The Troubling Paradox of the SlutWalks
A Look at the Nuance in the Debate Over Victim Blaming and Sexual Power
Explore the debate over victim-blaming, the link between sexual power and assault, and the resulting social dissonance.
The conversations around sexual violence are often fraught with linguistic traps and muddled thinking. The emergence of the SlutWalks phenomenon, sparked by a Canadian police officer’s absurd suggestion that women should "cover up" to avoid rape, brings this into sharp focus. The backlash, arguing that women should wear what they want and that blaming their attire is blaming the victim, is both deeply correct and surprisingly problematic.
The core difficulty I find lies in a peculiar contradiction. While rightly challenging the idea that clothing invites assault, the SlutWalk participants often flaunt the very sexuality that is, at least in part, connected to the motivations for rape. To argue that rape is purely a male power play—an idea well-established in some feminist thought—conveniently dismisses the obvious sexual component. Rape is certainly about power, but it is a specific kind of power aimed at sexual gratification or procreation, and this is a truth we ignore at our peril.
In fact, the combination of a blatant sexual promise conveyed through clothing and the rationing of its delivery can come across as surprisingly aggressive. Sexual allure is a valuable asset, much like wealth or social power. Flaunting this asset inevitably emphasizes the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots," fostering resentment—and not just in men. History is rife with examples of women who lack sexual fulfillment being the harshest critics of sexually active women. Emphasizing inequality, whether through a BMW in a poor neighborhood or through hyper-sexualized clothing, is simply not a recipe for social harmony.
Furthermore, we live in extraordinarily sex-drenched times, with unprecedented access to sexual stimulation. Yet, I suspect that a highly sexualized society, one that encourages hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine roles, can lead to a kind of gender apartheid. My observation is that genuine convergence of gender roles—such as having women serve as fighter pilots, doctors, and bankers—seems difficult to sustain while simultaneously maintaining a high level of sexual difference. It creates a profound dissonance.
The most concerning aspect of the SlutWalk position, to me, is the reliance on cognitive dissonance: creating strange arguments to justify contradictory beliefs. Participants argue that men are not provoked by sexual clothing, which conveniently absolves women of any perceived responsibility, but then pivot to say men are acting on innate urges to subjugate women. If that is true, what is the purpose of the highly sexualized dress, unless it's a form of post-modernist performance?
To find a solution, we must correctly identify the problem. Blaming men for their inability or unwillingness to control their urges is a strategy unlikely to succeed. Perhaps what we need is a fresh perspective—a Thomas Picketty to analyze the inequalities inherent in sex as he did for economics. Ultimately, I'm not entirely sure what the SlutWalks are truly demonstrating for. While claiming to champion women’s rights, their ethos seems closer to a capitalist model of chronic consumer dissatisfaction, which feels both strangely dispiriting and deeply reactionary.
