SlutWalks v. Ho Strolls

crunkfeministcollective:

Courtesy of Indybay.org

Today, we had initially planned to bring you a review of the new groundbreaking book Hey Shorty: A Guide to Combatting Sexual Harassment in Schools and on…

I think this is a really important discussion on women’s experiences and feminism and a clear example of the way that white women’s experiences are, too often, positioned as the default in all discussions, and why this doesn’t work.

I think most white women don’t understand and I also feel our lack of understanding is inherently offensive and (unconsciously or not) racist:

The very thing the majority of white women who participate this walk are passionately rejecting—being deemed worthy of not being raped, or immune to being raped, because of a level of purity they’ve obtained because they don’t dress/act/look like a slut*—has been determined by the racist structure to be unattainable in the first place by anyone who’s not white. And then there’s another level of racism/whitewashing being enacted by shouting down or rejecting the suggestion that the experience isn’t universal and accessible and inclusive.

And, no, I didn’t get enlightened on this on my own. I read the post and thought about it and my own experiences with the word “slut” and then I thought about it some more. Which is why I read CFC. It is relevant to my interest in sucking less as a feminist and a human and I would not get far alone if I did not have sources like this (and so, so many others out there on the web) to read.

*We already know this is a big lie anyway, but society still sells it.