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Slutwalk Cardiff

Posted by dirty from Cardiff - Published on 01/06/2011 at 11:05
11 comments » - Tagged as Culture, People, Topical

  • SlutWalk

Disclaimer: This article, and the comments below it, contain words some may find offensive.

When a Canadian police offer gave advice to female students at a Toronto university that they should not “dress like sluts” so they won’t be “victimised”, I doubt he anticipated the scale to which his comments would be taken worldwide with the fury that faces him.

Nor Kenneth Clarke, the Minister of Justice’s comments on BBC Radio recently where he claimed that some forms of rape are “worse” than others. According to Clarke, a rape committed against a victim who was raped as she walked home in the dark by a man with a knife is worse than a date rape. He also has plans to halve the sentencing of rapists who plead guilty to have their sentence reduced by up to 50%.

Later on after that police officer’s advice, a Slutwalk took place in Toronto with three thousand people present. It’s taken off all over the world with many Slutwalks being held globally with one scheduled in Cardiff one the fourth of June. Slutwalk is an anti-rape demonstration, with the official Slutwalk website describing it as
“a reaction to not one officer’s remark, but to a history that was doomed to keep repeating. Insults, degradation, shame, rape. As I’ve said before, I never thought it would resonate around the world. No matter what I’ve been labelled - slut, whore, feminist, anti-feminist, sexy feminist, f***ing feminist, racist, anti-racist, privileged - I am not ashamed to have been part of something that garnered heated discussions about the use of language, shaming and sexual profiling.”

Some may say that these handful of comments have been blown out of context, but have they really?

Up to fifty thousand women are raped every year in the UK, but rape isn’t just a crime committed against women. Rape happens to children, it happens to men and it happens to the elderly, but the levels of misogyny when it comes to rape are much higher when it comes to discussing women. According to the World Health Organisation in 2000, up to one in four women may experience sexual abuse at the hands of their partners through their life.

The comments said by Clarke and the Officer represents a larger problem in society: the issue of ‘victim blaming’. The idea that if a woman is responsible for her rape, or that she deserved it in some respects. A study six years ago was carried out by Amnesty International UK, and found that:

  • A third (34%) of people in the UK believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner (AIUK 2005).
  • More than a quarter (26%) of people think a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing (AIUK 2005).
  • More than one in five (22%) hold the same view if a woman has many sexual partners (AIUK 2005).
  • Around one in 12 people (8%) believe a woman is totally responsible for being raped if she has many sexual partners (AIUK 2005).
  • Nearly a third of people (30%) say a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk (AIUK 2005).

Rape is not just a sexual act, it’s an act of violence and it’s on the increase - in London alone there has been a 37% increase in rape although increases in rape are hard to really track, for research shows that 75%-95% of rapes are never reported.

The different views on rape depending on who the victim is are worrying. What’s in our culture that allows these views to be so common and so widespread? It’s no wonder that with these ideas on rape against women that Cardiff is having a Slutwalk.

Events  SlutWalk Cardiff

Info  Law & Rights  Victims of Crime  Rape

IMAGE: SlutWalk Boston 2011 by tankgirlrs

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11 CommentsPost a comment

Tom_Bevan

Tom_Bevan

Commented 60 months ago - 1st June 2011 - 11:26am

controversial, informative, thought provoking and well written..welcome back dirty, we've missed you!
Blaming the rape victim is just pathetic- the analogy that some use that 'if you leave all your curtains open in your house then your prone to a robbing' may be true but it still makes it completely unaccepatable to rob a house. This is the same for rape- everyone shoud be able to wear what they want, where they want without being more likely to be attacked by people who clearly need help.

SamuelPatterson

SamuelPatterson

Commented 60 months ago - 1st June 2011 - 12:51pm

While I can never condone rape or say that it's acceptable in any situation, I think what Kenneth Clarke may have been referring to was the situation in which the rape occurs. To me, rape is a horrendous act and is the same throughout, but the *situation* in which it occurs can dramatically change. For example, if the rapist is high on cocaine and uses a knife or another deadly weapon to threaten the victim, you then have a dramatically different situation to if a husband rapes his wife. It's still rape and completely unacceptable, but in the first situation, so many more laws have been broken than in the second.

Of course, the amount of laws taht have been broken is neither here nor there to the poor woman who no longer feels like she can leave her home or go to a friends for tea. Nor does it affect the poor man who after being assulted by three girls feels like he can date woman anymore. Thank you for he brilliant and enlightening article. It was truly a pleasure!

Dire_Liar

Commented 60 months ago - 3rd June 2011 - 13:35pm

While I am aghast that people feel the need to even organise such an event (if a person doesn't consent to sex, and you have sex with them, it is rape. This is blindingly obvious. Anyone who thinks clothing is a factor is a bit dim, to say the least) I will not be attending SlutWalk because I cannot agree with one of their listed aims: "SlutWalk aims to reclaim the word 'slut' and use it in a positive, empowering and respectful way." Respectful?!

I am GLAD the word 'slut' has negative connotations: it is a fitting word to describe someone who has loose sexual morals, and is a term people wish to avoid being labelled with. Personally I don't want to live in a world where a person (male OR female) proudly runs up to their mother and announces: "Mummy, mummy, I've had sex with 40 people" and the mother pats them on the head and declares "Oh, you're such a slut! I am so proud of you, darling. Now run along to the STD clinic before dinner."


