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2000 March Saturday in Boston's SlutWalk
Mass. advocates join international 'Slutwalk' movement with their own
BOSTON — Chanting "We love sluts!" and holding signs like "Jesus loves sluts," approximately 2,000 protesters marched Saturday around the Boston Common as the city officially became the latest to join an international series of protests known as "SlutWalks."
Women march past the Statehouse during the SlutWalk in Boston, Saturday, May 7, 2011, which organizers described as a demonstration against those who blame the victims of sex crimes. The walk was held in response to a Toronto police officer who said women shouldn't dress like "sluts" if they wanted to avoid being raped. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds) The protest movement, sparked by a Toronto police officer's remark that women could avoid being raped by not dressing like "sluts," came to Boston after advocates saw similar events — largely organized through Facebook and Twitter — pop up in Canada, England and other parts of the U.S.
"We wanted to do something to show our support," said Siobhan Connors, 20, of Lynn, Mass., a Boston organizer. "We originally planned for a small event and expected about 30 people."
But by the time the march began Saturday, about 2,000 people — some dressed in lingerie with the words "slut" written across their stomachs — were in attendance.
In January, a Toronto police officer told a group of university students that women should avoid dressing like "sluts" to avoid being raped. He later apologized. The officer who made the comments, Constable Michael Sanguinetti, was disciplined but remained on duty, said Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash.
However, advocates in Toronto held a "SlutWalk" to protest the officer's remarks and to highlight what they saw as problems in blaming sexual assault victims. Since then, SlutWalks, organized mainly through social media, have been held in Dallas, Asheville, N.C., and Ottawa, Ontario. Organizers say the events also were held to bring attention to "slut-shaming," or shaming women for being sexual, and the treatment of sexual assault victims.
"I had watched the Toronto walk happen from afar," said Jaclyn Friedman, author of "Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape" and resident of Medford, Mass. "When I heard it was coming to Boston I just emailed the organizers and said, 'How can I help?'"
Organizers invited Friedman to speak.
Vanessa White, 33, of Somerville, Mass., also heard about the event through Facebook and showed up for the Boston event dressed in a pink jacket and fishnet stockings.
"For me ... it's an attempt to reclaim the word 'slut' itself," said White. "Because once you reclaim it, you take the power away from it."
Before the march, a small group of counter protesters, wearing colorful cowboy hats with feathers and holding a boom box that played hip-hop and 1970s funk, walked around the gathering. Dubbed the "PimpWalk," organizer Samuel Bilowski, 23, of Salem, N.H., said his group wanted to "get some numbers" and talk to attractive women.
"This is a pathetic attempt at a joke," admitted Bilowski. "We're just having fun."
Still, White and a group of other advocates surrounded Bilowski and his group and yelled the word "slut" repeatedly. Others verbally attacked Bilowski for glorifying violence against women.
Bilowski's group eventually joined the SlutWalk march around the Common.
Following Boston, SlutWalk marches are planned in cities including Seattle; New York; Chicago; Philadelphia; Reno, Nev.; and Austin, Texas.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllAs long as we're focusing on important matters like what one cop said one time, then we're doing well right? ;)
And surrounding and yelling at those who fail to take such matters as seriously as they "should" be taken is another thing we should admire, yes?
"we"? What are you doing?
And, no, it goes way beyond what one cop said when he wasn't thinking.
It goes to how certain sections of society, view women and sex. Whether the issue is rape (there is always some attempt at making a defense of the woman deserved it, her character is questioned, etc), or contraception, or sex education, or sex work. There is always an attempt to shift the blame (exclusively) onto the woman.
"And surrounding and yelling at those who fail to take such matters as seriously as they "should" be taken is another thing we should admire, yes?"
So, I take it you are against all protests and demonstrations then?
What I'm doing is pointing out how silly this all is compared to the TOTAL CRUMBLING OF THE REPUBLIC that is currently going on.
I am, of course against, "protests and demonstrations", that are actually Mob actions bent on intimidating those they encounter.
See how that is not a good thing?
But its the place one goes to when one thinks that one should be able to somehow force other people to change their views.
-matti.
