circumstances? No, they wouldn’t. On the other hand, they would definitely use offensive terms when referring to you (e.g. “moron”). That’s how people work and you simply can’t change that.
So if this situation happened, would you protest against “car theft”? Of course you wouldn’t. That would be ridiculous. There is no point in protesting against crime. Criminals don’t care about your human rights – that’s exactly what makes them criminals.
And would you protest against people calling you a moron for… well… being a moron? Of course you wouldn’t. Such a protest would only make their point.
The police officer’s statement has nothing to do with blaming the victims. It is merely an advice with a hint of common sense.
Alice
15/06/2012 at 03:09
Eagle, your analogy rests upon the premise that a woman simply living a life — because if you look at the actual statistics, what a woman wears or where she goes has little impact on her chance of being raped when it’s usually a trusted friend, husband, or family member who does the raping — is the same as leaving a car unlocked in the street. This makes you a moron. Rape is exceptional because it is not like any other crime, especially not theft, and treating it or talking about it like another type of crime is idiotic.
Eagle
15/06/2012 at 20:44
Well, I’m actually a car salesman so I think that car theft is the most horrible crime ever. And since I’m not just any kind of car salesman but a strong-and-independent modern car salesman, there is no doubt that my feelings/opinions are absolute truths that should be imposed upon the entire world. Behold the truth:
Car theft is exceptional because it is not like any other crime, especially not rape (murder, genocide, etc.), and treating it or talking about it like another type of crime is idiotic.
The feminist sense of entitlement truly knows no bounds these days.
womsoc member
15/06/2012 at 22:04
Poor example. A car salesperson would be self-interestedly in favour of car theft, since someone whose car has been stolen will likely need to buy another. Indeed, your lack of respect for the rights of others suggests that you would have no compunctions buying fenced goods, so car theft would probably be part of your business model.
Want to try again?
Eagle
16/06/2012 at 00:10
Very good point! So assume I’m an unscrupulous car salesman who is bent on buying stolen cars for cheap and then reselling them at a higher price. One day I hear in the news that people are protesting against car theft. They are marching on the street with huge banners, claiming it’s their “right” to leave their cars wide open on the street with the key inside. (Note: it’s of course their right to do so, it’s just not sensible.) What would I think? Well, obviously I would think: oh yeah!
So have you ever considered that there are people who are self-interestedly in favour of rape? For example, the people at the heads of feminist organisations who make their money from rape victims. If there were no more victims, they would become superfluous. What would be a better way of ensuring an increasing amount of income than encouraging women to make less precautions against rape? It’s their right to do so after all.
Strangely enough, the analogy works on this level as well…
And I strictly deny the accusation that I wouldn’t respect the rights of others. It’s just that I prefer personal responsibility (based on common sense) to victim mentality.
Alice
16/06/2012 at 01:38
Can we drop this fucking car metaphor? It’s just feeding Eagle’s idiocy. He obviously knows absolutely nothing about rape statistics or else he wouldn’t be using phrases like “victim mentality”. Get this, Eagle: you probably know a woman who was raped but doesn’t want to talk to you about it. Why? Because you say stupid shit like this that makes her feel like it was her fault.
Alice
16/06/2012 at 01:43
Also, wow if you actually think that rape is caused by women being encouraged to be reckless and not by, y’know, men raping women. Idiot.
Anne
20/06/2012 at 11:31
Don’t use foul language, Alice, as it reduces this debate into a slanging match as well as the tenability of your claims.
Alice
23/06/2012 at 00:18
I’ll stop using foul language when he stops using foul opinions.
nancy
02/09/2012 at 13:03
for the first time, this year (september 2012) men will be participating in the slut walk … insprirational!
Darius M.
07/09/2012 at 02:26
I have a problem with the Slut Walk because its supporters (the women marching in it) are holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time:
(1) The belief that what a woman wears does not affect her chances of being raped; that a rapist does not choose his victim based on style of clothing; that a rapist, when interviewed after the fact, does not even remember what his victim was wearing. Therefore, rapists (and possibly men in general?) are ignoring what women wear, that it doesn’t mean anything to them.
