Everyone has an opinion on Amber Rose, and these opinions are largely negative. Most of her critics list her history of dating rappers and being a stripper as reasons to look down on her. Both of these things are hardly any way to judge anyone’s character, especially someone in the public eye. Rose has been extremely outspoken about the stigma she has faced and her stance on many issues involving feminism. She has been open about her opinions, ranging from disapproving of Kylie Jenner and Tyga’s age-inappropriate relationship—which resulted in a legendary Kardashian Twitter feud—to her fight against slut shaming. She and her friend Blac Chyna brought attention to degrading words women get called in the sexist media at the MTV VMA's this year. They strutted down the red carpet in outfits covered with the phrases "slut," "hoe," "b***h," "stripper," "gold-digger" and other terms of that caliber.
I didn’t know who Amber Rose was until 2009 when she became the infamous girl with the shaved head on Kanye West’s arm. I didn’t have a strong opinion of her, though I heard many people call her a "gold-digger" and a "fame-w***e" trying to get fame by dating Kanye. She was on my radar, but wandered in and out of the public eye after she and Kanye split two years later. Her relationship with Wiz Khalifa (and their adorable son Sebastian) caused me to pay attention to her because after their split was when she became settled in her status as a self-described "feminist monster."
The "feminist monster" moniker is a way that Rose took the stereotypical Feminazi and claimed it as her own. She takes the negative connotation and flips it on its head. Ever since she’s claimed to be a "feminist monster" she hasn’t been giving a shit about what people thought of her and freely spoke her mind, something that rarely happens with today’s female celebrities who all seem to have carefully-crafted social media posts (not including Amanda Bynes’ weird Twitter rants).
Rose's bold tweets have upset a bunch of people, including ex-boyfriend Kanye West who, in an interview, said he had to take "30 showers" after dating her, before he could convince Kim Kardashian to have sex with him. Wiz Khalifa rapped about Rose in a rap he did with Juicy J "For Everybody," and his verse wasn’t woman-friendly as is common in rap, but the specific verse unfairly targeted Rose: “I fell in love with a stripper / Funny thing I fell out of love quicker.” She was effectively slut-shamed by two of her boyfriends, two men she was in love with (one of whom is the father of her child) in extremely public arenas.
The sad thing is that this doesn’t just happen to "girls like her"; you don’t have to date famous rappers to be slut shamed by someone you loved. I’ve known guys who talk about ex-girlfriends that they’ve loved like to trash them, when they get a new guy he’s just taking his "sloppy leftovers." Why is this OK? Why does society let this happen? Why is a woman’s value based solely on how she utilizes her body? If she uses it for sex work (porn, stripping, etc.) she’s got no class or respect for herself. If she remains modest and only has sex with the person she loves then she’s a prude. Women are expected to encompass a variety of traits: they have to be smart but not too smart, attractive but not too sexy, independent but not too independent, in charge but never a boss, sweet but not boring, and the list goes on. These expectations aren’t put on men to the same extent, though they definitely have a lot of pressure to be masculine. It’s going to take our society a while to change, and women like Amber Rose are helping to start that conversation.
Rose refused to stoop down to the level of her famous exes, only addressing the hurtful comments in a heartfelt speech at her SlutWalk in Los Angeles on October 3. For those that don’t know, a SlutWalk is a gathering of women (and men) in "slutty" clothes protesting rape culture, slut shaming, and the idea that women shouldn’t dress a certain way if they want respect. I couldn’t attend the SlutWalk, but I was able to watch the video of her speech, and it changed my view of her forever.
She stood in front of a crowd of thousands of supporters, dressed in a skintight black mini-dress and went through the history of slut-shaming she’s faced since she was fourteen years old. “I was still a virgin,” Rose said, recounting the first time she got shamed for her sexuality. When she starts talking about her recent public slut shaming, she is visibly hurt. Tears streaming down her face as she talks about how it felt to hear the man she loved rap about her as if she was "just a stripper," as if he never loved her, never committed to her, never fathered her child. She doesn’t condemn him, she doesn’t call him anything derogatory; she simply holds her head up and says she forgives him and Kanye for their ignorance. She urges the audience to take the high road like she did, “You have to get the negativity out of your life,” she shouts into the mic, beaming at the audience as she wipes the tears from her eyes.
The way that Amber’s experience differs from most other celebrity drama and feuds is that hers happens to countless girls daily. In a society that values guys who can get as many girls as possible and values girls’ virginity over anything else, it’s not hard to see how deeply rooted slut shaming is in our culture. It's happened to me and countless other women in my life. I’ve tried to explain my anger at the unwanted street harassment I’ve received and been told that if I didn’t want attention from guys I shouldn’t wear the kind of clothes I wear. I’ve had friends tell me of high school hookups that the entire school found out about and attacked her for it, not the boy, just her.
It’s so refreshing to have someone like Amber in the public eye bringing attention to these issues. As someone who has faced slut shaming I understand how hard it can be to talk about it among friends let alone on social media and public platforms. I commend Amber for being brave and outspoken on an issue that no other feminist celebrity is willing to mention. It’s time we realize that Amber Rose is a many things, but slut is not one of them.
