Los Angeles SlutWalk steering committee member and GMPM columnist Hugo Schwyzer argues that SlutWalk is for men, too.
The sluts are in the streets. From L.A. to London, Minneapolis to Melbourne, this has become “SlutWalk spring.” (Down under, I suppose it’s “SlutWalk Fall.”) SlutWalk began in Toronto, Canada, in response to a police officer’s remark that if women wanted to avoid being raped, they shouldn’t dress like sluts. That exercise in victim-blaming led Heather Jarvis, Sonya Barnett, and a handful of their friends to put together a small march and rally through the streets of Canada’s largest city on April 3.
Perhaps it was the controversy around the name, or perhaps it was the cause itself, but in the less than eight weeks since that first SlutWalk, the movement has become a global phenomenon with widespread press attention. Satellite SlutWalks have taken place or are in the planning stages on six continents. The Los Angeles SlutWalk happens on June 4; I’m proud to be on the steering committee for what we expect will be a major event.
There are many reasons why men should be involved with SlutWalk. The important ones have nothing to do with what the women marching might—or might not—be wearing. (There is no dress code for SlutWalk, and past marches have seen folks rally in everything from bathrobes to bikinis to Brooks Brothers suits.)
When that cop in Toronto made that unfortunate remark about women “dressing like sluts” being more likely to be raped, he was telling a partial truth. He wasn’t right about who gets sexually assaulted—there is no study that shows that women in miniskirts or tube tops are statistically at greater risk of rape than their more modestly-clad sisters. Rather, he was telling a truth about how our culture sees men. And that truth is based on one very great lie.
I’ve been doing work around gender and sexual violence for nearly 25 years. I developed my college’s first interdisciplinary course on “Men and Masculinity” a decade ago. And in all my years of teaching and activism, I’ve come to believe that there’s one lie that’s bigger than any other we tell about men: we cannot reconcile our arousal and our compassion. In other words, the lie says we can’t truly respect what we also desire.
More than a few men, if they’re honest with themselves, know that this isn’t true for them. As boyfriends and husbands, many straight guys discover that they can both lust after and be genuinely in love with the same woman at the same time. We learn (most of us) that the older boys in the locker room were wrong: a hard dick can have a conscience. But we often suspect we’re the only ones who can reconcile our libidos with our ethics.
And so out of fear what other men might do (or, perhaps, what we fear we might dream of doing ourselves) we urge our little sisters and our daughters to “cover up”, to avoid dressing “slutty” in order to ensure respect for men. Deep down, we know that the women we love are as vulnerable to rape in a mu-mu as in a miniskirt. Men rape as much out of rage as frustrated desire—and there is no outfit short of steel armor a woman can wear that will protect her from an obsessed stalker or a drunken frat boy filled with a sense of entitlement.
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I’m involved in organizing SlutWalk LA for many reasons. But I appreciate one assumption that the Toronto founders made in particular. Though what constitutes “slutty” clothing is obviously open to debate, SlutWalkers believe in men’s capacity to do two things at once: be aroused by what we see while honoring the humanity of the woman whose body attracts our eye. The most pernicious of all lies about men is that because of our makeup, lust and empathy can’t coexist within us. If you want kind and compassionate men who will respect women’s boundaries, the myth suggests, those women will have to conceal the parts of themselves that will turn men bestial and irresponsible.
There’s another lie SlutWalk refutes. It’s the one that says that men only need to “respect women who respect themselves.”
Too many of us still believe that “self-respect” for a woman means chastity and modesty. If she’s wearing revealing clothing, enjoys attention, and maybe even likes sex outside of a committed monogamous relationship, we call her a “slut”—and accuse her of not respecting herself. Perhaps she does respect herself, perhaps she doesn’t. (Promiscuity is not perfectly correlated with low self-esteem, despite what a lot of pop psychologists tell you.) But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Women aren’t commodities whose value is based on their own fluctuating sense of self-worth.
