Slut-shaming. It's a topic of conversation that is uncomfortable for most, and more the often not conveniently swerved off when brought up. No one wants to talk about it openly in fear of the stigma that it creates. Recently, in the news, there have been more and more instances where women are calling out slut-shaming that is happening to them, their friends, and/or their environment around them. From girls who have been sexually objectified in their school uniforms to intelligent women trying to pave the way for their success but instead berated for their looks, these two females have gone viral with their speeches, words, and what they stand for, and for all the right reasons.
Faith Sobotker
The 15-year-old girl delivered this incredible speech after her high school, Kambrya College, in Victoria, Australia, called for an assembly for the girls scolding them for wearing make-up and taking "sexy" selfies. They were also told that their knee length skirts were that certain length in order to "protect their integrity." Sobotker argued against this mentality saying that they shouldn't be sexualized at such a young age. The idea that respect is equivalated with the length of a skirt is absurd.
Shortly after this video was posted, a mother from one of the daughter's who go to school expressed her distress with the whole situation. She pointed out that gathering the females of the school was just another victim blaming excuse instead of fixing the actual problem. Read the entire post below:
The bottom line is teachers and staff of the school should not be sexually objectifying girls, despite the way they wish to wear their uniform. Boys should not be posting underage pictures of girls without their consent. Instead of suppressing these women on what to do, how about teach the boys consent? Teach the staff how to realize the way a girl wears her skirt means absolutely nothing in regards to how she respects herself and has literally nothing to do with how she will focus and learn in school. The amazing thing about self respect is that it's about yourself. Teach the public that no one else can tell you how to respect yourself because then it wouldn't be self respect. It's as simple as that.
This isn't the first instance that this has happened in a school and I'm sure it probably won't be the last, but this does open a window for a controversial discussion that has always been a sensitive topic: sexual objectification, dress code, and girls feeling degraded because of these rules.
Jayde
Jayde, a cybersecurity expert at Forsys, an IT security form, posted this astounding speech in response to many offensive comments that were written on a post from the company's LinkedIn page where the company's audience were supposed to guess how many USB drives Jayde was holding to be entered in a competition to win a bottle of champagne. Instead of sane, rational responses, the company received graphic and violent comments about the way Jayde looks. This struck a chord with her as she relayed to the public her discomfort in a video: "Bullying and shaming people because of the way that they look or how they choose to dress is nasty, and I am not just going to take it — and neither should you."
The company also took the initiative to write a blog post about this incident. Andy Wool, their marketing manager, even voiced his opinion that this could happen to a male, as well, but because the tech industry is a mainly a male dominated industry, it doesn't happen often. Wool says this just shows the imbalance in the tech industry-- equality needs to be voiced firmly and more frequently. What's scary is that if women are treated this badly in an industry that is increasingly growing, does this discourage women from being who they want to be? There are so many intelligent women who wish to put their minds to use and brains to work but are halted because others want to so badly sexually objectify and judge based solely on appearance.
This demeaning attitude towards females in the technology industry isn't new-- it happens every day and in some cases, even worse. This video recently went viral in hopes that shows that gender discrimination is never not an important issue.
It doesn't stop here. So many more women have started voicing their opinions and their discomfort with slut-shaming and why it needs to change immediately. Words matter and the way they affect the people they're directed to matter even more. Thought it's an issue that needs to be discussed more, these viral videos are a good start in opening up that discussion by going directly to the source-- calling out those who openly shame women for being who they are and hopefully educating them to a standpoint where they understand what they're doing is problematic.
