When people saw what was going on at this year’s SlutWalk, they went on Twitter to share what they thought about the movement and why:
(A movement of which thousands of people seized the L.A. Pershing Square is a poor showing. . .)
Men and women of color, as well as a selection of white males, posted tweets like these (and worse) as the movement went on. However, alongside their opinions, they should have disclosed the fact of their ignorance to the matter at hand.
In 2011, a Toronto police officer addressed the topic of campus rape at a university, stating that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” Implying that women are to blame for their sexual assault led outraged Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis to pioneer the first ever SlutWalk. So with this knowledge, one can conclude that close-mindedness is the result of the patriarchal upper hand that has led women to this very point in the first place. The patriarchal upper hand that led the brothers and parents of Syrian refugee, Rokstan M, to kill her for her uncleanliness after being gang raped. As if it were her fault. The patriarchal upper hand has allowed boys, and I repeat with boldness, boys, to viably run around and strip women of their rights as beings in this world.
With that being said, let’s talk about why “they," the ladies and gentlemen of our misogyny-driven society, were really mad. Well, for starters, the face of the event was Amber Rose, a former stripper. Despite the fact that she, too, is a human being made up of the same six elements as the rest of us, Amber is known for her sexual leeway in the industry in which she takes part in. See, society is not used to women admitting that they want sex as much as men do, and sometimes even more. Men want the cliched “lady in the streets, but a freak in the sheets” type of woman. But what exactly does it mean to be a lady? To be a lady is to be a woman, but that’s it - not what the forefathers made it to be: women who act accordingly to men’s standard. So, for a woman to take control of her body and kick aside the system that has denounced her power, is a slap in the face to the weak-kneed boys who are sliding in anything with breasts and a smile’s DMs for nudes.
Evidently, Amber Rose is a woman of color. When Kanye West said he had to take “30 showers” before laying down with Kim, I, a woman of color, as well as other women of color or anyone else who considers the manifestation of negativity towards women of color, took offense to this. West depreciated Rose’s sexuality, color and empowerment as he uplifted that of his Eurocentric wife. Feminism can not work unless it is intersectional. If you’re going to be for one class of women, you ought to be for allSo, with SlutWalk DC approaching this upcoming summer, I hope to see those in the opposition will have opened the windows to their closed minded perceptions and see that this is not just some “Million Thot March," but something of a much deeper substance.