FAQ: What is “slut-shaming”?

Short answer: Slut-shaming, also known as slut-bashing, is the idea of shaming and/or attacking a woman or a girl for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and/or acting on sexual feelings. Furthermore, it’s “about the implication that if a woman has sex that traditional society disapproves of, she should feel guilty and inferior” (Alon Levy, Slut Shaming). It is damaging not only to the girls and women targeted, but to women in general an society as a whole. It should be noted that slut-shaming can occur even if the term “slut” itself is not used.

An apology and a promise

A few months ago I posted an events notice for a MichFest Women’s Festival event in NYC. I screwed up big time in that original post by not including any text noting the trans-exclusionary policy of MichFest, which has excluded trans women as festival participants for many years.

I apologise unreservedly for neglecting to highlight this as part of my original post. We did discuss the issue in comments, and I did amend the post after some prodding, but I should have challenged the trans-exclusion from the start, or better yet not promoted the event at all.

Here’s the promise: I will not give any trans-exclusionary feminist event any promotion here in the future. If I do unknowingly post a link to some event that is trans-exclusionary, I will delete it as soon as I am made aware.

I am aware that this decision is likely to affront some trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs),

Friday Feminism: Fierce

[This is a crosspost from Shakesville where it was originally posted in October of 2007.]

I was standing in front of a full-length mirror with my leg stretched out, modeling at its end for my own consumption the left half of a pair of kelly green steel-toed Doc Martens knee-highs I had just bought, in spite of their outrageous price tag. "Girl, those boots are hot!" came the voice from beside me. This was St. Nate of the Perfectly Shaped Eyebrows, my coworker and friend, who would, one day, find himself at my parents’ house in the suburbs racing through their kitchen as I screeched, "Get the baking soda!" to help put out a fire I’d started on their deck with the grill. But today he was admiring my boots. And admiring me.

"God damn, look at you!" He pulled my shirt from the back so it clung to my form. This was not a look I felt was particularly good for me, even in those thinner days, and I pushed his hands away, squirming and frowning at myself in the mirror. He raised an eyebrow and frowned back, then turned me around by the shoulders, away from the mirror.

"Bitch, be fierce…"
 

* * *

Nate was one of many people who fall under the "T" in LGBT who have been important to me in one way or another, many of whom have played vital roles in helping me understand and appreciate my queer-brained self, and sort out what it means for me to be a woman. This is, quite obviously, no coincidence. Being myself a person who is, like many non-trans feminists and queers, uncomfortable with, and thusly constantly challenging, the expectations imposed on my sex and gender, I have found it valuable (and, in my personal experience, inevitable) to engage with Ts as part of divining my own self-definition. Which is to say nothing of simple and precious friendships.

[Feminism Friday] Prostitution: regulation, exploitation and death

crossposted from Hoyden About Town

The Netherlands has found that their licensed, regulated and inspected brothels have not made the industry all that much safer for prostitutes on the whole: they have merely pushed the most abusive practices further underground. Last month Nicholas Kristof wrote of Holland’s experiences for the New York Times, and explained why he no longer believed that the legalisation model would generally benefit prostitutes.

For the Netherlands’ licensed prostitutes, the regulations on health and safety led to some “modest public health benefits”. Both they and the clients who simply want a straightforward transaction of sexual services seem to find the added security for both workers and customers appealing. But as the sex industry grew the more attractive the profits became to criminal gangs, and the incidence of trafficking, violence and child prostitution grew, to the point where they are rolling back their laws on licensed brothels in an attempt to send a no-tolerance message to the abusers.

Open Thread: can there be feminist porn?

The organisers of Canada’s Third Annual Feminist Porn Awards (Toronto, April 4th and 5th 2008) think so.

In 2006 we decided that it’s not enough to criticize adult films for not adequately representing women’s – and in many cases, men’s – sexuality. So we decided to do something about it. As porn star and performance artist Annie Sprinkle famously said, “The answer to bad porn isn’t no porn…it’s to try and make better porn!” Good For Her couldn’t agree more. We believe the world is inundated with cheesy, cliché, degrading, no-budget, patronizing and stupid porn. But we also believe that erotic fantasy is powerful, and that women and marginalized communities deserve to put their dreams and desires on film, too. As feminists and sex-positive people, we want to showcase and honour those who are creating erotic media with a feminist sensibility.

It doesn’t take long for anyone reading about feminism to realise that there’s a lot of disagreement amongst the feminisms regarding porn, porn vs erotica and the larger picture of the sex industries generally. These tend to get summarised as “anti-pornography” and “sex-positive” stances, both of which terms are overly simplistic. “Sex-positive” especially casts opponents as “sex-negative”, when it is more true to say that they are “sex-industry-negative” or even better “sex-exploitation-negative”.

So, when I received this email about the Feminist Porn Awards I thought it was a good kick-off for an open thread on feminism and porn. Have at it. (ducks and runs)

Update: For a good collection of posts from advocates of the anti-prostitution/pornography feminisms, try the Third Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution

Feminism Friday: Popularity of long-debunked rape myths: talk about disheartening

Originally posted at Hoyden About Town

The top link offered to me on Stumble-Upon for Women’s Issues is this: Through a Rapists Eyes, a page on a rape-prevention site. Unfortunately, they are propagating misinformation, pure and simple.

Some of you may recognise the opening paragraphs as one of those emails that gets forwarded around the place. This one has been on the go since 2000, forwarded eagerly on and on by those concerned about how to appear less vulnerable/appealing to stranger rapists. However, it is dangerously misleading (not least in never mentioning that fewer than 1in 5 rapes are actually committed by strangers – by far the majority of rapes of women are committed by men they know who rape opportunistically when they are alone together and later claim that the sex was consensual).

Below are some excerpts from the quoted email (the most egregiously wrong), and a summary from me below each point of the actual facts as laid out by the meticulous Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes’ Urban Legend Reference Pages.

A group of rapists in prison were interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim, and here are some interesting facts:

1. The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid, or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets.

[fact: this claim is totally unsupported by any studies known to law enforcement - women with all hair lengths, including short hair, and all ages and body types, are raped in seemingly equal proportions]

2. The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women whose clothing is easy to remove quickly. Many of them carry scissors to cut clothing.

[fact: rapists are often/usually more interested in terrorising and harming women than they are in obtaining sex quickly, so clothing is not a major factor in victim choice]

Event: MichFest Halfway Soiree (and a way to promote and organise feminist meetings)

Another event landed in my mailbox:

Third Annual MichFest Half-Way Soirée party on March 1st in honor of the six month mark to the famed Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. All are welcome to join us at Cattyshack, Brooklyn, (249 4th Avenue between President & Carroli St.) at 6:30 pm-3:00 am, pre-party drumming circle 5:30-6:30 pm.

You can read more at Paradigm Shift‘s website.

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Addendum: I should have included this when I first posted this promo, and my apologies for not doing so. There is a longstanding controversy regarding MichFest and a practice endorsed by the MichFest organisers of exluding transwomen as not welcome in their advertised “women-only space”. You can read more about it at this Camp Trans website (from 2006 – more up to date links would be appreciated). I particularly like the distinction they make, which is an important one:

We make a distinction between the festival community, an amazing and positive community created by thousands of women, and the handful of organizers who are in control of its discriminatory policies.

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This email also introduced me to http://feminism.meetup.com/, where you can

Meet other local women who are interested in the topic of Feminism. Discuss current issues, such as equal rights, politics, and standing up for what you believe in!

If there’s not a group in your area, you can start one and promote it on meetup.com.