With regards to Kenneth Clarke's comments about different 'levels' of rape, we have to accept that life isn't always black and white. Take statutory rape for example: if I'm 16, and I have sex with my 15 year old girlfriend, technically speaking I am "raping" her even though we are very much in love and it is completely consensual. Or consider that two people are very drunk and end up having sex: there have been cases when the following morning the woman cries "It was rape; I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing" even if the man had been equally drunk and unable to make an informed decision.

I think things like this need to be thought about.

SamuelPatterson

SamuelPatterson

Commented 60 months ago - 3rd June 2011 - 17:48pm

I agree entirely with you Dire_Liar.
Very well thought out opinions.

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Commented 60 months ago - 3rd June 2011 - 18:39pm

I've missed your articles. :)

A little while back when >Hooters was announced in Cardiff (another article written by Dirty) I spoke to a lot of people who were against the idea, and one reason I heard time and time again was that Hooters would "increase levels of sexual assault in Cardiff."

This always annoyed me: the implication that girls wearing skimpy clothing would cause men to be filled with an overwhelming urge to go out and sexually assault someone. Anyone who does such a thing is a Neanderthal; the girls' clothing is certainly not the thing you should be worried about in that situation!

Pasternak

Pasternak

Commented 60 months ago - 4th June 2011 - 15:19pm

From BBC News:
"The global series of protests began in Canada in April after a Toronto police officer was reported to have said women should avoid wearing provocative clothing in order not to be victimised.

Hannah Caddick, one of the organisers of the Cardiff protest, said such remarks could not go unchallenged.
"

I think the policeman was saying this out of a fatherly concern for their safety, not in an offensive or misogynistic way.

Looking at the video, barely anyone is dressed "sluttily" - I thought wearing provocative closing for this march was the whole idea?

Pasternak

Pasternak

Commented 60 months ago - 4th June 2011 - 19:39pm

*clothing

dirty

dirty

Commented 60 months ago - 4th June 2011 - 20:02pm

@DireLiar

In some respects “slut” can be a word that’s reclaimed and I see no reason why not. For example, nigger was reclaimed, as is ‘paki’ in the process of doing so. Within sex and sex as a culture in modern society double standards exist whereby a man who may sleep with as many women as he sees fit is congratulated whereas the woman is vilified and held up as slag, slut, whore, et cetera. Why not slut? Nigger was, wog was, paki was and yes, these are all racial slurs that were used against a part of society that was discriminated against: women are discriminated against as well. Slut is already widely accepted in society and it’s a derogatory term. I’m afraid your fear of slut being widely used on that scale, but it’s already happening and it’s on a scale of misogyny perpetrated by both sexes.


With regards of your comment of the person in said situation being “congratulated” for being slut and going to the STD clinic, I’m afraid this isn’t so. Just because you may be promiscuous does not necessarily mean you carry an STD. In my general experience, those who I’ve known to be promiscuous are more open minded about visiting a clinic for a test as opposed to those I’ve been familiar with in monogamous relationships who are “afraid” or think that it “won’t happen to them”.


And as for some rapes being “worse than others”, I agree with you on the fact that some things should not be classed as rape such as the idea of “consensual rape” when it’s just sex between two people whereby one of them is underage. This law is somewhat archaic and this is evident through both Canada’s and Holland’s views of sex whereby consensual rape does not really exist. Some things? Just that, actually.

I do see fundamental flaws with Slutwalk owing to its demographics e.g. when I attended there were little to no women of colour; Slutwalk is the same demographic as the riot grrrrl movement and that’s an issue that locks out many people.

The question remains of the inequality between the sexes when it comes to sex. Whatever the male form of slut was (if it really existed) has been nullified and men face little to discrimination when it comes to their sexual partners compared to women. This misogyny and these attitudes allow hatred of women to spread, and until we start doing things like reclaiming slut and working on sex education in schools and bringing in moral issues like rape and its legality can we change these attitudes.

Promiscuity is OK for men. It’s not OK for women. Depending on what scale with the women some people DO thing she deserves rape. This is an issue. Some people can also think that her clothes deserve her to be raped. This is a massive issue. Power in society is a massive issue. Patriachal society is a massive issue. It’s really no surprise that the Y Generation needed a Reclaim the Streets with sexual inequality and its darker side manifested through both violence and sexual violence against women.

CeefaxOfLife

CeefaxOfLife

Commented 60 months ago - 5th June 2011 - 08:05am

My problem is that the word slut is ugly, it's percusive and desgined to be spat out of the mouth.

Is there not a female equivalent of Lothario? I always thought harlot was a pretty word in sound if not in meaning. It's also a good track by Felix Da Housecat.

Sam Sprout (Editor)

Sam Sprout (Editor)

Commented 60 months ago - 5th June 2011 - 08:09am

dirty! Review of the event for theSprout? Pretty please?!

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Commented 60 months ago - 6th June 2011 - 14:43pm

I'd just like to raise my hand at this point and say that I don't make any distinction between male promiscuity and female promiscuity. I certainly would never regard one as "right" and the other as "wrong": actions are actions, and the gender of the perpetrator is irrelevant.

Surely I'm not the only one who thinks this?

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