Heather Jarvis isn't afraid to call herself a slut. Clad in jeans and a red T-shirt, the 25-year-old student stood on a Toronto street on April 3 in front of thousands of women and men, raised a megaphone to her mouth and shouted, "As a slut, the only thing I'm asking for is consent." Her declaration was met with roaring cheers.
Jarvis, along with crowds of protesters, had taken to the streets to march in what was dubbed a SlutWalk. The march, organized by Jarvis and Sonya Barnett, was spurred by the comments of Toronto constable Michael Sanguinetti, who told a group of students in a safety class that women "should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." In response to the constable's remark - and the implication that women's actions, not the actions of rapists, lead to sexual assault - SlutWalk was born. (Read "From Legal Defense to Rallying Cry: How 'SlutWalks' Became a Global Movement.")
Almost immediately, women in cities across Canada and the U.S. began planning their own SlutWalks. Four months later, more than 50 walks have taken place in cities around the world, from London to New Delhi, where anywhere from a couple of hundred to more than 3,000 protesters have turned out. Dozens more walks are being organized, with a large one in Washington, D.C., scheduled to take place on Aug. 13.
Critics of the marches have sprung up as fast as the protests themselves. With a name like SlutWalk, it's not that surprising. The question is whether a movement that has gained momentum from its shock value can turn the tide and change the way victims of sexual assault are treated.
Certainly the decision to use the word slut, which is loaded, to say the least, was ballsy. The idea stemmed from Jarvis and Barnett's desire to use the offensive language the Toronto constable used, but flip it on its head. A number of SlutWalkers have been adamantly pushing to reappropriate the word slut, or redefine it through repeated use. But others say it's just muddling the movement's message.
There is an element of logic to the argument that if women embrace the word slut, its demeaning power will fade. The LGBT community had a similar agenda in the '90s when it focused on transforming the word queer. However, others have questioned the validity of such a pursuit - not everyone wants to call herself a slut after all. This has been an especially passionate argument made by women who've been victimized. (See a brief history of women's protest.)
And others still have argued that apart from being damaging, trying to reclaim a word like slut is impossible. Where in the past, the word was used by men to describe a sexually promiscuous woman - or, as in Britain, to describe an untidy woman - now the word has myriad meanings, none of them good. A woman or girl can be branded a slut for almost anything from the people she spends time with to the music she listens to or the clothes she wears. And the word is as likely to be used by a woman as it is by a man - and it's as likely to be used by a girl as it is by a woman.
Branding a classmate a slut has become one of the most effective tools of middle- and high school bullies and it can leave girls traumatized. You don't have to look far for examples of the damaging effects of the word: Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after girls at her high school branded her a slut, and Anita Hill, who was famously called "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty" in the Clarence Thomas hearings, spring to mind.
Which is precisely the reason that Anne Ream, founder of the Voices and Faces Project, a nonprofit for sexual-assault victims, and an assault survivor herself, finds the word slut irredeemable. "It's a word that's been used to demean women historically, and it's a word that's been used to demean women currently," she says. "Even when we try, we can never really separate [words] from their original, precise meaning." But while the discussions around SlutWalks have shifted to linguistics, the discussion of rape culture and victim blaming seems to have gone by the wayside.
Read "Indian Women Take SlutWalk to New Delhi's Streets."
However, the name isn't the only thing distracting from the cause while also drawing the media. To drive home the point that clothing shouldn't determine whether you're raped or not, women have marched with signs saying, "Don't tell me how to dress, tell men not to rape," and many have marched in so-called slutty attire: miniskirts, corsets, even underwear. And the skimpily attired lot has garnered the majority of attention - and the brunt of criticism. In the New York Times Magazine, Rebecca Traister wrote that despite wanting to support SlutWalks, she "mostly felt irritation that stripping down to skivvies and calling ourselves sluts is passing for keen retort."
