When a police officer from Toronto went on a routine visit to Osgoode Hall Law School to advise the students on personal safety, little did he know that he would unwittingly inspire a movement that has caught fire across Canada and the US.I view the whole thing with a certain sort of frustrated bemusement. Looking over the plethora of posts in my immediate blogging circle regarding the Slutwalk, I think Mark Richardson over at Oz Conservative was onto something when he said that he feels less "connected to them as part of the society I inhabit" due to their loud-and-proud annoucement to the world that yes, they aspire to be sluts. Do these women really want to be known to all as promiscuous slatterns who spam the social ecology with their sex? Are they really so proud of their socially destructive behavior that they are willing to poke the (fading) mores of wider society in the eye? Why would I want to associate with these jerks? I'd rather just walk away and let them crash and burn on their own.
"You know, I think we're beating around the bush here," Michael Sanguinetti began, blandly enough, as he addressed the 10 students who turned up for the pep talk. Then he said: "I've been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised."
Some 2,351 people have signed up via Facebook to attend a SlutWalk through Boston on Saturday, when they will chant "Yes means yes, no means no," and "Hey hey, ho ho, patriarchy has to go."
Further SlutWalks are planned in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. And that's before you get to Argentina, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK.
The blogmistress over at Equal But Different, Kim, had a good take on the whole brouhaha when she wondered why feminists were trying to "take back slut", something she "wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole", wondering why the slutwalkers weren't trying to take back something a bit more constructive, like motherhood or femininity. Indeed.
Then there was the ever-excellent Dalrock who just happened to note the
But of all the blog post that I read on this topic, I thought Bonald at Riding With The King said it best, when he opined about the social violence inherent in all this slut-strutting:
It’s not to protect them from rapists that we demand that women adhere to our culture’s standard of modesty. The point of the law is to protect society, to preserve a public, visible moral consensus. Deliberately flouting a culture’s standards of modesty is an assault on the community’s moral consensus. It is an aggressive act, and the community has the right to protect itself through the law. One might worry that the affront isn’t always intended. Perhaps a woman is just trying to catch a man’s eyes, or–even more innocently–she has just been careless. Thanks to SlutWalk, we now know that for many women–all the ones attending these marches–their indecent dress and behavior is deliberate malice. They proudly embrace the title, not only of shameless dressers, but of indiscriminate fornicators. Their explicit goal is to exempt female sexual behavior entirely from the community’s moral sense. In public at least, we are to be forced to embrace every form of reckless and selfish behavior, so long as the perpetrator is a woman and sex is involved. This is an attack on our civilization. These shameless loose women are not silly, misguided girls who we’re trying to protect from their own imprudence. They are nihilist revolutionaries bent on our culture’s destruction.I think Bonald's analysis drives at why quite a few men find sluts repellent and slut-walking offensive, because we instinctively react negatively to the pollution of the social ecology wrought by such immodestly dressed and raunchily behaved women. We know poison when we see it. But the protestations of a fraction of the male population (while, unfortunately, another larger fraction of men is undoubtedly cheering it) doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things because the burblings of a bunch of reactionary men are easily neutralized in our contemporary culture when it comes to issues of women's sexuality, viz how easily the debate was shifted to the easily defeated strawman "slutty dress is somehow linked to sexual assault rates". I'll dissect this false connection in a moment, but first, I'd like to discuss the slut-shaming of a demo that can't be so easily dismissed: women themselves.
It is chaste/modest women whose opprobrium is the sort of condemnation that the slutwalkers would be more or less unable to counter with accusations of "rape apologist" and "misogynist". For it is the relationships of upright women to their men that are most harmed by the rude and reckless behavior of the Slutwalkers. And no less a feminist than Naomi Wolf herself recognizes that a man need only walk down a street to be bombarded with pornographic and near-pornographic sexual imagery...women in relationships with men should be very indignant about the continued commodification (and as a consequence, cheapening) of female sexuality by other women. Sluts don't threaten men--they may offend us, or tempt us, amuse us, or irritate us--but sluts very much threaten non-slutty women, the security of all women's relationships with the men around them, and the very fabric of our communities.
And this is where the protection issue comes in, and where the slut-walkers miss the point in this whole issue with all their beating up of the strawmen they've erected. The biggest protection issue comes not from hordes of women donning whore's uniforms; rather, the protection issue comes from the behavior of the slut herself and the effect of her slutty behavior on the social fabric around her.
