Sunsara Taylor at SlutWalk NYC Yesterday

Yesterday was a beautiful outpouring of women, men and trans folks against rape, sexual assault, sexual shaming, and violence against women.  Much more to be said -- but here is a quick video from me along the march route.

What's Wrong with Catcalling Women?

Recently a young woman asked me, “How do you explain to guys how frustrating it is to be hit on all day long? Whenever I tell them to imagine what it would be like, not to be hit on just once in a while, but every day everywhere you go, they always say, 'That would be great! I'd have sex with every woman who propositioned me!' They just can't imagine why women would find this oppressive.”

Here is my response.

Men: imagine if every time you opened your mouth no one heard what you had to say. Imagine, instead, you were being humored – or ignored – based primarily on whether the listener thought they could get you to have sex with them. Imagine if half your professors or teachers never solicited your thinking in earnest. Imagine if you knew that despite your talents in any particular field – acting, writing, science, singing, or anything else – you would be evaluated on your looks and your perceived sexual availability. Imagine thinking you met someone who took you seriously and found your ideas and talents compelling, only to discover that really they were just “playing you” to get you in bed.

Imagine this happened over and over and over again.

Imagine if every morning you had to calculate – whether fully consciously or not – what clothes to wear based on whether you want to be seen (which means “sexy”) but therefore not taken seriously, or whether you will accept being invisible (ie: not “sexy) which means not even noticed by most. Imagine if all day long you were policed for these clothing choices – by everyone: by religious authorities, by employers, by professors, by your boyfriend or lover, by the men on the street, by the strangers who drive past you, by your girlfriends, by other women, by your parents, by the person who takes your money at the drugstore, by the people you sit next to on public transportation. Imagine none of them really see you; they see a “thing” that they feel entitled to judge. Too little sex appeal and you are invisible. Too much and you are a despised “slut.”

Imagine, in other words, if you walked every day through a world that didn't recognize your humanity.

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The Thing About Slutwalks... And a World Without Rape

I'll admit, when I first heard about Slutwalks I cringed. I hate the word slut. It is too hateful. Too bound up with shaming women for their sexuality. Too linked to the deep trauma experienced by millions of women and young girls every single day throughout the world. Too much part of the cultural DNA that says, “She deserved it,” or, “She was asking for it,” or, “She's dirty,” or, “You little cunt whore.”

To get right down to it, for me the word “slut” was too indelibly linked to a girl named Kelly who transferred into my Junior High School in the middle of the year. She was ridiculed and outcast in that kind of mean-girls way that reduces a young woman to an invisible, despised, zero for absolutely no reason except to make others feel like maybe they exist. And really, what could be more lonely and humiliating for a junior high girl than standing in front of a whole cafeteria filled with uproarious laughter carrying your lunch tray from table to table being told that every empty chair is being saved for somebody, anybody, who isn't you?

But, Kelly had big breasts and so a table full of boys all called out to her and held open a chair. All it took was for her to sit down just that first time. After that, her fate was sealed.

To be honest, as the weeks rolled and on the rumors rolled with them, I have no idea which – if any – were true. I do know there were parties with lots of drinking where the girls still wouldn't speak to her and the boys would lure her into bedrooms. I also know that a young girl seeking acceptance and desiring some means to explore their own budding sexuality in this highly repressive society can get caught up in – and even, at times, take initiative in – all sorts of behavior that is degrading and demeaning to them in a very deep and lasting way.

But most of all what I know is that Kelly became someone who wasn't seen by any one in that entire school as an actual human being. No, Kelly was a “slut.”

And I know that wherever she is, even in the best case scenario, Kelly is still living with the trauma of not only by the abuse and (almost certain) sexual assault perpetrated against her by those boys, but also by the widespread dismissal of that crime, and the shaming and disrespect of her for being the victim of it, by a whole school full of her peers.

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