OK, fine so far. I accept that premise as being valid. But then there is:
(2) The belief that most men are misinterpreting a woman’s “slutty” outfit as an invitation to sex, when in fact it is not. And that these men need to be told things like, “My dress is not a yes,” or “My outfit is not an invitation to sex, the way you believe it is.” OK, this reveals that women believe that men ARE paying attention to the outfit, otherwise how could they form a misinterpretation of it? Too many men are coming to the wrong conclusion when they see the slutty outfit. But of course, they ARE noticing it, otherwise how could they form a wrong conclusion at all?
So, Ladies, which is it? Are men ignoring what you wear, not even paying attention to it, as in #1? Or are men giving it quite a bit of attention, as in #2?
You can’t have it both ways, and this paradoxical attitude is what bothers me about the Slut Walk in general.
Darius M.
14/09/2012 at 21:25
To Alice, who said: “Also, wow if you actually think that rape is caused by women being encouraged to be reckless and not by, y’know, men raping women.”
The statement that “rape is caused by men raping women” is circular. The phrase “men raping women” is a description of what rape is, not its cause. That’s like saying that bank robbery is caused by people robbing banks when in fact, “people robbing banks” is another description of the result, not the cause.
You could say something like, “rape is caused by a high concentration of serotonin levels in the brain of the rapist,” and I would give you a lot more credit, despite the fact that the statement is false. The statement may be false, but at least it isn’t circular.
jj
05/03/2013 at 15:24
I am very late to this as i was reading about the slut walk. This all shows how very clever you all are long words lots of quotes etc. But doent we all dress to express ourselves?
and does that expression reflec our local culture and its standards.
And how does a person attempt to attract attention firsly unless blind its visual and what does one wear to attract well thats both gender and culturally defined.
we arnt in the massai marra so we dont have the cultural dress of the men and women here but as with other cultures certain types of dress are associated with certain desires.
So yes you can dress like a slut and i would expect to be approached it is how you deal with the approaches that determines if they will be pleasantly rebuffed or unpleasantly excallated.
Its simples really take responcibility for yourselcves how you dress where you go how you behave and to what extent you loose control. Do you think men can just dress as they like behave as they like and never face adverse reactions.
pleeasse stop trying to reclaim a word no redefine a word and just grow up
Lachlan Stewart
28/05/2013 at 01:21
Gawd!
How to weigh in on this debate?
What is it that’s even being debated here? Is it that the way a woman dresses encourages rape? Is that the issue?
Apparently it does not.
And is that really the point of the article?
Isn’t it that, in Luke’s opinion:
the Slut Walk is in town, and it is here to remind you that no
matter what you achieve or how brilliant you are, you are always
a victim, and in the eyes of men, you are always a slut.
RAINN’s website displays U.S. statistics on rape from 1997 – 2005.
http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-offenders
But does the fact that the attacker is known to the victim mean that what the victim wears is a non-issue?
What place does pornography and it’s effects have in this debate? If porn films display women in revealing clothing who are absolutely overjoyed at the sight of a man’s penis and all they want to do is have sex with him, does this not portray an idea that all women are like this?
And if women dress in real life like the women dress in porn films, does this not somehow seem to create a connection in the porn viewers mind that the women in real life might actually behave in a similar fashion to the ones in the porn films?
Is there a possibility of a connection between the standards of dress in our society and the heightened sexuality of Western culture and sexual assault?
I don’t know. I’m not saying there is. But it’s a question. Is it a valid question?
I think it’s at least worth looking at it objectively, which is to say, it might actually be true.
Because we all know that rape is inexcusable. We know that. It’s a crime.
But does our society encourage rape?
Lachlan Stewart
17/06/2013 at 04:09
Great to see people still care.