SLUT SHAMING & VICTIM BLAMING

Seattle Slutwalk in downtown on Sunday. 

What is Slutwalk, you ask? It’s a movement that started in Toronto when a cop said, “Avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized,” which just rankled a lot of people. 

So Rose and some of her friends and I went downtown with Susan and Joel (who had become very patient with our shenanigans on his trip) to stand and – in Rose’s case – march in support of the notion that one should be able to dress free from worry that their looks might put them at risk for violence and sexual assault.

Some food for thought: 

One in six women in America are raped (one in 33 men). 

One woman’s poster from an earlier Slutwalk in Seattle: "The trial was worse than the rape. And the man who raped me tried to kill me.”

And this feedback from the The Stranger’s message board covering Slutwalk: “… isn’t "slut” a word women are trying to free themselves from? We were all up in arms when Rush Limbaugh used it on Sandra Fluke.“