Common decency means respecting people because they’re people, not because of how we imagine they feel about themselves. So if a woman dresses in a way that we think invites sexual attention, or if she chooses multiple sexual partners, we’re not required to approve of her lifestyle or her fashion choices. But we are required to respect her right to move through public and private space unchallenged and unmolested. That’s not too much to ask for any man.
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When I was first publicly identified as an organizer of SlutWalk LA, someone sent me a tweet asking how I’d feel if my daughter turned out to be “a slut.” It’s not as offensive a question as it sounds. It was a reminder to me as a dad that I shouldn’t advocate for others what I wouldn’t want for my own child.
What I replied (in more than one 140 character tweet) was that my daughter was foremost in my mind when I committed to the SlutWalk campaign. I want a world where she is free to grow into a woman’s body without fear of being raped. I want her to have the freedom to express her sexuality safely and joyfully in whatever way she chooses, whenever she’s ready (and not a moment before). And I want her to grow up without shame about her own wanting and about her wanting to be wanted.
I want my daughter to grow up in a world in which all men are safe, responsible, reliable. We don’t have that world yet, of course. But the reason has nothing to do with biology: it has to do with our crushingly low expectations of men’s capacity to reconcile lust and humanity. In order for our daughters and little sisters and nieces to be safer, we must demand better of ourselves as men. And one way to start is to challenge the very roots of our thinking about sex, desire, and respect. That challenge is part of what SlutWalk is all about.
—Photo by troismarteaux/Flickr
About Hugo Schwyzer
No thanks. I teach my kids to not dress like sluts (evidently it’s OK to use this word) or leave the car doors open, a wad of cash on the dashboard with the keys in the ignition and the car running in the mall parking lot. In neither case would they be causing a crime but they sure would be inviting one.
Personally, I don’t see much harm with simple freedom of expression. Sometimes I want to dress with less, that doesn’t change whether or not I hook up with a guy, I just like feeling like I look good, and whether people look or not, it makes me feel good to think that, at least to myself, I look good. It’s not a pleasure I enjoy often and I don’t the harm in doing so. When you go to the beach, it is okay to wear less than you usually do and in fact, it is encouraged since it is easier to swim, yet no one is trying to ban beaches. No one says that people go to the beach to get raped or people are inviting to get raped, but if the way you dress is correlated to the chances of getting raped, then people should steer clear or beaches. It honestly seems like a silly argument.
I think we need to change the way men see women period. If I wear a skin tight dress, it is not a non-verbal way of saying ,”have sex with me please!” And men need to understand that a woman dressing slutty is not a valid reason to sexually assault or rape her! How would men like it if every time they wear biker shorts outside, a women would rape them at gunpoint? It’s sickening! I cannot even wear a sun dress with out men trying to harass and assault me! And on another point, I think there is something wrong with a person who feels the need to have SO many sexual partners. Men have this problem more than women and I think there is something going on in men’s minds where they are lacking something!
Can you please tell that to my female friends who continually whines about how she can’t get laid. She keeps saying “AND THEN I PUT ON THIS SUPER TIGHT dress and was like all tight, AND NOBODY approached me for a one-night stand, ughhhhhhhh, guys are such idiots these days, i mean hello, why did I dress this way”.
So here’s my solution for what you ask. THERE’S A VERY simple solution. From now on women should VERBALLY initiate sex themselves. Women who are interested in sex should approach and ask for sex themselves – that way men can just wait to know for sure a woman is interested, instead of guessing what a particular woman means by a particular action.
P.S.
You’re contradicting some of the slut-walk organizes. A few ofthem said stuff like “uggh, I have a right to go out just trying to get laid” – so…
Get it?
P.P.S
Check out table1 here:
http://aleknovy.com/2011/06/03/evil-assholic-men-misinterpret-womens-communication-on-purpose-can-anyone-genuinelly-read-womens-interest-and-disinterest/
There is a whole lot of difference between dressing sexily and being open to approaches and dressing sexily and being raped. The difference is consent. Your friends are complaining not because they are not being raped but because they are not being approached in a friendly, interested, and nonthreatening manner.
