Women Should Not Dress Like Sluts Essay

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Introduction:
Imagine walking home from work late at night, down the same usual path as every other night, in the same work clothes as always, but this time, pulled behind the bushes by a man who decided he wanted to sexually assault the women on this path tonight. Now picture the feeling that would occur if the police officer filing the report began victim-blaming, saying “women should not dress like sluts if they do not want to be raped.” Men on a daily basis are sexually assaulting women, but whenever a woman tries to bring it to the attention of the police, the case is casually dismissed and seen as though it should be let go, because the woman was obviously asking for it. How was she asking it for it, one may ask? Of course it was either …show more content…

25). This all began because of the anger a Toronto policeman had caused by saying women should not “dress like sluts” if they do not want to be raped (Ringrose & Renold, 2012). These women rallied together for a protest to stand up for what they believed in. What was very meaningful is that some of the protestors were in fact rape victims themselves who came out to say for themselves that they were not “sluts” or were not dressed like a “slut” when they were attacked (Ringrose & Renold, 2012). Within the walk, some of these protestors wore similar clothing to what they wore during their attack. Provocative clothing was indeed worn, however so was a lot sweatpants and a hoodies, or even pajamas. This was done in order to show that no matter what they had worn, they still got raped. A lot of the women in these walks also made signs and posters that they held while going about their march through the city. An example of a sign held by a woman had the words, “I was wearing pants and a sweater, and was it my fault too?”
About a year after the original SlutWalk, “Sibling” SlutWalks began to happen across many different communities, cities, and countries, containing different types of people. The creators of SlutWalk do not organize these other …show more content…

Logically, it is not natural for people to want to sympathize with the rapist – but the media is always saying, “they had such a bright future ahead of them – they made a mistake – let it go”. So why is the media humanizing the rapist? Why should everyone feel sorry for him, but not for her? This is exactly where gender inequality fits in. Rape stories never concern themselves with the impact on the female, yet she may also have a career in front of her and now because of this incident she may not be able to achieve her life long goals (Rape Culture, Victim Blaming, & Myths, 2015). This is of course because the media in our society revolves around the Male Gaze (Skelton, 2002). Everyone has to see the world through the heterosexual male eyes. Males control the news, gaming and entertainment industry. The portrayal of women in media is one of the most shameful things, while portrayal of men is one of the most powerful things (Skelton, 2002). This is another main reason as to why women have taken the lead in attempting to regain control of how society sees them. The idea of men being the dominant gender readdresses another concept that rape revolves around, power and powerlessness. The women who are considered to be rape victims are considered powerless,

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