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May 9, 2012 • 29 mins

SlutWalks have drawn a lot of attention -- but what are they? What is the etymology of "slut," and should women reclaim it? Join Cristen and Caroline as they explore the history of SlutWalk activism, along with controversy surrounding the movement.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline And on May

(00:21):
two thousand twelve, the second annual slut Walk Toronto is
taking place, and we're talking about slut walks, and for
I guess warning for those about to listen to the
rest of this podcast, Caroline and I are going to
be throwing around this the word slut willie nilly um.

(00:45):
But we wanted to talk about this SlutWalk Toronto because
it is where a feminist activist movement started last spring, right,
and it was sparked by Mom. It's from a police officer.
If you're familiar at all with a slot walk, you've
probably read the story in the news about it. But

(01:07):
a police officer told students at York University in January
of last year that women should not dress like slots
if they want to avoid getting sexually attacked, which is
so off base. I mean, I don't know if you could, uh,
if there is another way to say, hey, ladies, don't
ask for it. That brings up issues of victim shaming,

(01:28):
slut shaming as it is often called, and more feminist parlance.
Uh So, the some of the students in the audience
listening to this questionable and sexist advice from this police officer,
Michael Michael Sanguinetti, decided to take action and organize UM
an event to to march and combat this notion that

(01:53):
women should not feel safe if they want to wear
more provocative of or revealing clothing, with the argument that
women should be safe to walk around and go places
without the threat of sexual violence or rape, um no
matter what they're what they're wearing. Right. I was actually

(02:14):
telling my roommate about this topic and about what the
police officer said, and that the movement was about too,
was about making women feel comfortable, being able to be
outside in public and not feel like I'm wearing skirts
so I'm gonna get attacked. And he brought up a
point that a lot of people have used to criticize
this movement, and he said, well, sure, no woman shouldn't

(02:37):
be raped for what she's wearing, but shouldn't you know better? Ah,
but see someone like Heather Jarvis, who co founded slit
Walk UM and it's also a survivor of sexual assault
would say that that's probably just an extension of the
you're asking for it argument. But before we get any further, UM,

(02:59):
I think it's already clear that slut walks and UM
the the idea behind it is controversial, and while there
is a lot to be said for them, the activism
that these women in Toronto sparked because sloot Walks ended
up in two thousand eleven taking place in over two

(03:20):
cities around the world, including the US, Canada, Sweden, South Africa, India. UM.
So it's incredible that they've they've had this organizing power,
but the way that it has manifested in what they're
championing has also attracted controversy, not just from people like

(03:40):
the police officer who thinks that women should cover up UM,
but also from within feminist circles right. One person who
supports the movement is Jessica Valenti. She's an author and
founder of feministing dot com, and she wrote for The
Washington Post that this whole movement is a good thing
and that it is a reminder of the minism's grassroots

(04:01):
passed and it heralds a new day in feminist organizing.
She points out that maybe this movement is going to
be more effective with younger women than with the well
funded and well established feminist organizations. Yeah, and we should
also point out that in addition to these marches that
slot Walk has been organizing UM, Heather Jarvis and other

(04:21):
co organizers have demanded that UM police training and education
include non discriminatory language, increased understanding of experiences of marginalization
and oppression, and practices and protocols that support support victims
and survivors. So in addition to demonstrating, they also have
these UM platforms for applicable change within UM. I guess

(04:46):
in this situation, the York University Police system, right, And
they posted on their website, Uh, they're basically what they
were requesting from the police department after this event, and
they said that they really didn't get much of a response.
The response that they got back from one of the
pr people in the police department was sort of a
generic like, you know, we really strive to protect our
citizens and we want to be seen as you know,

(05:08):
helping everybody. But Jarvis and others involved in this movement
are arguing, you're not protecting us and you're not respecting
us either. We don't feel safe going to you if
you're just going to tell us that it was our
fault because we wore a little dress. And beyond just
the law enforcement community, the message that slut Walk wants
to deliver to the community at large is that quote

(05:30):
our worth as human beings is not determined by our sexuality.
And that's just one nugget of almost a constitutional preamble
of slut Walk that these women have developed. But I
feel like that idea of your worth um not being
conflated by your sexuality, um is really gets the heart

(05:50):
of what slut Walk is about. And in places like
New Delhi that held a slut walk last year, there
there is a really um it is. It is pretty
impressive that an event like this is taking place. Yeah,
they did change the name. There was an article in
Time magazine about the march in New Delhi and they