You are right that communication would solve that problem. If horny women felt more comfortable approaching men that they are interested in, they’d probably get laid more often. Of course, that is behaving in a way that women have been taught not to since birth, so it is really hard to get over – especially since there are social consequences for behaving that way. Because women aren’t supposed to ask – aren’t supposed to have to ask – and if you do, there must be something wrong with you. Fun fact, I’ve had men leave the club simply because I asked them to dance. Apparently “would you like to dance” is code for “I want to marry you, have 6 babies, divorce you messily, and take every penny you have in child support”. Or so I surmise.
Wondering-you seem like a nice person so I’ll assume what you did was not bad intentioned.
You took my reply given in one context and applied it to another. The cOntext was what I quoted. It wasn’t consent or else. It was about “how dare men think I’m out looking to get laid”.
Now, my personal solution is to never ever ever assume or guess anything. Never ever ever initiate sex or flirting first – but create an atmosphere where you make it easy for women to express interest first.
Sure it will be hard for women some time-but guess what, welcome to the adult world, it’s not easy being the initiator. I go out of my way to praise and make life better for women who take their sex and love life in their hands. I make them proud and empowered if they do it-with anyone, not just me. You could say in doing the opposite of slut shaming. I’m doing my share of making the world a better place.
So I think if men just give women more space to initiate and just make the women feel good for doing it-it’s gonna help out a lot.
Slut-shaming will end the exact same day that creep-shaming ends. Both are ways society uses to control the sexuality of members it deems “unworthy” of access to sex or social status.
So, asking men to unilaterally fight for women’s liberation is literally arrogant. If women do not care about dismantling the creep label, men do not have a contractual obligation to help women shed the slut label.
I would support a creep/slut-walk.
Guys are told continually “If you were falsely accused of rape, sent to jail and ass-r**ed for 20 years – well its your fault, coz you were creepy looking”. If women attack you and harass and bully you, well dude, its your fault, you were creepy etc… etc…
what is a female issue doing in a mens site? we have had affermative action for 40 years which is sex discrimination anti male at its best , I wanted to march to support womans movement to stop violence against women but was told no only females allowed as “we ” males assult women.
I am sick of my taxes going to every womans program ever devised , women in business , women represented in government , womans programs . all childrens government support monies to the ‘mother” as though Fathers have no say ? the divorce courts discriminating against males , taking their children , that term ” a male getting in touch with his feminine side ? meaning compassion, caring , love as though only females have that?? .and your “masculine side means agression!!! utter crap!
the glass ceiling ? wtf?? only for high paid “clean” exec jobs ? what about” equality” on the dirty hard jobs men do ??? yes i am all for equal rubbish collectors, brick layers , sewage workers . truckies !! farmers, mechanics, plumbers , no it wont happen !! to hard lol
I can see what you’re saying, and I think it’s wrong to discriminate against a man and not let him become part of the solution to what may be considered a woman’s issue. I don’t really understand the logic behind that, and I can see where your frustration comes from. That being said, men are gaining more and more rights with their children, with men being afforded custody more often than before. I do think you have valid points, but honestly, you can’t blame everyone for bad experiences. Just because what is happening to you, and men in general, is wrong, that doesn’t detract from the fact that slut-shaming is still wrong.
Also, women take dirty jobs too, and ones that are paid worse. While my mom couldn’t carry as much as my dad and therefore didn’t work in construction, she’s worked in factories and jobs where she (and many others, men included) faced much more disrespect than my dad ever did and fewer benefits for a fraction what he was paid. She has done some heavy lifting (for her) and been a painter, etc. She, like many others, has had crappy jobs that weren’t male-dominated. She currently works cleaning a lobby, and I know another woman who really cleaned cars and did landscaping. While that didn’t always involve laying bricks, they dealt/deal with a lot in the workforce as well. It’s not fair to detract from the hard work people put in just because it’s not what you generally consider a “dirty” job.
