SlutWalks Sweeping the World | Have Women Had Enough?

Could it really be happening? Have women really had enough? Because after walking for Planned Parenthood in Washington on April 7th, I’m ready to join the SlutWalks. Are women everywhere, and the men who support us, ready to take to the streets?

All it takes is a match, as we’ve learned in the Middle East. Could Toronto police constable Michael Sanguinetti have pushed women over the edge?

I’m so torn — who should I read first?  Sanguinetti telling a group of students at an Osgoode Hall Law School safety forum last January to ‘Avoid dressing like sluts’ to prevent sexual assaults — or the resignation of holier-than-thou senator John Ensign, the Pentacostal member of the Conservative C-Street ‘boys will be boys’ playpen that bangs women heads with Bibles, while they cavort around in more affairs than Democrats could even imagine having.

I know — all that testosterone must be put to good use — and being the sexy vixen I am, I’ve had my share.

But now I’m putting on my marching boots, because I’ve had enough.

“We had just had enough,” said Heather Jarvis, who founded SlutWalk Toronto with friend Sonya Barnett. “It isn’t about just one idea or one police officer who practices victim blaming, it’s about changing the system and doing something constructive with anger and frustration.”

While Jarvis, 25, and Barnett, 38, initially expected only 200–300 people to show their support, upwards of 3,000 massed on the streets of Toronto on April 3 — some wearing jeans and a T-shirt; others in outfits more appropriate for a Victoria’s Secret fashion show: thigh-highs, lingerie, stilettos — and marched to police headquarters. Their goal: to shift the paradigm of mainstream rape culture, which they believe focuses on analyzing the behavior of the victim rather than that of the perpetrator.

“The idea that there is some aesthetic that attracts sexual assault or even keeps you safe from sexual assault is inaccurate, ineffective and even dangerous,” said Jarvis. She recalled a sign at the march that read: “It was Christmas day. I was 14 and raped in a stairwell wearing snowshoes and layers. Did I deserve it too?”

I’ve written openly that my attempted rape occurred when I was asleep in bed, next to my parents’ best friend’s six-year-old daughter.  The only thing that saved me was his nine-month pregnant wife opening the door downstairs, causing him to get off me and flee.

The priest charged me with being a ‘slut girl’ when I got dragged into his offices two days later.I must have invited this, he said.

“If someone breaks into a house, do you blame the owner for having a house that looks appetizing?” asked Elizabeth Webb, the 24-year-old organizer of SlutWalk Dallas. “I don’t think so!”

In my case, I had on pajamas and curlers in my hair. Ah yes, a total slut girl was I that night.

I just wrote a piece on Benjamin Kanarek’s blog that has gone viral. I’m so impressed that two major fashion websites are willing to promote and praise a piece the criticized Emmanuelle Alt’s new direction for Vogue Paris — probably stopped dead in its tracks already, if Kate Moss and Mert & Marcus have anything to say about it based on the May issue.

Anne of Carversville doesn’t separate fashion and sexual politics, religion, sexuality and saucy images — because real life always has women under a morality microscope. I prefer a holistic examination of women’s lives — from fashion to flogging.

The Republican War on Women has made it clear that American women will lose all our rights if we don’t take action soon. I have never supported the word ‘slut’ because it plays to the worst comments about women. But if SlutWalks can galvanize women, then I will support it and march in Philadelphia on June 18 from the Art Museum to City Hall. Anne