Take a Walk on the Slutty Side: A sociological take on SlutWalk

In a moment of true classiness, on January 24th, 2011, a representative of the Toronto Police made a public statement that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” (1). Addressing students and staff at a campus ‘safety’ information session at Osgoode Hall at York University, where members from York security and two male officers from Toronto police 31 Division handed out safety tips to community members, one of the two officers suggested that avoiding dressing “like a slut” would lower the likelihood that a woman would be raped. In the following days Toronto police spokesperson Constable Wendy Drummond confirmed the incident, and said it has been brought to the attention of senior officials and is under investigation.

Ahem.

While the Toronto policeman’s actions were a particularly flagrant (and thus sociologically juicy) example of ‘blame the victim’ shenanigans, this type of thinking is ubiquitous throughout the public and legal discourse regarding sexual violence. Why, you ask? Victim blaming, what I term ‘victim-centric’ constructions of sexual assault, result in part from the fact that rape is a gendered act that occurs in patriarchal societies. More directly put: victim centric discourse on rape persist because rape happens to women and men in societies that continue to value masculine performances of gender, which are highly conflated with behaviors that exhibit aggression and violence. Imagine the outcry if we were to reconstruct victim-centric language with aggressor centric language, for example:

Victim-centric: “Never walk to your car by yourself after dark.”

Aggressor-centric: “Never sexually engage with a person without consent, and it’s best to not proposition someone by holding a knife to their throat in a dark parking lot.”

Victim-centric: “Never put down your drink at a party and then drink from it again.”

Aggressor-centric: “Never drug a person for the purpose of having non-consensual sex with them.”

Rape acts as a means of reinforcing hegemonic gender norms that privilege male dominance and power within American society, and the pervasive questions of victims’ behavior- and, yes, victims’ clothing- act as a means of misdirecting attention away from the larger problems: constructions of masculine identity that rest on performances of dominance and society’s undermining the human rights of the women and men (one in six of whom will be sexually assaulted over the course of their lives in the U.S.) who are victims of sexual violence.

Our ‘blame the victim’ default is expressed in countless ways, some so subtle that they disguise themselves as “risk reduction” (the official terminology of sexual assault prevention services) that aim to keep potential victims ‘safe’ by encouraging women to structure even the most mundane aspects of their lives around ‘preventing’ a possible sexual assault, severely limiting women’s’ choices on a day to day basis. These risk reduction ideas are lauded by the professionals; dressed up and handed out at ‘safety’ meetings like the ones in Toronto, proclaimed from the hallowed halls of police departments and campus sexual assault service offices as a way to reduce sexual violence. Women are inculcated with these messages from our earliest days, and internalize the messaging we receive. Our habitus is intrinsically linked to our fear of sexual violence, whether we embrace this as fear or ‘just being safe’, where we live, the time of day we leave our offices, the neighborhoods in which we choose to visit the laundry mat, and, yep… the clothes we choose to wear; all are influenced by the narrative of sexual violence our society perpetuates with victim centric constructions of rape.

Elizabeth Stanko (1990) refers to these pervasive intrusions into women’s mundane lives for the purposes of risk reduction as ‘everyday violence’. I push the envelope a bit further. A women’s buy into these risk reduction factors is symbolic violence, Pierre Bourdieu’s (2004) concept which asserts that damaging social structures (such as patriarchy) are protected and/or propagated by dominant individuals’ or institutions’ efforts to ensure that the arbitrariness of social order is viewed as natural, which justifies the legitimacy of social structures. “The dominated apply categories constructed from the point of the dominant to the relations of domination, thus making them appear as natural.” (Bourdieu 2004: 339) Relevant to our meditative musings here, symbolic violence operates by positing victim-centric constructions of sexual assault prevention as normal.

Even with all of the subtle priming we receive to think of rape as partially preventable through actions of potential victims, it’s hard not be incensed by the Toronto policeman’s comments as they cross the boundary from tacit to overt victim blaming. Victim centric constructions are able to slide by because they operate as some of what Bourdieu terms, “the profoundly buried structures which constitute the social universe, as well as the ‘mechanisms’ which tend to ensure their reproduction or their transformation,” (1992: 7). Victim centric constructions quietly reinforce and reproduce hegemonic constructions of patriarchy, but when they become ‘unburied’ through overt comments like our police friend’s, the roots of those structures become exposed and the ‘sluts’- err, I mean, the folks being excluded from the dominant through symbolic violence- can’t help but take notice.