I appreciate the points re: “the lie that says we can’t truly respect what we also desire.” However, re: why men rape (“Men rape as much out of rage as frustrated desire”), the root cause of rape is the rapist’s violent insistence on having power and control.
Hi Hugo,
I hope that men also learn to stop calling women sl*t, b*tch, and all the other misogynist and racist terms so many men across sexual orientation think are so cool that they’ll now call men the same things–which, as far as I can tell, does nothing at all to stop men from using them against women. What’s your experience with hearing the terms men call women? Any change over the years that you’ve noticed.
To add to the conversation on Sl*twalk, I posted this:
http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2011/05/sltwalk-another-point-of-view.html
I would hope that women with lots of privilege would be accountable to those women who are most negatively affected by those terms–and the violence backing them up–should be in charge with when they are used “in feminism’s name”.
All the women I know don’t like the tactic of “appropriation” of misogynist terms.
Wonderful article, thank you so much. Sexual assault is not just a women’s issue, it is a man’s issue, it is EVERYONE’s issue!
This was one of the best pieces I have read on the issue of SLUTWALK and as to how shoud men take it, considering the phobia most men develop for a woman who is aware of her body. I am glad you have contextualised various points and given a personal example so as to prove that men think on such issues too and that they are definitely ready to accept women as human. Kudos!
Fantastic article. The point about men being able to have a boner and conscience is especially great.
If women are expected to treat men as victims of their (male) biology and uncontrollable urges in the face of visual stimulation… and given that visual stimulation is tremendously subjective culturally and individually (ie – in some places and times, displaying a bare shoulder is considered suggestive), why are men allowed to walk around untethered at all? They should all be locked up. Ironically, blaming ‘sluts’ is actually about the false victimization of men.
Rapists don’t care about what women are wearing – moralists do.
I get it. I should feel free to leave my car unlocked with the windows down, keys in the ignition and cash on the seat and not be criticized or admonished by the police.
Thank you!
Hugo writes:-
“I want my daughter to grow up in a world in which all men are safe, responsible, reliable.”
The crass childishness of the ‘Slut Walk’ campaigns aside – do you want your son to grow up in a world in which all women can be safely, responsibly and reliably trusted never to point a false acccusing finger ?
The consequences are life ruining and its frequency is hidden and lied about by the media and the intelligentsia.
@Hugo
“I want my daughter to grow up in a world in which all men are safe, responsible, reliable.”
The childishness of the slut walk campaigns aside – do you want your son to grow up in a world in which all women can be safely, responsibly and reliably trusted never to point a false accusing finger?
The consequences are life ruining and its frequency is hidden and lied about by the media and the intelligentsia.
Hugo, I love you. This: we cannot reconcile our arousal and our compassion. In other words, the lie says we can’t truly respect what we also desire – is a big fat lie you have nailed! Well done!
There are so many women working on this issue & I love that you advocate for simple, direct compassion.
Bravo!
yeah….i actli undrstud d topic n every content of d article…n nw i think i realy hve 2 change my mind 4 evry gud lukin or vry frndly gal….ty guyz
Dis is a vry intrsting topic…..
I’l also make my sociology project on dis gr8ly gr8 topic…..
I found this text from facebook. Many of my friends had relinked it, posted it to their friends’ walls and recommended it.
I think it’s one of the best entries on the subject I have ever read, and I will intend to recommend, relink and post it forward. Thank you very much for this!
Lemme guess, a man wrote this right? Of course men who want some one night stand won’t call a woman at that time a slut…
Dude, a woman shouldn’t have to debase herself to just get acceptance. I’d rather be seen as modest than a revolving door. It’s amazing how a guy will sleep with the naked whore before sleeping with the girl who chooses to have moral values.
I thank for the information.
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