First, the behavior. I don't think slutdress has a significant measurable effect on rapes per se. But I do think that women who dress provocatively are likely to also engage in behavior that increases their risk for sexual assault, such as hanging out in less-safe places, being intoxicated, sex with multiple partners, hooking up, being around men of lesser moral character, etc. All these behaviors put the woman at increased risk of a sexual assault. Thus while the direct causal relationship between slutdress and sexual assault is dubious, I suspect there is a correlative effect, brought on by behaviors that combine together to manifest themselves in elevated sexual assault rates. Which is why the slutwalkers' denial that their actions have any impact on what happens to them later is so dangerous; by twisting the police officers' words into "slutdressers deserve to be raped", they miss the opportunity to re-evaluate their risky behaviors and make better choices.
Let me put this another way. Saying that a woman's behavior was a contributing factor to what happened to her later in the evening is a long way from saying that a woman deserved to be raped or that her bawdy dress caused her to be sexually assaulted. Contribution != causation. And as much as the slutwalkers wish to believe that they are not responsible for their behavior, they do indeed have choices and those choices have consequences that can and do have very dire physical security implications for themselves and others.
Second, slutty behavior does result in decreased physical security for women, but not in the way that this discussion has been framed thus far. Rather than slutdress causing rape, or upright men consciously refusing to protect slutty women (the claim of Laura Wood over at The Thinking Housewife), I think that men are socially marginalized in communities in which slutty behaviors--immodest dress, sexual promiscuity, and serial polyandry--are permitted. In such communities, women enjoy few durable relationships with men. The men come and go, that is, if they are around at all. The predictable result of this instability is that the men who are present do not have significant investment in the well being of the women resident in that community, indeed of the community as a whole. Moreover, such a climate attracts those of lower moral character, such men may even harbor criminal tendencies. These populations are less likely to respect women and/or not treat women very well, especially when compared to the men in a community where men and women and children are securely tied together through durable marriage.
That's how women get hurt by their sluttish dress and promiscuous conduct...not by getting raped that same night that they took a stroll while scantily dressed (although that may very well happen because of the risky behaviors they are engaging in), but by marginalizing upright, well-behaved men. These men are the same population who, by their very presence and investment in a community, shape the social climate to ensure the physical security of the women therein. They (the men) don't necessarily have to physically intervene to prevent rapes, because they ensure the conditions conducive to sexual assault aren't allowed to take root in the first place.
So, by slutwalking, these women continue to pick at the very social fabric upon which they depend for their own safety. Slutshaming does indeed boost women's security, and is most effectively employed by more upright women whose objections keep their wayward sisters from polluting the air which we all breathe.
15 comments:
The sluts are only protesting because in our enlightened society, we have run out of real problems for them to protest.
There is no longer any slavery (except in Africa and Asia).
Our own government isn't taking away anyone's Constitutional or God Given rights. Nor are they stealing the wealth of one generation to inefficiently pay the bills of previous generations.
Our economy isn't callapseing. Our Dollar isn't weak. Inflation isn't high (stealing the wealth of savers and lenders). Unemployment is low so every college educated slut can be assured of a high paying job in theprivate sector.
At times like this, I feel sorry for the youth because they have run out of legitimate things to be worried about.
Poor, poor sluts.
lol
Alexander wept.
Pretty much everything coming from the 'progressive' left is vulgar and morally vacant.
Abortion, false rape allegations, overlooking sexism when perpetrated by leftist etc etc only serve to alienate them further, as they must continually keep raising the bar.
Years ago, one or two stern words would have kept the officer in line, but as their scam has been exposed, they have been forced to take even more outlandish and extreme measure to get their point across, thus the slutwalk.
IOW, something that is at its core morally vacant must eventually collapse under its own weight of deceit.
- Lovekraft
The silence of traditional conservative women really is palpable (at least outside the blogosphere). It strikes me that not too far in the distant past these displays would have prompted a counter protest from conservative women (at least in Dallas). Perhaps this caught them unaware. It might still happen if this becomes an annual ritual. But as I mentioned recently in the comments section of my own blog, traditional women are the dog which didn't bark in the culture war (I hope the ladies will excuse the dog analogy).
Moreover, such a climate attracts those of lower moral character, such men may even harbor criminal tendencies.
I can't find the exact page, but I recall reading on the no nonsense self defense blog something to the effect that "if you are around people who are overlooking your own bad behavior, it is because they are expecting you to do the same".
By the way, I neglected to thank you for the link. It is much appreciated!