"What I'm doing is pointing out how silly this all is compared to the TOTAL CRUMBLING OF THE REPUBLIC that is currently going on."
So what are you doing about the total crumbling of the republic? Who made you king, and god, that gets to decide what is mroe important?
"I am, of course against, "protests and demonstrations", that are actually Mob actions bent on intimidating those they encounter."
How the heck is this a "Mob action bent on intimidating those they encounter."? What are they forcing you to do?
"See how that is not a good thing?"
Nope.
Exactly.
At least in the case of Toronto, the slut-march protesters were protesting in a city without the racism, racist cops, gross economic inequality, blighted neighborhoods, homelessness, people dying because they cannot get medical care, etc... of US cities.
I'm definitely pro "slut" as used here. Women have a right to be sexual if we're going to stand up for "the right to pursuit of happeness." What could be more American or Canadian anyway? Most of all what could be more deeply human? Let's put the human and humanistic back into the hiuman race. Puritanism has had its day! Let's get rid of it.
1. These protests are not limited to Toronto.
2. Are you being sarcastic? If you think Toronto has no racism etc, you are deluded.
3. You conveniently avoided mentioning rape I see. What conclusions should people draw from that, I wonder? Do you support rape? Are you a wannabe rapist?
Total agreement, matti.
This is just the sort of mindless, "safe", fun protesting that makes the youth movement -- and the left in general -- utterly irrelevant.
I was a grad student from 2005-2007, and got very much involved with SDS, which was being revived at the time as a student anti-war force. I could see the direction this group was taking though, and by 2007, I decided to stop going to meetings, as they were usually about three hours of discussion on the importance of "subverting gender roles." The young students would come up with these ideas for "actions" like dressing in drag to class, and I just couldn't help but think -- hello!! there is a war going on!
I think the youth are completely mixed up. They are blissfully unaware of the wholesale destruction of the American republic, and not very informed on the lawless violent empire that the US has become. So, instead of protesting things that really matter, they get all bent out of shape over the ignorant remarks of some cop in Toronto and decide that the time is now to reclaim the word "slut".. SLUT POWER!
How stupid.
Your whine is precisely what makes the left so useless.
The issue that is most important to you, must be most important to everyone else too. Otherwise, everyhone is not pure enough.
How stupid.
Just think for a second about the image this sends to the rest of the world. Judging by the street demonstrations in the US -- starting the week with wild celebrations over the extra-judicial assassination of a criminal suspect, and ending it with a scantily clad march to reclaim the word "slut" due to the comments of some cop from another country -- the American people surely look like a bunch of lunatics.
Meanwhile, drone attacks killed a bunch of innocent people in two different countries, Bradley Manning continues to be held without trial for nothing more than allegedly revealing US war crimes, pollution continues to wreak havoc on weather systems... And the youth are out protesting to reclaim the word "slut." Next thing you know they will be demonstrating against using the word "druggie" in a derogatory way. Then we'll have "sluts and druggies united" demonstrations.
But no, that wouldn't be stupid at all.
1. Other countries are taking up this protest.
2. It did not start in the US, it started in Canada.
"Meanwhile, drone attacks killed a bunch of innocent people in two different countries, Bradley Manning continues to be held without trial for nothing more than allegedly revealing US war crimes, pollution continues to wreak havoc on weather systems... And the youth are out protesting to reclaim the word "slut." Next thing you know they will be demonstrating against using the word "druggie" in a derogatory way. Then we'll have "sluts and druggies united" demonstrations.
"
3. It isn't simply about reclaiming the word slut. It is about addressing the perception of women and sex. NOt to mention rape. Issues that apply all over the world,. which is why, people in other countries are taking up the protest too.
So, no, not stupid. What is stupid, is the usual, I'm purer than thou.
Well, I listened to the AP report, and one of the marchers definitely said something like "it's time to take back the word 'slut", so at least to some of these girls, that's what it was about. But actually, what I think it was really about was just some college kids having a good time. They are, like, kinda standing up for something, enjoying the weather, dressing up like sluts to make, like, a statement or something. That's all.
Try to organize these kids to demonstrate against America's permanent war? Not going to happen.