(06:11):
basically pointed out that it was toned down just because
of cultural differences. Essentially, they changed the name from slot
Walk to Shameless Front and they you know, there was
not really much of that skimpy clothing going around um
But the goal was the same, and it was to
draw attention to the growing problems of harassment and violence
that women in India face. They point on the article
that rape cases in the country have grown six seventy

(06:34):
eight percent over the past thirty years. They do attribute
some of the change to the fact that you know,
more people are probably reporting the violence, but they attribute
some of it also to the fact that there are
more women out of the house and getting jobs. The
economy is such that more women are becoming financially independent,
and so there's sort of an upset of the traditional

(06:54):
cultural division. Yeah. So whereas in UM more of the
western world, we might take for granted UH safety when
we're going to and from our jobs or from our
homes to other excursions, UM. Whereas in more gender segregated
societies UM, there are direct threats of violence for for

(07:19):
women leaving the home. UM. And we mentioned that there
were none of the skimpy clothes in the New Delhi
march UM. But that reminds me that we haven't really
painted a picture of what a slut walk might look
like in case listeners have not seen photos of it.
That's true largely young women, although they do there are

(07:39):
some men that marched with them and a lot of
them are wearing bras and underwear. Yeah, the point is
to wear whatever you're comfortable with. But also, you know,
there's clearly the provocative nature of it, saying, hey, women
should be able to wear bras, panties, corsets, cut off shorts,

(08:00):
whatever they want and still feel safe. So you'll see,
you know, a lot of images of the women in
bras and also men in lingerie as well. But then
you'll also have put folks in sweatpants. You don't have
to wear. It's just sort of the march is providing
a safe space, like, look at us, We're wearing what

(08:20):
we're comfortable in. We're banding together in a safe space
where we will not be attacked. And as a result,
probably because of that provocative nature UM and because of
using the word slut to get people's attention and to
organize people UM, the movement attracted a ton of media attention.

(08:42):
And now going into two thousand twelve, we're seeing the
second year UM and it'll be interesting to see how
it um, how it continues, whether or not it has
the same amount of participation as it did last year,
which is partially why I wanted to to talk about it.
On the podcast also because we've had some some listeners
writing and requesting an episode on it, and we also

(09:06):
have to talk about the fact that not everybody thinks
this is a great idea. No uh, not only because
of the word slut, not only because of the way
people are dressing, but how this march, this movement fits
into larger cultural norms in our society. And Valenti, who
we mentioned earlier, cites Gail Dines, who's an anti pornography activist,

(09:28):
and Wendy Murphy, who's a victim's rights advocate, who say
that organizers are playing into the patriarchal hands and embracing
a quote portified consumer sexuality by protesting with their skimpy outfits.
So they're saying, you're still inside, You're protesting from within,
You're still inside the whole patriarchal system of of wearing

(09:48):
skimpy things. We're still we're still looking at ourselves through
the eyes of other people. Right. It's the question of
UM using the usefulness of using sexual ay as a
tool of empowerment, which may as these Writing for the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, UM writes about in a column she's

(10:09):
taking issue with the attitude that sexuality is power and
that this movement is about letting women freely identify as sluts, because, um,
the whole ethos of slut Walk, in their own words,
is that our worth as human beings is not determined
by our sexuality. And people like Zes might argue that, well,

(10:29):
isn't what you're doing simply wielding your sexuality as some
kind of tool thereby, you know, defining yourself based on
your dress and how you perform in the bedroom. Yeah,
and this whole issue of claiming or reclaiming the word
slut is making a lot of people angry, understandably, and

(10:52):
as these says that because Jarvis, Heather Jarvis, one of
the co founders, argues that reclaiming lout is like reclaiming queer,
and Assease is claiming that it's it's not the same,
And because she says that slut can't be turned into
a positive thing because it's been used to abuse people
for so long, and she said that we should really

(11:14):
be reclaiming feminist instead of slut because that's the word
that people are so afraid to use. Yeah, this this
question of how feminism directly relates to slut Walk has
come up a lot as well, because, um, some of
the the organizers have distance themselves from that feminist language,
which is kind of ironic because if you could pick

(11:35):
two words in the English language that are polarizing, I mean,
you can't get much more polarizing than slut and feminist. Um,
if you want to uh to describe women uh. And
Megan Murphy over the F word blog Rights, I was
hard pressed to find anyone actually talking about feminism. And
she's uncomfortable with slut being used as a way to

(11:55):
empower women since it's a word, like you said, Caroline,
that has been used systematically to hurt and shame women.
And is it the right argument? Are we arguing the
right thing? Because I understand that the slut walk as
it's called, is in direct response to the police officer
in Toronto his use of that word, But is it

