Slut-Shaming

From UBC Wiki

Slut-Shaming refers to the criticism towards one, usually female, for their real or presumed sexuality, sexual availability, behaviour or history, including but not limited to behaving in ways that are perceived as against the sexual norms. [1] It is rooted at the norm that women should bring to bear self-control by replacing the self-pleasure values with more restricted ones, such as security, hygiene, and autonomy; thus, females are denied the freedom enjoyed by males and should be ashamed for acting on their sexual desires. [2]Slut-shaming aims at inflicting guilt in an individual for not acting upon the traditional gender expectations. For instance, having multiple partners, wearing revealing clothing, and when being victim-blamed for being sexually assaulted or even raped, etc. [3] Ironically, women that do not have sex or act sexually still subjected to slut-shaming. [3]

History

Early pieces of evidence of slut shaming were documented back to The Roman Republic, in the forms of elite and popular literature (such as plays, history, and poetry), artwork (such as wall and vase paintings), and other forms of media (such as graffiti, curses, and epitaphs). [4] In Latin, there are several terms that refer to "slut", "prostitute", or "adulteress", such as lupa, scortum, meretrix and moecha, and were presented in our earliest extant Latin literature around third century BC.[4] This ideology still prevalent today, the patriarchal culture that held men out as the breadwinners and women as the homemakers leads to the expectation of women to be pure and submissive. [3] And it was not until the modern women's sexual liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s to let women embrace their sexuality openly and in public. However, a woman's sexual behaviour that is not tied to feelings of love is still taboo and being judged.[3]

Factors that Influence The Perceptions of Slut-Shaming

The perceptions of slut-shaming are influenced by aspects such as class, culture, media, gender, feminism, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. [5]

Social Status and Expectation

Studies have shown that people judge a "slut" with low-SES more harshly than her high-SES counterpart. And based on research on intrasexual competition, people may feel like the wealthy ‘‘slut’’ is more compatible because of her social status. [6]Also, expectations are different for high-SES individuals than for low-SES individuals. The low-SES, provocatively dressed ‘‘slut’’ may be perceived as behaving in line with what our participants expect from a low-SES woman, whereas the high-SES, provocatively dressed target is expected to behave with more ‘class’, this is supported by studies such as people rated a sexily dressed manager as less competent than a manager wearing business casual clothing. [6]

The class advantage is used by high-status women when employing slut discourse, they rejected the stance that all sexual activity outside of relationships was bad, and defines it as classy rather than trashy. [7] Nonetheless, this sexual privilege is not shared with low-status women.[7]

Feminist identity

Self-identified feminists are more willing to spend time with the ‘‘slut’’ and found the ‘‘shamer’’ less justified in her actions than did non-feminist.[6]

Social Media

Social media is popular among young people, and it can be used as a medium for cyber bullying. [8] Not only they can use Facebook and Twitter directly confronts the victims, but also make use of subtweet and hashtags, so that parents and school are less likely to identify the happenings of bullying but only people within the social circle can identify the victim.[8]

Amanda Todd

Amanda Todd, a teenager, was blackmailed with photos of her flashing to a man, and the images were sent all over the social media to her family, friends, and peer, and leads to a series of cyber bullying. Accused of being a slut, the 15-year-old Canadian committed suicide at her home. [8]

Before ending her own life, Amanda Todd uploaded a video to Youtube and told her story with flashcards.

Response and Consequences

Rape Culture

The idea of slut-shaming shapes how our culture treats rape. When a female discloses that she was raped, people would raise questions such as, Was it her fault? What did she wear? How much make-up did she put on? How late did she stay out? [3] And use these to justify the act of the rapists. The fear of shaming on the rape victims leads to the silence of other rape victims to step forwards and report the incident. [9]

SlutWalk

SlutWalk was a local movement in response to the victim-blaming speech in Toronto, Canada. [10] On 24 January 2011, the Canadian Police Officer Michael Sanguinetti visited the Osgoode Law School at York University in Toronto and delivered his infamous line:

"I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized" [11]