Exactly! The US needs a left that actually cares about the working class, not bourgeois liberal identity politics.
I am proud to announce that I have always been objectively pro-slut.
Gee, as a healthy heterosexual male who in his younger years spent a lot of time at the beaches of Florida and the Mediterranean, I guess I should consider myself lucky that I never raped anyone. I never minded it, though, when the sluts took advantage of me (and I use the word "sluts" in a positive manner - I love sexily dressed women!)
There does not appear to be a single woman in the slut march who looks African, Latina, south Asian, near Asian, east Asian or first nations. All white European woman. Draw your own conclusions.
.
Glaciation.
The suffragetes who chained themselves to the gates of power in London were white and privileged. Perhaps you think women should never have gotten the right to vote?
Are you African, Latina, south Asian, near Asian, east Asian or first nations? What gives YOU, the right to self appoint yourself as spokesman of of African, Latina, south Asian, near Asian, east Asian or first nations women?
And a simple google search will show picturs of non white people participating in the protests. Including men of different ethnicities.
For example:
http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/
.
Context: in the wake of the televised, 1991 Clarence Thomas - Anita Hill debacle, =Canada= passed some criminal law that was =ball busting=. It enshrined the legal construct that, in sex relations, women give consent to do so while men beg and grovel in persistent, stepwise progression towards actual copulation with an actual female.
I wrote to Ms. Kim Campbell - then the Canadian Attorney General - and told her frankly I was withholding my consent for her to have intercourse with me, until I was better acquainted with her values. I was , however, game for mutual manipulation of body parts. On a serious note, I proposed a Psychological Protocol for courts to follow in crimes alleging rape. The end goal was to oblige each party before a court to see a Clinical Psychologist in advance of trial date and to reveal the Exact Same Information about their mental health, and past sex lives, seal that information, and make law that 1) only the judge hearing the case could break the seals, 2) if information in one envelope was considered vital, BOTH envelopes had to be opened and the identical information on BOTH parties be made public. To her credit (IMO) Ms. Campbell wrote back to me, and indicated she saw the possible benefit of using such a protocol. It made an equal playing field.
A good topic for the self-identified "SLUTS" is the semantic elements of CONSENT versus MUTUAL AGREEMENT.
Trylon
Oh I do feel such sorrow for you CD regulars. How do you face the live-long day? You have to deal with rapists, racists, Republicans and now, I believe, paid trolls undermining your hard-fought cyber space!! All the while you sit in your ivory towers penning epic, self-righteous diatribe after epic blinkered diatribe bemoaning the fact that no one understands how pretty life could be if we all just held hands and smiled and obeyed the Sci-Fi lunacy of your self-appointed spin doctors. And nothing changes. You continue to drive your cars and eat your imported foods and click on the air con at will. You click on a comment and fire off a response, then turn to the fridge or the mall to fill your empty souls. You continue to turn blind eyes to the mass murder being committed by your armies in the name of your freedoms. You pop drug cocktails to fix your conditions which are all caused by the massive and ghastly excesses you fill your lives with. You buy petty baubles and worthless trinkets and think you have found the El Dorado of the soul. You consume the planet faster than any species in the history of the third rock from the sun, yet you are all blind to your own excesses. You are viciously petty, smugly arrogant and woefully ignorant of the pain and tragedy in the real world. You fuel your hatred with ego-masturbatory, intellectual snobbery and wonder why the rest of the world despises (abhors, I say, loathes) America and Americans.
I think there is a name for this condition, and it is ego. Puritanical ego. It shall destroy this planet.
Well that's me pegged for sure. ;)
Y'know, it takes a true friend to point out one's flaws in raving, paragraph-less style.
Thanks, onemantribe!
-matti.
P.S. It must be lonely being in a tribe all by yourself. ;(
I think these demonstraters are great, and I applaud the counter-demonstraters for being man-enough to admit they were wrong, and even join the marchers in support of what they were saying.
I agree with what they are saying about reclaiming a word - the way "queer" has been reclaimed.