Also, I found the source of the quote I was thinking of:
Simply stated, the less you engage in certain kinds of behavior (e.g. using drugs and alcohol), the more you reduce your chances of being selected as a target for crime and violence. The main reason for this is the kind of people who tend to be tolerant and permissive of your bad behavior tend to do so because they have bad behavioral patterns of their own; and those patterns are likely to include violence.
So men can't control themselves? and they are the superior sex?
@ Dalrock,
My pleasure on the linkage!
I forget who originally said it, but if you want more of something you should subsidize it and if you want less of something you should tax it. At this point, a large number of women have been quite happily subsidizing thugs and thuggish behavior while ignoring well-behaved men. As you noted, this will have negative long-term consequences. And these consequences will be entirely deserved.
@ Simon,
Think the source of that truism was Ronnie Ray-Gun.
As for the consequences, not only will they be earned, they are quite predictable. And also as predictable, they will be blamed on men, for either being deadbeats, thugs, players, or marriage avoiders.
Just got done reading an old article by Maken over at Boundless. While I find some truth in what she says, some of it I find difficult to support with Scripture, and her writing suggests that she places the blame for all social ills at the feet of men. Which of course I take exception to.
Perhaps this action is simply an extension of the feminist ideology that gave rise to the "Vagina Monologues". There certainly seems to be a clear desire on the part of the women walking in the street here to do as they wish, while blaming any bad results upon men. There is also a definite poke-in-the-eye quality to this streetwalking that reminds me of the V-monologues.
One good thing could come from this: such events make it ever more difficult to put a woman upon a pedestal. Bringing women back to Earth, and reminding them of their fallen nature, is essential for many reasons.
Feminism is not capable of constructive input as a movement anymore because the few problems (weak property rights, right of inheritance and such) that women had have long since been resolved. They have to invent problems like pay disparity, even though men notice that in many professions that are male-dominated, women are almost always paid more when they choose that field than men in order to "keep up the numbers." I know around here (not necessarily my immediate office, but metro DC), women in IT almost always get substantially better paid relative to what they bring to the table.
EW,
Speaking of that Maken article, one of the reasons we're in this mess is the fact that the church has gone out of its way in America to compartmentalize Christianity. As I've been reading some Catholic arguments, I've started having this sick feeling in my gut that the Catholic Church actually "gets" the true problems with our society in a way that 95% of the Protestant churches don't. The problem is our underlying philosophy on which Protestant society is built, which is that it is based around compartmentalizing the role of Christianity and the church such that it invariably becomes a private religion with a sphere of authority around only the individual believer.
This Indian scholar gets it completely right when he says that the only way out of our problems is for Christians to commit themselves to a society in which the Bible is the true governing foundation of society. I think that will mean that if we are successful, many aspects of our culture will more closely resemble the middle ages than modern America with the Church becoming co-equal in authority to the state itself.
I'm no longer convinced that voluntary adherence is sufficient on many things like marriage. I think we do need the government to step in and this cult of individual liberty ignores the fact that not only have the results so far been abysmal, but that most people cannot make good decisions about marriage when an easy out is legally possible.
@ Mike,
Thanks for your comment, brother. Here's my take:
" I've started having this sick feeling in my gut that the Catholic Church actually "gets" the true problems with our society in a way that 95% of the Protestant churches don't. "
The RCC has advantage in that it is organized hierarchically and it does a reasonably good job of enforcing orthodoxy.
I probably would be drifting Catholic myself were it not for their focus on Mary, what I perceive as a heinous idolatry vis a vis the saints, and their focus on works + faith as a condition of salvation, versus faith alone.
"The problem is our underlying philosophy on which Protestant society is built, which is that it is based around compartmentalizing the role of Christianity and the church such that it invariably becomes a private religion with a sphere of authority around only the individual believer."
There is a tension here that I think is difficult to pull off successfully...how does one split the State from the Church a la the Refomation--thus enabling freedom--yet still retain virtue (which sustains freedom and prevents a lapse back into tyranny)?
Clearly, our culture has failed to stave off the Enlightenment dogs that removed God as the touchstone for our society, and placed man's reason in its place.
Pray tell, did you happen to see this post of mine from not long ago? Thoughts?
how does one split the State from the Church a la the Refomation--thus enabling freedom--yet still retain virtue (which sustains freedom and prevents a lapse back into tyranny)?
Not that I take Tudors to be a documentary or anything, but one of the things that struck me about the Protestants' arguments was how much they wanted to free the state from the church's control. In fact, they wanted to unite the church and state under the monarch a la caesaropapism.
There is a thoroughly statist tendency in Protestantism, as can be seen for example in the state's usurpation of marriage.
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