(12:17):
the same for everyone? Are we still arguing the right thing?
And Tracy Clark Floory at Salon writes that she is
tired of the polarizing rhetoric that people are calling you
either a prude or a slut, that there's no in between,
that you can't be a prude, slut or you know,
that that you have to identify as one or the other,
almost right, because if you if we're reclaiming the words

(12:37):
slut to mean an empowered woman who is UM safe
in her identity and um can be outspoken and independent
in all of these all of these positive attributes, then
what is the opposite of that? Does that mean that
people who might typicvise more prudish, who might not be

(13:02):
so comfortable revealing a lot of a lot of flesh. Yeah,
I mean there were a lot of columnists who write
about this who said, when I read about slot walk,
I was totally on board with the message, the idea
behind it. I supported these women, but I don't want
to call myself a slot there. It's it's loaded. It's
a loaded word, obviously. But some of the most vocal
opposition to slut walk has actually come from the black

(13:25):
feminist community that says, hey, slut walk, we get what
you're trying to do and the gold ultimate goal of it.
Totally on board with that, but we we don't see
ourselves anywhere in this movement represented in this movement at all. Right.
That was a statement in an open letter from black

(13:45):
women to the slut Walk on Black Women's Blueprint dot
org and they said that we find no space and
slot walk slut has different associations for Black women. And
they write that as black women, we do not have
the privilege or the space to call ourselves slut without
vale validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages
about what and who the black woman is. And so

(14:07):
they point out that different people's histories really require a
different strategy to combat this violence against women. Right and Um,
a writer over at the Crunk Feminist Collective UM who
describes herself as a Black woman of the hip hop generation,
UM takes issue with the fact that um, the origin
of slut walk felt very much like the protests of

(14:30):
privileged white girls who still have an expectation that the
world will treat them with dignity and respect. Whereas she writes, uh,
and I'm again directly quoting from her, Black women have
always been understood to be lascibious, hyper sex and always
ready and willing, whereas, by comparison, this idea of slut

(14:52):
walk in coming up in two thousand eleven is somehow
something new and offensive. Yes, so they're basically saying, why
what a woman of color, who has been abused with
that word for so long want to reclaim it, Like,
how can we turn that into something positive? Like these
marchers are saying that we can. And at some point
it probably does sound like this, this controversy around slut

(15:17):
Walk and the idea of reclaiming the words slut and
street harassment and sexual assault boils into this, Uh you know,
all of this in fighting in the feminist blogosphere, but
I still feel like it's important to talk about because
like it or not, whether you're on board with it
or not, slut Walk nevertheless does represent one of the largest,

(15:43):
you know, almost mainstream feminist activism movements. Yeah, that we've
seen that I've seen at least in my lifetime. I mean,
we've seen like marches, Women's March on the Capitol, but
but it's one singular event going to one singular place.
Whereas this is sparked, it's almost like the Occupy movement.
It's march all over these these different cities in a

(16:04):
very grassroots kind of way. And I think that it
said because it's led by women of our generation, I
think it says a lot about um body politics where
we are with the idea of feminism and where the
personal and the political meet, and a lot of times
that that sadly does I think, sadly unfortunately only ties

(16:26):
into the bedroom like sexuality, using sexuality as empowerment. Well,
we could also ask where they're going to take this.
Is this going to stay a march that happens in
individual cities, or is this going to become a movement.
Is it going to help educate young women about their bodies,
about sexual identity, sexual safety, anything like that, Like what

(16:48):
what is the next step for the slot walk is it?
Is it going to stay the way it is or
is it going to evolve? And and on that, on that, No,
Caroline Um just to bring up one more point about
this controversy over um inclusiveness racial inclusiveness in slut Walk.
Robin Given, who's a fashion critic for The Daily Beast
and Newsweek, says that because of the potential of that

(17:12):
end goal UM, she says, the reverse is also possible.
It would seem to me that black women might have
an even more powerful reason to want to diffuse the
power of the word slut. So it's kind of moving
away from this UM, I guess, more intensive examination and
looking at the potential long view of how how it

(17:35):
could affect women. But but still there is this question
of whether or not it is that useful to reclaim slut.
And for that reason, I want to get to the
bottom of where slut even came from. So can you
can you tell me what Smith, Caroline? Um, Yeah, it's
pretty old. Slut is pretty old. Uh. This is from

(17:58):
a Live Science post that popped up after the whole
Rush Limbaugh birth control slut debacle. Um. They write that
the word slut first showed up in print when Chaucer
wrote in the fourteenth century that a sloppy male character
was sluttish, So right away the word is associated with
people who are kind of dirty. By the fifteenth century,