The local feminists then organized SlutWalk and marched on 3 April 2011, in oppose to such slut-blaming comments, which is governed by Treaty 13, and it has now successfully spread across Canada, the United States, Australia, Argentina, New Delhi, Sweden, Latin America, Europe, India and more.[10][11] SlutWalk aims to draw attention to the fuzzy subjectivities of the word “slut” — who is a slut and who decides? ; and make a public statement that regardless of whether or not a woman is socially identified as a “slut,” that sexual assault is never her fault and that responsibility always lies with the perpetrators. [11]

See also: SlutWalk

Towards Men

Reverse Sexual Double Standard

In a Papp et. al (2015)'s study, participants viewed a blinded Facebook conversation where a male or female "shamer" shaming a male or female "slut". There is an evidence of reverse sexual double standard that the male "sluts" were judged more harshly than their female counterparts. [12] Further, the "shamer" were perceived to be more judgemental and less congratulatory when the "slut" was female.[12]

Towards Gay Men

Among young gay men, they are often being called as a "slut" with having unprotected sex and are being spoken in judgemental ways. When conveying about the concerns on sexual risk, the communications usually have a harsher tone and pressuring gay men to stay safe from HIV. [13] Some people think that using slut-shaming tone is effective to warn gay men away from participating in unsafe sex, but gay activists indicated that such sexual shaming is more likely to let gay men engage in practices that increase the rates of HIV infection.[14]

References

  1. ↑ Karaian, L. (2014). Policing ‘sexting’: Responsibilization, respectability and sexual subjectivity in child protection/crime prevention responses to teenagers’ digital sexual expression. Theoretical Criminology, 18(3), 282-299. doi:10.1177/1362480613504331
  2. ↑ Fjaer, E. G., Pedersen, W., & Sandberg, S. (2015). "I'm not one of those girls": Boundary-work and the sexual double standard in a liberal hookup context. Gender & Society, 29(6), 960.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Poole, E. (2013). Hey girls, did you know? slut-shaming on the internet needs to stop. University of San Francisco Law Review, 48(1), 221.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Webb, L., Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier, Umeå universitet, & Humanistiska fakulteten. (2015). Shame transfigured: Slut-shaming from rome to cyberspace. First Monday, 20(4), 41. doi:10.5210/fm.v20i4.5464
  5. ↑ Almazan VA, Bain SF (2015) College students’ perceptions of slut-shaming discourse on campus. Research in Higher Education Journal 28: 1-9.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Papp, L. J., Erchull, M. J., Liss, M., Waaland-Kreutzer, L., & Godfrey, H. (2016). Slut-shaming on facebook: Do social class or clothing affect perceived acceptability? Gender Issues, doi:10.1007/s12147-016-9180-7
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Armstrong, E. A., Hamilton, L. T., Armstrong, E. M., & Seeley, J. L. (2014). “Good Girls”. Social Psychology Quarterly, 77(2), 100-122. doi:10.1177/0190272514521220
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Messitt, M. (2014). Cyberbullying happens in code. break it. Education Digest, 79(9), 51.
  9. ↑ Pickel, K. L., & Gentry, R. H. (2017). Slut shaming in a school bullying case: Evaluators ignore level of harm when the victim self-presents as sexually available. Sex Roles, 76(1), 89-98. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0662-6
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Ringrose, J., & Renold, E. (2012). Slut-shaming, girl power and 'sexualisation': Thinking through the politics of the international SlutWalks with teen girls. Gender and Education, 24(3), 333-343. doi:10.1080/09540253.2011.645023
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Herriot, L. (2015). SlutWalk: Contextualizing the movement. Women's Studies International Forum, 53, 22. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2015.08.001
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Papp, L. J., Hagerman, C., Gnoleba, M. A., Erchull, M. J., Liss, M., Miles-McLean, H., & Robertson, C. M. (2015). Exploring perceptions of slut-shaming on facebook: Evidence for a reverse sexual double standard. Gender Issues, 32(1), 57-76. doi:10.1007/s12147-014-9133-y
  13. ↑ Mcdavitt, B., & Mutchler, M. G. (2014). “Dude, You’re Such a Slut!” Barriers and Facilitators of Sexual Communication Among Young Gay Men and Their Best Friends. Journal of Adolescent Research, 29(4), 464-498. doi:10.1177/0743558414528974
  14. ↑ Turk, Hussain (2014). "Op-ed: Slut-Shaming Is a Cause of HIV".
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