I keep waiting for some kind of clarity to post, but I don't think it's going to come running around in circles in my own head. So I'm just going to throw out some of the thoughts I've had and see if that focuses anything for me.
There seems to be little in the literature indicating that provocative clothing is a significant factor in sexual assault taken as a whole, but there is some indication that it may be at least a co-factor in some smaller percentage of incidents, particularly some percentage of date rate or withdrawal of consent scenarios. That's the assumption I'm going to operate on anyway.
So I think it's probably true that there are some small subset of victims that would not have been victims had they made different choices, one of which was their clothing. But I also think there are a number of law abiding black or hispanic men who wouldn't have been pulled over by the police had they purchased old wrecks rather than vehicles that caucasian men drive without incident everyday. So simply noting that some superficial factor contributes to a result does not alone indicate where the burden of mitigating that factor lies. A community worker educating a group of young black men would never say "I think we're beating around the bush here. I've been told I'm not supposed to say this, but if you want to avoid being victimized by the police, don't buy a nice car after graduation." The uproar would be swift and unanimous. We know racial and slut profiling (for want of a better term) happens, and few think that any unjust consequences are deserved, but where we manage the first through vigilant promotion of education, tolerance and sensitivity aimed at the 'offenders' and society as a whole, perfectly thoughtful rational people have said - and by the bushel - that the burden is on the woman to mitigate this risk by better covering her body. I am not at all sure that's right. We also have the option of vigilance in this case, the option of constant pressure to erode the passive social blessing of a fatalistic connection between appearance and notions of consent and incitement.
queenUSA wrote:
Sorry that this was off the topic of slut dress but someone earlier stated the good advice to minimize risk and that goes for both male and female.
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That was a sad story. I know exactly how you feel about violent incidents happening to visitors. In Canada there was recently a case of Chinese student being murdered while studying in Toronto. The case received a lot of attention because her boyfriend in China witnessed part of the attack during a webcam conversation with her. You feel a great sadness that the wrong place in the 'wrong place wrong time' was your own country, and great sadness in the irony of violent death far away from home in pursuit of new experience and personal enrichment. They put their hopes and trust in your country and it let them down in the worst way possible.
Anyway, in relation to this topic I don't think women generally resent advice to avoid dangerous or unfamiliar places late at night. I think some women resent the implication that they themselves create dangerous places with their own bodies.
Zebonka12 wrote:
I think there are important and valid points to be made by this recent thread of activism, but again I really worry that it might fly over some folks heads, because of the terminology used. Gay events are called pride parades, not faggot marches. African American events usually don't have the prefix of 'jigaboo' in the title. Using the word 'slut' will get attention, but I can't help wonder at the possible trivialisation it might cause -in the minds of some-. I hope I'm worrying over nothing, on that point.
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As a focus and marketing device "SlutWalk" is strikingly brilliant. It's got to be a hugely significant reason for the global spread of the movement. I do I think as well that there is a genuine need to consider and debate the very specific meme the cop elected to highlight, and retaining the word 'Slut' facilitates that. There are literally thousands of conversations like the one we're having here going on all over the internet and in homes and at workplaces that I'm almost sure wouldn't be going on otherwise. Few are indifferent which breeds lively exchanges and means that no mainstream opinion piece on any side of the issue goes unchallenged in the commentary. Everybody paying attention is getting thoroughly exposed to thoughts on all sides, and I think that's great. Sure, some are just going to think it's absurd that people want to call themselves proud sluts or whatever and just tune out or actively resist all parts of the message, but I think far more find themselves thinking and arguing about something that simply wasn't on their radar at all a month ago.
The motivation of the founding members is to reclaim the word slut on the principle that women have suffered disproportionately under it's yoke. That's true enough - see Joxer's post about the men's clothing line. Outside of porn, no woman can go out in a t-shirt emblazoned with the word 'SLUT' across the chest. But really, so what. It is a double standard, but I could get more passionate about this angle if I didn't think it was obnoxiously obvious how much worse men have it than women now in sex and gender politics. Women can get away with far, far more on almost every front. Women can do and say things absolutely without consequence that would get a man labelled a pervert or a cad in a heartbeat. If accusations of criminal or social sexual impropriety are made towards a man there is a strong propensity to automatically assume guilt. Women freely joke about violence towards men and sometimes freely commit it without consequence. I can't count how many loathsome joke emails I get that endlessly belittle and diminish men in the guise of humour in ways that would never, never be socially acceptable in the reverse. A colleague came into my office the other day and plunked herself down in a chair and out of the blue started talking about some kind of creature that reproduced asexually and said with absolute seriousness that it's too bad we needed men to reproduce because otherwise we could just be done with them. And she just married her second husband not even a year ago. I was kind of stunned and definitely annoyed. At what point does feminism run a little amok become culturally acceptable misandry? Personally I think we're past that point and while I'm not sure what the real consequences are it still makes me really uncomfortable.
I think that value of the 'Slut' in "SlutWalk' is in saying that even if you think somebody is a slut, whatever that means to you, there is a fundamental line you do not cross, a fundamental degree of respect that the slut deserves as a human being that means you cannot take her body through force or coercion without facing legal consequences, period.
catqueen wrote: Interesting article... and he has a point that rape is generally more about power then about sex. In general its a bit strong, i don't believe (as before) that the victim is at fault. Having said that, the thought crossed my mind that how would we view a straight man, drunk, but very well dressed and manicured and somehow being provocative, walking through a semi-rough gay area on his own, in the dark, without knowing the area. :/ There are places in cities where it is safer to simply avoid the place. It should not be so, but unfortunately we live in a broken world. I had a teacher once who worked in a hostel for homeless men, and she mentioned that in her years of working (mainly with men, mainly in difficult settings), she had never once been hurt. She said that women in men's centres rarely get attacked as in hit, but that there can be issues around innapropriate touch. Her take on it was that it has a lot to do with the way you carry yourself. Dress decently, and be confident, and don't come across as provocative (she was really pretty, and quite young, incidently). Another person I heard speak worked in a drug rehab service, and mentioned that dress isn't really an issue, there are some barbies working in the service, just be careful how you handle yourself. And as zebonka said, a lot of people are raped/assaulted who have not dressed or acted in the least provocative way, and most rape victims know their rapist.
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I think he was saying that rape being more about power than sex was largely a feminist delusion rather than supporting that idea. Personally I think like any other crime sexual assault probably has various motives, sometimes overlapping, depending on the situation.
I think you could put the same set of clothes on two different women and still have two completely different people project completely different 'victim' signals making them about as likely as before to land in the kind of potential trouble you're describing in those workplaces, or anywhere else. As you've noted, clothes are only a part of it. I'd argue a pretty small part of it if we're limiting this to becoming a victim, or not.
Note to Mr. IMF: There's a SlutWalk scheduled in New York City on August 20. If you're free. Like free-free. Probably can't hurt. Just sayin'. ;)
