SlutWalk – cos Gen Y feminism is no longer an oxymoron

‘Cos you know how, like, nerds reclaimed the word nerd and Greeks reclaimed the word Greek? Like, anyone who’s been bullied, it’s become, like, a trend to reclaim the word’ (comment overheard at SlutWalk).

Has feminism become such a dirty word that it’s cool? I haven’t seen so many coolsies at a protest since the live music rally. SlutWalk was dominated by females in their 20s and 30s. Despite a few ripped stockings and short skirts, nobody really managed to look ‘slutty’, except in a contrived, costumed kind of way. I’d describe the predominant fashion as Fitzroy cool – you know, understated T-shirts and vintage dresses and colourful woollen scarfs?

In a way, it doesn’t really matter whether people get involved in feminism out of passion for the cause or as a fashion statement. Motivations for these sorts of things are usually mixed, and they change over time. It’s common for people to get involved in social justice issues because they think it’s cool or they want to make themselves feel shiny, but that’s not to say they don’t care about the issue too, and often as they get more involved, this passion solidifies. Why second-guess someone’s motivations when they’re trying to do good things?

Getting Gen Yers to attend the protest at all was a massive achievement. As my one of my fave feminists Monica Dux, who spoke at the rally, explains in her book The Great Feminist Denial, while many Gen Y women subscribe to feminist views, they’re reluctant to identify as feminists. They have capitulated to the propaganda perpetuated by the haters, namely, that feminists are hairy-arm-pitted, man-hating bra-burners.

While SlutWalk wasn’t marketed as a feminist event, I’d like to think that it was a first step towards roping in the youngsters. A big cheer went up when Ursula Benstead, counsellor from the Western Region Centre Against Sexual Assault, identified herself a feminist, and clarified that feminism wasn’t all about hairy armpits: ‘The principle is that women are entitled to all the same rights and privileges, including the right not to be sexually assaulted and not be blamed for being sexually assaulted.’

SlutWalk made feminism feel fun. In her speech, Monica Dux admitted that she wasn’t wearing any undies, but not because of the walk – because she hadn’t done the washing. She pointed out the double standards when it comes to what men and women are wearing: ‘Nobody says to a man, oh look, your jocks are a bit tight, better be careful.’ Someone in the crowd yelled ‘Tony Abbott!’

The vibe was fantastic, and if you got as far as showing up, the message – that it’s men who have to stop raping women, rather than women having to avoid being raped – was clear. Benstead talked about having to turn tell girls who’d been sexually assaulted that they had to wait for six months before seeing a counsellor, because the centre was so swamped with clients.

Clearly, sexual assault is still a huge problem, and so is victim-blaming, including self-blaming. I know several people who’ve been sexually assaulted, and in each case, they blamed themselves – for inviting the situation by being too flirtatious, or not fighting hard enough.

It was encouraging to see quite a few men there too. One of the key messages was that men need to take responsibility for tacking sexual assault. One of the speakers, Cody Smith, a trans man and victim of sexual assault, choked back tears as he called on men to take responsibility for changing the behaviour of their friends. He’s spot on – the most effective way to change the mind of men who think that, for whatever reason, they can take what’s not rightfully theirs, is for their mates to speak up against it. This is why behavioural change programs often use male role models to teach their mates about respecting women – for example, check out the Be the Hero project, which tried to get school boys to teach each other to be respectful.

As I discussed in my previous post, the protest was probably less appealing to older feminists. It seeemed that for some ‘old guard’ feminists, the flippant reclaiming of the tainted word ‘slut,’ and the protest’s ironic, faux marketing, would have been pretty hard to swallow. Nonetheless, it was disappointing to see Leslie Cannold criticise older women for failing to take the ‘activist baton’ that young women had commendably seized. Firstly, there were older women there, and secondly, reinforcing divisions between older and younger feminists doesn’t seem particularly helpful.

As I mentioned earlier, some of my friends, both young and old, refused to go because they felt that the term SlutWalk implicitly sexualised rape and put the focus on women rather than men. They were also confused about the protest’s intent – was it condoning porn? Prostitution? They didn’t want to attend something that might be supporting these things. It’s a pity that SlutWalk turned off potential supporters with its marketing, and in the future I hope they can come up with something equally sexy and media-friendly.

At the same time, good on the organisers for drumming up that kind of buzz for an issue which struggles to get the attention it deserves. And for those who actually showed up, the overriding message was pretty clear – that we need to teach men not to rape, rather than women how not to get raped. If you accept this basic premise, disagreement around the details isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Providing nobody gets hurt and people respect differing views, people learn through conflict. Debate and talking over the issues can help you develop a position, and sometimes, change your mind. As Benstead said, if SlutWalk creates a dialogue about sexual assault, misogyny, and social justice, that’s a good thing. And if equally, if we can use irony, controversy, or fashion to attract people who’ve never been involved in feminism before, that’s a good thing too.

Slutwalk – people are smart enough to get it

When the SlutWalk event popped up on my Facebook account, it immediately appealed to me. The message, that women have a right to wear what they want, and act what they want, without being insulted or assaulted, seemed clear as mud, and I liked the subversive irreverence of using the word ‘Slut’ in this context. Still, some critics of the protests say the term is too susceptible to misinterpretation – of course, they get it, but they’re concerned about other people.

