"Slut Walk"

I want many things for my stepdaughter. I want her to grow up happy, healthy, and possessed of a generous social conscience. I want her to love and be loved. I want her to be a critical thinker about the world she lives in.

There are also many things I don't want for my stepdaughter. I don't want her to grow up with prejudice and discrimination towards other people's ethnicities, sexual tendencies, or otherwise. I don't want her to experience violence or the threat of violence at anyone's hands. If (please, please, no) she does experience something like that, I don't want her to believe that she is at fault.

I don't want her to ever be called a "slut."

In January of this year, Toronto Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti told a group of York University security students that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." 

A media frenzy ensued, and SlutWalk Toronto (with offshoot walks scheduled in other cities) was born. The purpose of SlutWalk is to protest the labelling of women based on a perceived promiscuity, to reappropriate a term that has almost always been used perjoratively, and to take aim at the very ridiculous notion that it's ever ok to blame the victim, or to suggest that what someone is wearing is "an invitation" or "a contributing factor" to a rape.

Some will argue that a woman's choice to wear provocative clothing, to act in a flirtatious manner, to wear said clothing and act in said manner while walking down a street at night suggests that the woman took a risk that she should have been aware of. That, when selecting her clothing, she should consider the risk that her choices involve: ie. that choosing to wear, say, a low-cut top or a short skirt heighten your risk of being the victim of sexual violence. That this is a bad choice, akin to walking down a dark alley at midnight in an area known for gang-related violence.

I call bullshit.

I call bullshit because rape is not about sex. It's about power. It's not about a man desiring a woman (I recognize that women are not the only rape victims and that men are not only ever victimizers) because he finds her physically attractive and deciding to have her, whether she wants him or not, because he cannot control his physical desire for her. It's about someone wanting to have power over someone. It's about preying on someone the vicitimizer perceives as vulnerable. More often than not, it's someone the victim knows, out of the view of the public, and by someone they know and trust. Sex is not the "purpose" of rape; it's the means by which the victimizer feels in-control.

So, I'm just one person talking. Someone who, thankfully, has never experienced sexual violence. Here are some statistics to back this up here. I get a bit "quoty" (new word!) at this point, but this is solid, reliable information that I found in the most basic of Google searches. A search on John Hamlin, the Sociology Professor who authored the University of Minnesota information that I cite, turns up his CV, which shows him to be a published and accomplished expert in criminology and the sociology of rape. People sometimes tune out when stats start flowing. Please don't. Analyzing the things that a woman did "wrong" that "resulted" in her rape constitutes victim-blaming. Non-consensual sex is non-consensual sex. Full stop. End of story. I don't believe that her clothing choices are fair game for the media.

According to the University of Minnesota, 71% of rapes are planned in advance, and 60% of rapists already have sexual partners. They go on to note that, "The vast majority of rapists are motivated by power, anger, and control, not sexual gratification." It will often occur in someone's home or dormitory, and often by someone they know.

The Sexual Assault and Anti Violence Information Office at the University of Utah backs up these claims, noting that 43% of sexual crimes occur in the victim's home. More importantly, many rapists, they note, cannot even recall what their victims were wearing.

They write, "A Federal Commission on Crime of Violence Study found that only 4.4% of all reported
rapes involved provocative behavior on the part of the victim. In murder cases 22%
involved such behavior (as simple as a glance)." If a "glance" is considered by a would-be rapist or murderer to be "provocative," we're all in trouble. Eyes at floor, folks, eyes at the floor, or you're "asking for it."

Citing a rape study by the FBI, Hamlin further argues, "Research data clearly proves that a way a woman dresses and / or acts does not influence the rapists choice of victims. His decision to rape is based on how easily he perceives his target can be intimidated. Rapists are looking for available and vulnerable targets." 

These are not random individuals providing anecdotal evidence. The University of Minnesota, in particular, identifies where much of its information comes from: The FBI, The National Crime Survey, The National Victim Center, Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, and The Orange County Rape Crisis Center.

This line of discussion gets me angry and emotional. The statistics are there. They are backed up by evidence that has been repeated, over and over. Why, then, do we persist in saying that women need to dress more sensibly and act less "like a slut" to avoid being put in this position? I think it comes down to wanting to have a feeling that this is something we can control or prevent. I understand that impulse. It would be so much easier if we could say "Do A, B, and C and don't do D, E, and F," and you won't get raped. That's not how it works. What we cannot, must not, do is start blaming the victims. Scrutinizing the clothing choices or behaviour of victims in the media and at court further traumatizes the victim, creates a false impression of what rape is and how it occurs, and shifts some of the responsibility from the victimizer onto the victim. There's a word for that: "victim-blaming."


I call bullshit.





Sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/04/03/slut-walk-toronto.html
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/3925/myths.html
http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/
http://www.usu.edu/saavi/pdf/myths_facts.pdf