Slut-shaming is the practice of criticizing people, especially women and girls, who are perceived to violate expectations krystyna ukrainian dating blog behavior and appearance regarding issues related to sexuality. Slut-shaming involves criticizing women for their transgression of accepted codes of sexual conduct, i. Slut-shaming is used by men and women. Slut-shaming functions among girls and women as a way of sublimating sexual jealousy “into a socially acceptable form of social critique of girls’ or women’s sexual expression.
The action of slut-shaming can be considered to be a form of social punishment and is an aspect of sexism. The social movement falls into the category of feminism. This raises controversy because gender roles do have a significant role in the social movement. Researchers from Cornell University found that sentiments similar to slut-shaming appeared in nonsexual, same-sex friendship context as well. The researchers had college women read a vignette describing an imaginary female peer, “Joan”, then rate their feelings about her personality. Rather, although the act of slut-shaming has existed for centuries, discussion of it has grown out of social and cultural relations and the trespassing of boundaries of what is considered normative and acceptable behavior.
It has been reported by The Pew Research Center that the most common targets of harassment on the Internet are often young women. In particular, those who were 18 to 24 years of age experienced varying amounts of severe harassment at astoundingly high rates. In this hashtag, women would collectively tweet examples of harassment they have received from men. One example of a character in literature has been described as being a recipient of ‘slut-shaming’ is the character Lily Bart in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth. The Slut Walk movement has embraced the slut-shame label and has engaged in an act of resignification. Slut Walk a “collective movement” where the focus goes back to the perpetrator and no longer rests on the victim.
This act of resignification comes from the work of feminist scholar Judith Butler. Sandra Fluke controversy as follows: “If you are a woman who stands up for your rights, you are a slut and your parents should be ashamed of you and we should all have the right to view your sex tapes online. Slut-shaming has been used as a form of bullying on social media, with some people using revenge pornography tactics to spread intimate photos without consent. In 2012, a California teenager, Audrie Pott, was sexually assaulted by three boys at a party. She committed suicide eight days after photos of her being assaulted were distributed among her peer group.
James Miller, editor-in-chief, for the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada wrote a controversial article defending slut shaming. Activism against slut-shaming takes place worldwide. Participants have covered their bodies in messages reading “Don’t Tell Me How to Dress” and “I am not a slut but I like having consensual sex” and march under a giant banner with the word slut on it. Activism has occurred in Vancouver, New York City, Rio, Jerusalem, Hong Kong and others. In 2008, hundreds of South African women protested the local taxi rank wearing miniskirts and t-shirts that read, “Pissed-Off Women” after a taxi driver and multiple hawkers confronted a young girl about wearing a short denim miniskirt and penetrated her with their fingers, calling her “slut” repeatedly.
After the gang rape of an unconscious sixteen year old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, August 2012, football players spread videos of the assault to other classmates whom some of which posted the videos to Twitter and Instagram. The pictures and video were later removed by authorities, however that did not stop people from hash-tagging “Whore status” or “I have no sympathy for whores” in their tweets. Members of The Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company have developed a play, Slut: The Play, in which they address the damaging impact of slut-shaming and slut culture. In her statement on the production, and of slut-shaming in general, author of Slut!
A teenage girl today is caught in an impossible situation. She has to project a sexy image and embrace, to some extent, a ‘slutty’ identity. Otherwise, she risks being mocked as an irrelevant prude. But if her peers decide she has crossed an invisible, constantly shifting boundary and has become too ‘slutty,’ she loses all credibility.