But while the demonstrations might not have gotten as much attention had some protesters not embraced the look, in reality the majority of the women haven't been provocatively dressed - many marched in the clothes they were wearing when they were raped: jeans, sweatshirts, pajamas.
Yet these discussions about the look and semantics of the protest - rather than, say, the actual message - are the consequences of the controversial name, according to Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women's studies and the author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Dines has been one of the most outspoken critics of SlutWalks from the start and has specifically taken issue with the name. "I think it was a mistake to think you that you can use the word slut and somehow keep the focus on male violence and not turn it onto how women dress," says Dines. "I think the very use of the word slut in the walk undermined the goal of the movement." (See the top 10 crime stories of 2010.)
Even organizers have admitted that SlutWalks aren't flawless. "It's not a perfect movement," says Olga Ivesic, a co-organizer of the SlutWalk in Los Angeles, where more than 1,000 people rallied. "But it is constantly moving and changing and evolving. This is a call to action."
Which leads us to an important point: Is there such a thing as a perfect movement? Is there a right way to protest? Even the angriest critics can't deny the galvanizing effect the movement has had. Clearly SlutWalks have struck a chord. But if it is a call to action, where will the movement go after the "summer of slut," as Ivesic termed the past few months, comes to an end?
Organizers have said they're invested in planning more marches - perhaps turning SlutWalk into an annual event - and are working to create public-service announcements and support groups for victims. But Ream, who is a self-proclaimed fan of SlutWalks, points out that the angry fuel that's caused the movement to spread isn't necessarily sustainable. The real challenge, according to Ream, is not just firing people up, but also keeping them around to "engage in the long-term work toward change."
Because it will surely take long-term work to make changes like pushing for colleges to act swiftly when a sexual assault is reported on campus - something most universities have been notoriously sluggish at - as a group of Yale students recently did. Or pushing states to repeal appalling laws like North Carolina's State v. Way, which says that if a woman agrees to sex and then changes her mind during the act, forcible intercourse doesn't qualify as rape. Sure, this sort of activism isn't nearly as sexy as rallying in the street, but it's an important part of systematically changing rape culture. (See "It's Not Just Yale: Are Colleges Doing Enough to Combat Sexual Violence?")
Jarvis, a survivor of sexual assault, said the message is getting out despite the media focus on the marches' provocative aspects. "We were really trying to tackle the idea of victim blaming. [It's] not just related to an aesthetic, but an overall mentality of why you judge somebody and why you deem people of deserving or being responsible of their own assault."
And examples of that type of judgment aren't in the distant past. When television reporter Lara Logan was brutally assaulted by a throng of men in Cairo while covering the protests in Tahrir Square, critics were quick to fault her for being there in the first place. When Nafissatou Diallo, an immigrant hotel housekeeper, accused then IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape, she was branded a prostitute by some newspapers.
These high-profile cases in which the public disparages a presumed victim make it harder for women to come forward when they are attacked, argue victims' advocates. Sadly, the statistics back this up: while an estimated 213,000 people are sexually assaulted in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, less than half of those assaults are reported. If a case does make it to court, there is still only a 16% chance that the rapist will spend any time in jail. (Read "Q&A: Warren Jeffs' Nephew Speaks Out on Verdict, Sexual Abuse.")
Those sorts of figures and finding fault with the victims make up what's known as rape culture, according to Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). And, according to O'Neill, protests against this sort of mentality were all but inevitable. "I think they are a spontaneous uprising of women who have finally had it with the victim blaming and rape culture that exists," she says of the marches. She also points out that NOW is helping to organize the Washington, D.C., rally. "I think they're a great idea."
And based on the number of women who've SlutWalked, there is more than enough might to make headway. As Ream points out, thanks to SlutWalks, "there's this phenomenal energy that we have to figure out how to channel."
Which, despite the criticisms, has been the aim of SlutWalk all along. "Did we pick our name to get attention? Yeah, we did. People need to pay attention to sexual assault," says Jarvis. But more importantly, she adds, "we want people to get into action."
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