Without being a zealous supporter, I sympathise with the thinking behind SlutWalk, and was bemused by Melanie Phillips’ aggressive treatment of Elizabeth Head on the Moral Maze. Women should be able to dress how they please rather than have to cover up for fear of being thought responsible for the (potential) crimes of others.
(Yet?) I also sympathised with some of the points Andy Newman raised on this thread– in particular the proposition (and clearly this is a hugely complex and contentious issue) that an overly broad definition of what might be considered rape might actually perpetuate rather than challenge gender stereotypes and inequalities.
Over on Pickled Politics Rumbold (quite rightly) lays into the offensive remarks of lawyer Nick Freeman.
Quiet Riot Girl enthuses about Camille Paglia’s take on slutwalking.I like Paglia’s literary criticism, but found this an unengaging piece. Here’s the rather paleo conclusion.
When it devalued motherhood, Western feminism undermined women’s most ancient claim to dignity. Sluttishness as fact or metaphor cannot restore that lost mythic power.
I preferred Dru Marland’s conclusion to her piece on the Cardiff SlutWalk.
For me, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to reclaim the word as appropriate it; so that the event presented as wide and diverse a range of women as possible, making the point that any woman can be labelled a slut by a man who wants to transfer the blame for his wrong thoughts or deeds to the object or victim of them. Because I’ve been on the receiving end of that sort of nonsense. And it is annoying. And corrosive. And dangerous. And it gets in the way of people treating people like people, which is how things should be.