I have also thought, for some time, that women should more frequently call promiscuous or cheating men "sluts." Like the representative who went off with his Argentinian mistress, for example, and had an aide tell people he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Why weren't more people in the media calling him for the slut that he is? Oh the sluts that I see on the male side of the human species! Especially in politics.
Yknow there's a war on, right?
Actually a couple or three.
And that the Constitution has been torn to shreds?
Empire in all but name now.
Hello?
Sometimes I wish I could rip my compassion and empathy out of my soul and be an Imperialist or Corporatist.
My "side" of the fight is just so useless!
Will one of the legit trolls here please inform your masters that for $150,000 a year I will join the Dark Side? (as a consultant, I like my free time ;) )
I've just seen the last bit of idiocy from Campus Left dilettantes that I can stand.
Thanks.
-matti.
I don't see how the anti-war movement loses because women are standing up for their rights. No one in that march is a corporatist.
If you're so bothered by women demonstrating against sexism and the attitudes that legitimize rape, you need some soul-searching, in my opinion, as to what's really bothering you.
This has more to do with war and violence and inequality than you are recognizing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS78MX8Zmdk
Indeed, I think your reaction, in putting these women down, whether you're male or female, is sexist.
You know that you're not king right?
"Sometimes I wish I could rip my compassion and empathy out of my soul and be an Imperialist or Corporatist."
You already are. You think that you have a right to decide for people what is most important in their lives, and how they should act.
"My "side" of the fight is just so useless!"
Yep. Because of people like you.
"Will one of the legit trolls here please inform your masters that for $150,000 a year I will join the Dark Side? (as a consultant, I like my free time ;) )
I've just seen the last bit of idiocy from Campus Left dilettantes that I can stand.
Thanks."
Good riddance.
Oh those rebellious student years! I wonder how many will take the corporate dollar when they graduate?
Not too many. Most are looking at jobs shuffling capucchinos if they're lucky (is Starbucks corporate dollar?), while loaded with tens of thousands (at the least) in student debt, and far less per dollar than their male counterparts. A significant proportion will eventually be single parents, still carrying the heavier responsibilities in terms of both labor and capital in child rearing, with a great proportion sentenced to poverty in their older years. You do know that women are also far more likely than men to spend their senior time impoverished? As for health care, forget it. Not to mention how many of them are going to die because, in spite of the health care "overhaul", what it really amounts to , are things getting worse and worse. 45,000 per year dying? Watch. And wait til they break the figures according to gender.
And of course, then there's the stats on how many are going to be victims of domestic abuse, sexual harassment, violent crime, or rape, themselves. If not already.
Is was a general comment about student protest in general, one that I have levelled against students both male and female before. The fact that the economic climate might not at this moment allow many to jump onto the corporate ladder doesn't negate the point that for many, student protest is little more than posturing. The rest of your post, I'm afraid to say, isn't even relevant.
sexual attraction is vital to our species...
that it sometimes becomes an outlet for inherent violence is lamentable, yet understandable...this is not to imply acceptance...
we are all responsible for our choices...
of all the words one might fight to retain, 'slut' is pretty lame...
'gay' is a much better word...I'd like that one back...
"that it sometimes becomes an outlet for inherent violence is lamentable, yet understandable...this is not to imply acceptance...
"
So, it is understandable, if I see you on the street, and decide I do not like you, for me to beat you to a bloody smear?
And how do you explain the incidences of old women, even in their 80s, getting raped? Of lesbians getting raped as a "cure"?
"we are all responsible for our choices...
"
Yes, the person committing assault is responsible for his / her actions.
"of all the words one might fight to retain, 'slut' is pretty lame...
"
Why?
Hiierarchy is the cause all oppression including the kind which labels women who are honest about and like their sexuality. Ten to 12 millenia none of this would have happened. Before hierarchies all were on the same level and all humanity did better. From 100 to 200 millenia all were egalitarian and had no silly need for aggession including sexual aggression, thus rape and any kind of aggression isn't natural at all to the modern human species. Dominating others is a product of this abnormal behavior we call hierarchy or pecking order. It may cause the human race to become extinct. These women are fighting for us all. Their struggle is that of all humanity's. Today we are all sluts.