SlutWalk: I guess we’ve been told!
Danyl at Dim Post doesn’t think SlutWalks are necessary or have any point or will change anything or are really serious and omg feminists aren’t a hivemind so it’s all doomed to fail.
In lieu of merely typing *EYEROLL* a few thousand times, some shoutouts to those with the spoons and ability to respond to Danyl without just saying (as I did on Twitter last night) OH THANK YOU, DANYL, NOW YOU’VE PASSED YOUR ALMIGHTY JUDGEMENT ON WHAT FEMINISTS SHOULD BE THINKING, DOING AND WEARING I’M GOING TO JUST GIVE THE WHOLE THING UP SINCE WHAT I WAS REALLY AFTER ALL THIS TIME WAS A MAN TO LAY DOWN THE LAW.
Tui:
You don’t think the right for women to choose their own clothing is important? What do you think about restrictions on women’s clothing in religious countries? Recently a (conservative) Israeli paper erased two women from a picture – I’m sure you’re familiar with this – they don’t print images of women for, you know, the usual reasons: women are dangerous. Our bodies, our images. The way we dress. Our visibility. These women were pretty conservatively clothed: there is *nothing* women can wear to avoid this! “The right to dress like a slut” doesn’t exactly have a ring to it when you put it that way, no. But the right to be seen? The right to be heard? The right to see and the right to speak? *those* are the rights that the word “slut” is used to curtail.
How shameful I find a particular woman’s outfit is a measure of how fucked up I am, not a measure of anything about her. Just a pity the late-night streets are a smorgasbord of male fucked-up-edness.
I personally avoid skipping the other comments due to victim-blaming, mansplaining and some wonderfully petty Danyl v Russell Brown wank.
ARGH. I hate when you generally have a good opinion of someone and then they do something you find to be ridiculous. Major props to the commenters who got in there and made some awesome points challenging his perspective.
There’s a whole bingo card in the comments. sigh.
Kudos for posting this. [QoT: Thanks Marcus, but unfortunately I’m not comfortable with the remainder of your comment re: Slutwalk Tehran. When two dudes with white dudely names are organising a march to reclaim a word which almost certainly does not have the same context and impact in a non-Western, non-Anglo society, I get a little squicked. Intent isn’t magic and given others’ concerns I’m not willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.]
After reading through a bunch of his comments and re-reading through most of the facebook page… this HAS to be just straight trolling. I really hope the Toronto bunch don’t let these clowns affiliate.
Unfortunately the Toronto crowd have had their own measure of fail with marginalising non-white, non-cis women … and I never underestimate the capacity of try-hard misogynist Nice Guys to be horribly offensive.
As I understand it one of the Toronto organisers was responding positively and officially to it on Facebook. Screen shots were going around Tumblr. Never underestimate people’s unchecked racism of ~oppressed exotic ladies~.
Found it: http://quixotess.tumblr.com/post/5473700281/slutwalk-teheran-a-timeline-of-white-privilege
JJ is indeed a main SlutWalk organiser. http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/about/who
And also: http://quixotess.tumblr.com/post/5476086592/what-i-did-to-see-if-jeanette-janzen-was-legitimately
So. Busted.
Google group screenshots showing the organisers harassing a slutwalk member in Boston then advertising the Tehran troll:
http://imgur.com/a/G6LtP
Courtesy of very enterprising person on the ‘Tehran slutwalk is a scam’ facebook group.
(warning: trolling letter screenshot is pretty awful)
*sigh* Really wonderful reminder of why I’m going to be a total ManSlut (i.e. wearing what I normally do, with a couple of buttons undone to show off my man-boobs in a rape-provoking manner). Because I don’t see, from my perspective, that “slut-shaming” rape culture is far different from the culture that literally kills GLBT teens, or queers and trannies and other non-cis males deserve everything they get.
But I guess that’s very hard to see from inside multiple cocoons of straight, white middle-class cis-male privilege.
I totally share that perspective. I’ve decided my saucy outfit will more than make the “slut” point for me, so I’m thinking of nice pointed-yet-general signs to carry like NO ONE IS OBLIGED TO FUCK YOU.
And thank fuck the comments have been closed off. The matt/james wank-fest was really just too much.
And I think some of my comments had a tad too much subtle sarcasm.
I have to say it all really reinforced for me that anyone who constantly capitalizes the word Woman is probably to be avoided.