Word Power: Rejecting Sexual Judgment and Victim Blame


The Slutwalks is a movement created to respond to voices and acts that devalue women based on their sexuality. They want to take back the word "slut" and reappropriate it, removing blame, shame, and danger from it's use.

Rebecca Traister is author of Ladies, We Have a Problem, a great article in last week's New York Times that looks at the slutwalks movement and considers it's approach from a feminist perspective. What do the slutwalks accomplish? And what do they overlook? Traister does a great job exploring these issues and considering the tension that lies between rejecting labels that negate and harm and embracing labels for the purpose of changing their meaning. Is it possible to truly change how we respond to firmly held cultural stereotypes and their  underlying meanings by embodying the very image that negates us?

Food for thought. And for action.

~Shani

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