They suggest that these people will see the large photos of ‘sluttily’ dressed women in the media and assume that the protest’s a mere spectator sport. Lecherous men will see it as a fortuitous opportunity for men to leer at the wayward women, and women will buy into this patriarchal mindset by strutting their stuff for the eyes of their oppressors.

It’s true that we live in a world where AFL players still treat women as pieces of meat and people still sell buy T-shirts which say ‘And U Wonda Why They Call U Bitch’ – another reason why SlutWalk is important. In this context, it’s legitimate to question whether people are really ready for the level of conceptual complexity of the phrase ‘SlutWalk.’

So how would the average person interpret the protest? It’s pretty difficult to tell – I mean, who’s really tapped into the zeitgeist of the suppositious ‘average Australian’ these days? My sense is that these critics are underestimating people – that many people are familiar with these issues, even if they don’t spend much time thinking about them, and they do get it.

And so what if SlutWalk is perceived as a perve-fest? Men always perve, and men who are there will undoubtedly be perving. If I was a man, I’d get right down to the protest tomorrow to fix my appreciative male gaze on many sexy women who will be in attendance, and I might learn something from the speeches, too – there’s a difference been checking a woman out and wanting to take her behind your truck (or BMW, if you like) and have your way with her. And from a woman’s perspective, why is wearing skimpy clothing or heels, even if it’s to impress men, necessarily disempowering?

Which brings us to raunch culture.  In The Age the other day, the protest’s organiser, Clem Bastow, commented, seemingly with a hint of sarcasm, “Who knew that in organising SlutWalk Melbourne, my colleagues and I were apparently just confirming our role as another pawn in the raunch culture game?” Yet surely Bastow, who’s been involved in feminist stuff for a few years now, would have foreseen that the term SlutWalk, which implicitly references raunch culture, would invoke these divisions on an issue where feminists could otherwise present a unified front – after all, who condones rape and victim-blaming?

The strategic wisdom of choosing such a divisive term is questionable. Perhaps courting controversy was the only way to attract attention to the issue – in that sense, it’s certainly worked. But I can’t get any of my friends to come along to the protest. One was concerned that it reinforced notions that rape was about sex, rather than power. It’s a good point – given that the residential house is the most common place for a rape, and in most cases most perpetrators are known to the offender, what place does slutty clothing have in the whole thing? It might send mixed messages – but again, people are, in my view – pretty smart – I think they’ll get it. For other friends, word slut has too many negative connotations to reclaim. This is understandable, although personally, I’d rather reclaim it and then put it through a paper shredder; make ‘Slut’ my bitch and then expunge it from the face of the earth.

It’ll be interesting to see what age-groups are represented at the protest. I suspect SlutWalk is more likely to appeal to Gen Ys than older people, who are probably less likely to find the irony funny or clever, or to reclaim the term with such careless abandon. Julie Szego references her age in The Age today when she explains the reasons why SlutWalk “doesn’t light her fire” (generational differences even implied in the musical reference to the Doors): “I would happily embrace my own inner slut were it not hiding under the weight of motherhood and middle age.” But targeting Gen Ys might be good start; they are receptive to feminist ideals, but have capitulated to the false stereotypes of feminists as hairy man-haters, so many are reluctant to get involved in something ‘feminist.

In Julie Szego’s article today, she goes on to suggest that victim-blaming is a trivial issue, as legally and socially, Western countries have moved on from that. She dismisses the AFL, NRL and Defence Force controversies as a mere aberration, rather than a reflection of deeply entrenched views. Feminists should concentrate on the ‘hard issues’, she argues – rape in the Congo, etc.  But ask sexual assault workers – the issue of victim-blaming isn’t dead, and it’s not trivial. Szego’s comparative argument is overly simplistic – like saying we shouldn’t worry about poverty in Australia because it’s so much worse in India.

Despite its weaknesses, SlutWalk’s unlikely to do any harm, and may do some good – mobilise (some) women’s rights advocates, raise awareness amongst disengaged or uninformed, and perhaps cause a few people to question some of their unexamined assumptions about rape victims. So, you could either get bogged down in arguments, or just show up, and see what happens.

PS. Sweat – by Inner Circle. Can it be reclaimed? I think it is inherently sexist, and ‘offensive’ in a way, but it’s just so catchy. Sorry. For a while, every lunch-time, my friends and I used to dance to it at Primary School, in the same room where we received religious instruction from Supa Club. We even used to do the elbow pumping motions to symbolise getting jiggy. Me and my friend used to be the girl, because we had ‘brown eyes.’ We suspected it might be about rape, but kind of ignored it. Since then, I’ve been exposed to alternative interpretations – that ‘cry out’ is about pleasure, and they’re actually just talking about enjoyably rough sex. I’m not so sure.

John Farnham is Jesus

Here’s an Easter treat. Jesus-themed 90s musicals - what can I say? Kate Cebrano and John Farnham represent everything that’s good in this world. John played Jesus, Kate played Mary Magdalene.