(18:21):
the word was being used to describe kitchen maids and sloppy,
dirty women. So it took barely a hundred years for
the application to switch really from men to women. And
it has that low class, low economic class association. Um.
And just to emphasize that old year old terms for um, uh,

(18:47):
dust bunnies, slut bunnies, and garbage bins were referred to
as sluts holes. So when we're talking about when we're
throwing around the word slut. It is not a nice word.
It really is not. Now they Chaucer did not mean
that that guy had a great, great character or personality, right.
And we've mentioned Tracy Clark Floury from Salon before talking

(19:11):
about how she was fed up with the dichotomy of
slut versus prude. But then afterwards, once the whole rush
lim boss slet fiasco happened, she wrote another column saying,
you know what, I was on board with claiming this
word until that happened. And she goes on to quotely
or A. Tannenbaum, who is the author of Slut Growing

(19:33):
Up with a bad reputation. She says, the slur is
used frequently by girls against other girls, and it's a
way for women to displace anxiety about their own sexuality.
And I I can kind of see where I feel from. Yeah,
for sure. I mean I feel like that word was
I was not even comfortable with that in college culture.
I feel like that was thrown around a lot, like, hey, slut,

(19:53):
what's up that I don't I didn't like it then,
I don't like it now. Um. But Clark Flory does
point out that reclaiming or rejecting flot is personal and
it does depend on context. So it might be comfortable
for some people to call their friends that for whatever reason,
or to identify that because of some sexual identity, but
it's not the same for everyone. I'm not going to

(20:16):
start calling you slut anytime soon as a thank you
as a fun galpal name, Caroline. No, not unless you
want to get in a slap fight, that's for sure. Um.
Clark Floury also quotes Bikini Kills Kathleen Hannah, who performed
on stage with the word written on her stomach, and
she she quoted Hannah who said that this whole displaying
the words so prominently on her body in large letters

(20:39):
would be like holding up a mirror to the men
who were already looking at her picture and thinking that,
So like, oh you think I'm a slot up here
on stage, we'll here you go here. Yeah, yeah, have fun,
have fun. I've already called myself one, so when you know,
you try to label me as one, it's just gonna
be pointless because I've already done it. Um. But really,
as Clark Floury emphasis sizes, the difficulty of reclaiming slut

(21:03):
is that it's so divisive, and it is so hard
to define. It is used by some some people as
a casual what's up, this is funny, you're hay hay
slut hat you don't see contend? Take that paper to
the slut soule, Actually do No one ever says that. No,
no one ever does. Whereas for other people, it is

(21:24):
used as a slur to say to to point out,
um a woman in particular who may have slept with
someone who was not her betrothed or One columnist pointed out,
and I mean, I feel like this is common knowledge
and a lot of women have experienced this. But you
can be called a slut for anything, if you if
you have sex with someone, if you don't have sex

(21:47):
with a particular someone, if you wear something that is
too short in someone's mind. So it can be used
to abuse all sorts of women and men and man.
That's true. For instance, author Alice Walker takes a more
positive view of the words slut. She said that I
always understood slut to mean a woman who freely enjoys

(22:08):
her own sexuality. The spontaneous movement that has grown around
reclaiming this word speaks to women's resistance of having names
turned into weapons against them, which I mean, I think
that's not a bad idea. Absolutely you should try to
um declaw things that are used to abuse you. But

(22:29):
I just don't. I don't know if I I support
the idea, I don't support the word um. And you know,
I asked earlier where you think this is going, how
you think it will evolve, and Anita Sarkasian over at
Feminist Frequencies said that, yes, the word has garnered a
lot of attention for the movement, but she points out

(22:49):
that attention is not typically about violence against women at all,
but instead about how women should or shouldn't dress, which
is a completely regressive conversation that does not help anti
violent activism. So people are talking about their clothes, they're
marching in their bras. They're saying, rightfully, so I should
be safe and whatever I wear. But should the attention
evolve beyond that? Yeah, I mean that's my big question

(23:13):
of whether or not it is affecting the cultural change
necessary to make women safe not only just on the streets,
but also in situations like acquaintance rape, which is the
most common form of sexual assault for women on college
campuses where this whole thing began. How are are these parades,

(23:34):
Are these marches, Are these you know, these these online
and grassroots movements really getting into people's brains beyond just
the feminist blogosphere and the people who are marching in
their bras or in sweatpants. Um. And that's something that uh,
and that's something that Sela Misha Tillott, writing for The

