She Said What?

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/the-funny-thing-about-the-slutwalk-feminism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ThoughtCatalog+%28Thought+Catalog%29

This makes me really mad. Mad as in I am about to go Incredible Hulk. What disappoints me even more is that the piece was written by a woman. If women cannot even stand as one to fight for their entitlements, then what hope do we have? That's the inherent problem with women--it's so much easier to turn against one another than to find ways to relate to each other. I still can't decide if it's structural or innate. Ok, but that's for another post.

The mentality exemplified in this piece is exactly what is wrong with our society, our patriarchal, misogynistic, un-progressive, imbalanced society. It makes me so mad whenever people say that women are to blame for the way they dress. That they were asking for uninvited behavior when they decided to wear revealing clothing. Are they idiots? It completely displaces the blame onto the victims and affirms the admissibility of disgusting, slimy behavior--from cat-calling to rape. You cannot characterize a rapist as someone who was compelled to act due to external circumstances. Even the lowest life form knows it is morally reprehensible to cause harm to someone else. Perpetrators are completely guilty for what they have done. Do not try to tell me the woman deserved to be assaulted because of the way she dressed. Well, continue this line of argument and why don't we just completely absolve the perpetrators of all wrongdoing? Women certainly do not think, oh, I wonder if wearing this will get me attacked, when they are looking through their wardrobe and trying to decide what to wear. Women dress the way they do for a number of reasons, and none of them entail inviting harm to themselves. I can't list all of the reasons because every woman is different, but I can say that I absolutely always dress the way I do because it brings me confidence, it fits the social setting, and because sometimes I just want to look damn hot. None of those reasons remotely ask for a male to hit on me.

In a way I am continuing the fallacies of the argument in the piece above, because most slutty dressing does not lead to outcomes as severe as rape. I don't have the exact figures but I'm pretty sure most rape crimes are caused by someone a woman already knows and less so by complete strangers. Women may get a cat call and a creepy look. And I am not saying that women should not expect that when they dress revealingly. It will happen. But there are those minor annoyances that can be dealt with, and the more serious behavior; for example, groping or inappropriate touching. And really, what I take issue with is people saying, well if you do not want that attention you should not dress that way. Well, fuck you. I should be able to dress the way I want and not out of consideration of how people will respond. Men don't have to, why should I? I shouldn't have to, and saying I have to ignores where the change in attitude should really take place.

What do women get from "protecting" themselves by changing the way they dress? A society that will never see the unforgivability of discriminatory treatment of men and women. A society that condones assaults on women and questions the reasons for such behavior when it should be crystal clear. This post reminded me of a radio piece I heard recently where a New York Times reporter got into some hot water because readers thought he had portrayed the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in Cleveland, Texas, quite unsympathetically, even laying partial blame on the way she dressed and implying that the victim had caused the crime unto herself. Besides the fact that she is 11 and does not have an inkling of thought as to how vulnerable she was, the other thing with bringing the way she dressed into the equation is that it demonstrates how we as a society assume that if only women changed one little physical thing about themselves, that things would be ok. The problem is definitely structural and a lot more embedded than we would like to think. It's going to take a lot more change than trading in a short skirt for pants to change the way people think about gender relations.

Women should not have to live in fear for their safety and make unnecessary choices based on that. Men don't have to worry about whether their appearance will elicit unwanted behavior, why should women? The hope for a progressive society is to move in a direction that allows both sexes to become increasingly liberated, to live the lives they so freely choose as long as it doesn't harm others.

This Thought Catalog post? Opposite direction.