So, what’s a pissed off ‘slut’ to do? Pull out those hooker boots ladies, it’s time to get uppity! (2)

In direct response to the comments made at Troy, some genius feminists in Toronto decided to take to the streets, lady of the night style. SlutWalkToronto started “to make a unified statement about sexual assault and victims’ rights and to demand respect for all,” with a stated mission of “spreading the word that those who experience sexual assault are not the ones at fault, without exception.” (3) The group held a scantily clad march to proclaim that consent cannot be ascertained from what’s on one’s ass.

The march has sparked over dozens of similar protests across the globe- New Zealand to North Carolina, the sluts are comin’ out swinging. (4) The movement is thumbing its nose at what Helen Benedict (1992) termed the “virgin or vamp” dichotomy in sex crime reporting, which insists that a rape victim is only really a rape victim if her clothes, behavior and demeanor were not ‘asking for it’, and, according to the mother ship SlutWalkToronoto group’s webpage, “re-appropriating the word slut”. According to the website, “being assaulted isn’t about what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to rationalize inexcusable behavior creates an environment in which it’s okay to blame the victim.”

Their argument echoes the voices of academics researching intersections of sexual violence and power for the past four decades. In the 1970s feminist scholars began to put forth theories that rape is not motivated by sex, love, or lust, but is rather “a political act of violence and domination, squarely in the patriarchal traditions and sexist socialization patterns of American society” (Palmer 1988: 513; See also: Millet 1971; Griffin 1971; Greer, 1970; 1973). That rape was “not sex” (Groth, 1979a, 1979b; Groth & Birmbaum, 1978; Groth & Burgess, 1977a, 1977b; Groth, Burgess & Holmstrom, 1977; Groth & Hobson, 1983; Groth, Hobson & Gary, 1982) but rather a “political act that indicated nothing about male sexuality” (Symons 1979: 104) became a central starting point for feminist theories on sexual violence and social power (Sanders 1980: 22).

Despite their being such widespread scholarly consensus that rape has nothing to do with sex, lust, or hemlines, we’re still a long way from reaching a point where comments like the Toronto policemen’s are relics of past dark ages. It’s a long journey, but, like all great travels, one that can begin with a single step…in stilettos, nonetheless.

Strap on your Manolos, folks, we’ve got a long way to go. (5)

Linked Content:

1. http://www.excal.on.ca/news/dont-dress-like-a-slut-toronto-cop/

2. http://samanthaonstyle.blogspot.com/2009/02/politics-of-hooker-boots.html

3. http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/

4. http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/satellite

5. http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/steep-and-to-the-point

Works Cited:

Benedict, Helen. 1992. Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 2004. “Gender and Symbolic Violence.” Pp. 339-342 in Violence in war and peace: An anthology, edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Greer, Germaine. 1971. The Female Eunuch. 1st ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Groth, Nicholas. 1979. Men Who Rape. New York, NY: Plenum Press.

Groth, N. A., & Burgess, A. W. 1977b. Motivational intent in the sexual assault of children. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 4, 253-264.

Groth, N. A., Burgess, A. W., & Holstrom, L. L. 1977. Rape: Power, anger, and sexuality. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154(11), 1239-1243.

Groth, N. A., & Hobson, W. 1983. The dynamics of sexual thought. In L. Schlesinger & E. Revitch, Eds., Sexual dynamics of anti-social behavior. pp. 129-144. Spring-field, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publishing.

Groth, N. A., Hobson, W., & Gary, T. 1982. The child molester: Clinical observations. In J. Conte & D. Shore (Eds.), Social work and child sexual abuse (pp. 129-144). New York: Haworth.

Greer, G. 1973. Seduction is a four-letter word. Playboy, 20, 80-82, 164, 178, 224-228.

Griffin, S. 1971. Rape: The all-American crime. Ramparts, 10, 26-36.

Palmer, Craig T. 1988. “Twelve Reasons Why Rape Is Not Sexually Motivated: A Skeptical Examination.” The Journal of Sex Research 25(4):512-530.

Sanders, W. B. 1980. Rape and women’s identity. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Stanko, Elizabeth Anne. 1990. Everyday Violence: How Women and Men Experience Sexual and Physical Danger. London : Winchester, Mass: Pandora ; Unwin Hyman.

SlutWalkToronto Home Page. 2011. Toronto, Canada: Retrieved September 28, 2011. (http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/)

Symons, Donald. 1979. The Evolution of Human Sexuality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.