This picture,
and variations thereof, has been making it’s way around the internet recently
and it is really starting to tick me off.
It is a prime
example of slut shaming. It isn’t a
joke.
Let’s
look at the photo. Why is she a slut
exactly? Because she is wearing heavy
makeup and a low cut top? She is wearing
makeup because it makes her happy and because she likes the way it looks. An extra flick of eyeliner or another layer
of mascara do not say anything about how she chooses to behave and how many
people she has slept with.
The
girl in the picture also has large breasts.
Whether she chooses to wear a polo neck or a round neck top, this does
not make any difference to the size of her breasts. She has the right to wear what she wants
without being labelled a whore.
I
have personal experience of this. Having
large breasts myself I can confirm that no matter what type of clothing I am
wearing, they always seem to come up in conversation which, whilst frankly bored
by it, I am used to. However, when I
have worn something that shows a bit of cleavage I have, on many more times
that I can count, been judged as “easy”, a whore, or have had my breasts grabbed
at because I look “like that sort of girl”.
What
has scared me more than being grabbed at was not the actual grabbing, it was
the reaction of the assailant (yes, assailant is the right word) and of those
around us of shock when I have dared to complain. The fact that I have large breasts does not
give anyway a free pass to touch me. It
is sexual assault.
The
picture is being passed around as a joke but I what I say that it is preserving
the idea that women can be judged according to how they look and what they wear
and then treated accordingly.
Laughing
at a picture of woman being called a whore is one step on the ladder to the frame
of mind that says that she deserves to be/have been raped because of the way
she looks or dresses.
In
any case, whether a woman is a virgin or has slept with 50 men (what exact
number crosses the appropriate line anyhow?) it is not your business. If you want to judge someone then please, do
it silently and to yourself.
Unless
we stand up and say that these things are offensive they are going to continue. So I am standing up and shouting back.
Enough.
I think the problem is people think feminism is all about shaming over sexulised women what they dont understand is it is all about a womans right to choose. Choose what she does with her body, what she puts on her body and how she leads her life.
ReplyDeleteXx
EXCELLENT post, whatever a woman wears or doesn't wear or who she sleeps with or doesn't sleep with is NOBODIES BUSSINESS! I'm so sick of the internalised misogyny of women judging other women for not living up to this impossible standard of sexy but not too sexy that no one can ever attain! Feminism is about freeing women from these ridiculous standards no man is ever held to and letting women express themselves how they want without being shamed for it
ReplyDeleteExcellent post I love it. Wearing a specific item of clothing doesn't define you. Do you think if I go about wearing a maxi dress with a long sleeve cardigan people would assume I'm a prude? People are idiots I saw this pic on FB but just scrolled right past it. xx
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post. If I had seen this on Facebook I would've lost my rag and reposted it with a long piece of my mind attached. Women are either whores or frigid/saints in the eyes of a sizeable amount of the male population, and not just men - many women contribute to slut shaming as they are so used to being dictated to by patriarchal culture. They don't see that sharing photos like these do all women no favours. I agree it's this kind of dehumanisation which makes it easier for men to justify rape.
ReplyDeleteBravo... I admit when I first saw the meme a couple of years ago it made me laugh, but when I thought a bit deeper what exactly I found funny about it, I was struck by how offensive it must be to women in general.
ReplyDeleteI have friends who have accounted to me how they were occasionally mistreated both emotionally and physically. Some were grouped on their breasts, buttocks or genital region by arseholes who thought it was somehow OK to do that crap to another person. It's nothing short of sexual assault, plain and simple and if charges were pressed, the perpetrator's would go the rest of their lives with a record of sex offender to deal with.
One friend tells me when on rare occasions she goes out at night, she always dresses modestly in either a long sleeve shirt or poloneck under a jacket/sweater and a long skirt or slacks/jeans, she still has idiots who think they can get away with crap simply because she's a woman.
...and when she assertively tells them " No, thanks ", she gets the " Oh, you must be a frigid bitch/lesbian to not want any of this good stuff. "
People have to be better than that, but I'm afraid I have little faith in " humanity. "