Slut Walk

Little had Constable Michael Sanguinetti known how one statement of his could cause such a world wide uproar. On 24Th January,2011, while addressing a group of law students of the York university on safety, he remarked how women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized. Not only did it shock all the women who were attending the conference,but also started the world-wide phenomenon called the Slut-Walk.

Slutwalk. Many jump to a conclusion that this is just a crazy movement by the feminists of the world to promote a woman’s right to dress like a slut. However, the purpose of the slut-walks is nowhere close to that. Slut-walks, as commented by one of the many bloggers on this topic, is as much as right to dress like sluts as the salt march was to eat salt. Slut-walks are being held in every nation around the world to show how a woman is NOT responsible for being a victim of rape/sexual assault. And men citing that her clothes were what tempted them and hence she asked for it was and still isn’t an acceptable reason. A woman’s clothes are NOT her consent. Neither is it just about her clothes. It is also concerned with women being told not to go out after dark, not being allowed to travel alone and not to laugh too loudly because it might make men think she is giving them permission to touch her.

The slut-walk is not just for women,but also for men who have been assaulted. Some men may be scared of confessing that they were abused, fearing they’d get teased and ridiculed. This walk is a platform for every kind of sexual abuse,whether it be to male,female or transgender.

The first slut-walk was organized on the 3rd of April, 2011 in Toronto, Canada. It included speeches followed by moving to the Toronto Police Headquarters. Many subsequent slut-walks were held all over the world. From Costa Rica to Brazil to Australia to India. The first slut-walk held in India was in Bhopal on July 17th this year. Another one was held on the 31st of July in Delhi. The latest one which should have been held on 4th December in Bangalore, but since permission was not obtained, it was called off.

The main focus of the slut-walk is to stop victim blaming. To stop saying its the fault of the woman for being too drunk or dressed provocatively. If how a woman dressed can be said to be an excuse for the sick rapists out there to assault her, then there shouldn’t have been any cases of such in countries where women are fully clothed. Nor should such cases arise for babies who are barely a year old and ill bed ridden seventy plus year old women be justified. In fact, studies show that women who are dressed demurely are the ones who are targeted the most, because men assume that they won’t protest. In fact, in a survey conducted by a Bangalore group called White Noise, it was found that most of the women who were assaulted were fully clothed, most of them dressed in salwars with dupattas. The ones who were dressed more boldly were the ones possibly less assaulted, because they aren’t easy targets.

Another aim is to tell women that they needn’t feel guilty for being attacked. Just because a woman was walking in a dark road or because she was dressed in what some pervert may think as provocative clothing or because she spoke to strangers,it does not justify her being raped.

While many critics in India are stating that there are bigger issues such as dowry harassment and deaths related to them,female feticide and infanticide, than being given the right to dress like a slut, it all goes back to the one fact that women don’t have rights. Or rather, about how their rights are being neglected. When a woman is born, its her body that everyone wants control over. Whether she should live or die, whether she is allowed to be educated or not, who she should marry, how many kids she should bear and what gender they should be. Every last detail of her life is being controlled by her family. It all comes back to rights of women being neglected or modified to suit the comfort of the men.

The reason the slut-walk can be said to be relevant, despite what the critics say, especially in India is because India has been ranked the fourth most unsafe country in the world during a recent survey. With over 22,147 reported rape in India in the year 2010 according to the NCRB(National Crime Records Bureau), it is estimated that one woman is raped every thirty six minutes and one woman is molested every twenty six minutes. And the sad part is, these are only those which are reported. There may be thousands more which go unreported mainly due to victim blaming, sometimes often by family members themselves.

Despite women carrying pepper sprays and bullhorns, despite them going for self defence classes and being vigilant of their surroundings, despite wearing sensible shoes so they can hopefully outrun the bad guys, despite taking only the safest known and well lit route home, despite wearing proper clothes, millions of women are raped each year. But many of them are safe thanks to the men who go out of their way to ensure that their women colleagues/friends are dropped home first, who insist on “I’ve reached home” phone calls, who turn up when women are stranded late night, because their effort makes a difference.

So let us stand up and promote Slutwalk. Stand up for all the people who have suffered and to protect those innocent people who believe only in the good.