In a world where a presidential candidate can continually make sexist comments and get away with it and the quote, “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores,” is something we all grew up hearing, why do women still insist on putting each other down when it comes to gender biased pejorative terms?
Slut shaming is the act of criticizing a woman for her real or presumed sexual activity, or for behaving in ways that someone thinks are associated with her real or presumed sexual activity. Yes, you read that right. Presumed sexual activity. Girls all across the world are calling other girls sluts for something that is based on a mere chance of probability.
And what’s even more incredulous is that there is no explicit definition for the term slut. How many men does a woman have to sleep with to be coined as a “slut?” Is there some formula somewhere that says how many inches a short skirt can be before it is decided to be “slutty?” And more importantly, why does having safe sex have to be viewed as shameful?
When men have casual sex, do other men call them sluts? When a male has casual sex with a woman do people assume he has low self-respect? That he has no standards? That he has daddy issues? Then why do we as women say these things about each other, thus literally telling men that they can say and think these things about us too? Why is "walk of shame" a common word in a college woman's vocabulary?
I’m not going to lie, I too have been guilty of this infraction. Judging another woman because she lives her life differently than I do. But as a gender, we need to work together to combat this issue. This does not mean you need to be best friends with every girl you meet, or that you need to force fake friendships. You don’t even have to agree with everything she does. But does her crop top affect you personally? No. More importantly, does her bodycon dress prove anything about her sexual history? Nope. Say she has had sex, does that make her implicitly a bad person? Wrong again.
Next time you see a girl doing something you disagree with, or even worse hear a rumor (note again, that this is hearsay) stand up for her. If we can stand together as a gender and unite, it will make us one step closer to it not being, “okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.”
