For those of you who don’t know what slut-shaming is, the official Oxford Dictionary definition is: (noun) The action or fact of stigmatizing a woman for engaging in behaviour judged to be promiscuous or sexually provocative.
Wikipedia defines it as the act of making a person feel guilty, inferior, shamed, etc. for certain sexual behaviors or desires that can come from traditional or orthodox gender expectations, or that which can be acknowledged to be contrary to natural or religious law.
Slut-shaming can apply to both genders but is typically aimed at females. Some examples where girls and women are slut-shamed include, but not limited to: dressing in ways that can be perceived to be provocative or “slutty” (i.e. low cut tops, shorts, short skirts or dresses, leggings, showing too much skin), engaging in casual, premarital sexual activities, requesting and/or purchasing a form of birth control, being victim blamed for being sexually violated, etc. You get the idea.
Ways people slut shame include, but again, are not limited to: cat-calling, being asked/judged on your dating and romantic history, being called names that either imply or directly call you a slut, being called out for what you are wearing or if you repeated an outfit from the day before, body-shaming whether it’s saying a person is too curvy or too flat-chested, people assume that you are always looking for a hookup, getting teased for flirting or getting a lot of dates, etc., etc., etc. The worst part is that we, as opinionated human beings, slut shame all the time, whether we say it out loud while gossiping or calling someone out or in our heads when we’re passing people on the quad.
I’m here to educate and ask you...nay, TELL you, to stop slut-shaming. Stop slut shaming girls, guys, homosexuals, heterosexuals, young people, older folks, celebrities, classmates, neighbors, just everyone, okay? It’s degrading for both the person who is being slut-shamed and for the person who is doing the shaming. It’s nobody’s business and more often than not, we’re just assuming that the person in question is a slut. Let me repeat that for the people in the back: it is not your business to know and judge someone else based on the way they dress or act whether it was in the past or the present. It doesn’t make us a better person or superior. It really just makes us nosy, judgemental and horribly, horribly mean.
We see so many young girls in the news being sent home because the leggings or tops that they’re wearing are deemed inappropriate by the school and a distraction for the male students. We overhear conversations in the library or the dining halls of people gossiping about other girls (and sometimes guys) and they way that they dress or act. As small as they seem, these are all forms of slut-shaming. Being on the receiving end of being slut-shamed makes you feel unworthy, dirty and empty. Slut-shaming can become the foundation of many more insecurities and body-image issues down the road. This is why we all need to cut the bullying and the judging and just let other people be.
It also coincidentally happens to the weekend of celebrity and model Amber Rose’s second annual SlutWalk. What is the SlutWalk? Well, it’s not a way to promote prostitution or promiscuity as commonly thought. It is actually a female empowerment march held in downtown Los Angeles started after a police officer advised young college women that they “should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” back in 2011. It’s mission? “To deliver a flawlessly executed event geared toward raising awareness about sexual injustice and gender inequality. The Amber Rose SlutWalk aims to impact and uplift while shifting the paradigm of rape culture. The event provides a safe, all-inclusive space to entertain, educate and empower.” All donations and proceeds raised during the walk go towards The Amber Rose Foundation which is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to fund the event with on-site services such as HIV testing, sexual awareness booths, food vendors and merchandise vendors, to name a few. Donations also help other foundations and organizations that are dedicated to help women who have been subject to slut shaming, a lack of implication of double standards, sexual assault and even rape.
In short, just stop slut-shaming. It’s not worth anyone’s time or energy to make people feel less inferior because of the way they dress or act. You do you and don’t worry about what other people think or say and in return, you keep it to yourself too.