(23:54):
Nation says, um, in order for it to be more
than a passing fat, it has to become a healthy
marriage of substance and spectacle, a movement that builds on
the anti rape activism of black women. And that's the thing.
Slt WALK did a great job with a spectacle. They
got attention not just within feminist circles, not just within
college groups, but beyond into mainstream media organizations, and that

(24:19):
is incredible. But you've got to have a substance there
as well, and I think that will be a crucial
year for them to do that and see whether or
not they will have made progress beyond um making signs
and uh wearing garter belts exactly. So we applaud, we

(24:39):
applaud with the the ethos behind slt WALK, But I
think that there is a reason why it's controversial, and
I think that It's good that these kind of debates
have come up because I think that um that that
we should re examine our motivations for it and how
we can really make the streets safe, because that's something
that I'm not and to argue against at all. So

(25:03):
I think that's all we gonna say about slot walk. Yeah,
now let's hear from you. Are you offended by the word?
Do you identify with the word? Have you participated in
a slot walk? Let us know, mom. Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can send your emails. And
speaking of safety, We've got a couple of emails here
in response to our episode on potty politics. This is

(25:27):
coming from Carly, who writes as a gender nonconforming person
who is constantly confronted with many issues brought up. I
thought I should write in I happen to be a tall, female,
bodied person with short hair who wears very gender neutral clothing. Well,
I could probably pass well enough to use the men's room.
I always choose to use the women's room, even if
there is a line. Every time the need comes up,

(25:48):
I consider my options. Sometimes my thought is I'm technically female,
so I should stick with the people I know I'm
technically allowed, but more often my thought is any has
to let receive in the women's room will be verbal
and probably not physical, whereas the men's room is an
unknown quantity and taskble is exactly what I get for
all of my efforts and consideration. About a third of
the time I'm confronted by other women, sometimes just in

(26:10):
surprise or confusion, sometimes and downright anger at my trespassing
on a woman's only space, And each time I politely
explained that I am actually female. To this, I receive
everything from pure embarrassment and apologies to continued hostility. And
another third of the time I get stairs whispers behind
my back or women pulling their children closer to them.

(26:31):
To these, I usually try to smile, politely, avoid eye contact,
and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
The last third I think the baby Jesus that I
ended up in the bathroom alone. Most of the time,
I try to avoid using public restrooms at all cost.
When it is unavoidable, I try to be as quick
and unobtrusive as possible. Most of the time, the stairs
and comments are minor but constant annoyance. Occasionally, however, I

(26:55):
end up in situations where I definitely feel like my
appearance is putting me in actual danger, all for the
sin of breaking the illusion of a meaningful dichotomy between
sexes in this apparently sacred place. Occasionally, however, I end
up in situations where I definitely feel like my appearance
is putting me in actual danger, all for the sin
of breaking the illusion of a meaningful dichotomy between sexes

(27:16):
in this apparently sacred place. I've been thinking about this
a lot more since I've recently moved to the South
from California to go to grad school and have been
introduced to the whole new level of anxiety that is
a small town gas station. I think it might be
time to just pull on a trucker hat, venture to
the men's room and hope for the best. This email
is from Jesse, also about our bathroom podcast. She said,

(27:38):
I'm a lesbian woman more on the butch side. I
can't remember a time when I wasn't a tomboy, and
I've had multiple instances in my life where I've been
in the women's bathroom and another woman will come in,
look me up and down and give me a questionable look.
One time, the woman actually walked out to make sure
she didn't make a mistake. I've actually gotten scolded once
or twice for being in the wrong bathroom, which is
pretty degrading when you're a woman and know the symbol

(27:59):
for women's room, I know a bathroom i'mn I have
actually had to give my best modeling post that shows
off my boobs to get out of the situation. I
personally think that unisex bathrooms are the way to go.
Not only do they allow for potentially shorter lines, but
they also prevent embarrassing or otherwise ostracizing situations that can
potentially be damaging to someone's self esteem, especially if you
don't look like the stereotypical woman or man. Having gendered

(28:22):
bathrooms just adds more separation and definitions in a world
that is already full of them, which inevitably leads to
stereotypes and judgments. If I always had a unisex bathroom
to go into, there would never be any questions, comments,
or looks, and I would always be able to pee
in peace. Thanks Jesse, and thanks to Carl as well
and everyone else who has written in mom stuff. A
Discovery dot Com is where you can send your letters.

(28:45):
You can also find us on Facebook and follow us
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And if you'd like
to see it or up to during the week, you
should have head over to our website, it's how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brought to

(29:09):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camri. It's ready,
are you

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