Slut Walks: A Social Movement Analysis

Slut Walks is a social movement that emerged during an incident on January 24, 2011 at York University in Canada. Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti openly stated that women should “ avoid dressing like sluts” if they wished to stop sexual assault (Stampler, 2011). In response, eventual cofounders of Slut Walk Toronto, Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis, expressed that the word slut should and can be redeemed by women. The two women ignited movement when they reached out to others who want to fight against victim blaming and slut shaming to join them in a Slut Walk. The Slut Walk movement is fairly new, but research often compares and contrasts it to previous feminist movements as a way to analyze the evolution of feminist activism. Looking
at the evolution of the Slut Walk movement plays an interesting role in determining which tactics are useful and which ones fail to reach an audience. The Slut Walk movement is an interesting topic to study because many consider it the future of feminism. Their mission to protest against excusing rape by referring to any aspect of a women’s appearance is unique to previous feminist activism. Sexual assault has such a long history, but it is critical to consider how society as a whole as made progress in the area and compare the movement to other’s with similar missions. Ultimately, the discontent is rooted in the struggle between Second and Third-Wave feminism, or quite simply feminism versus post feminism. An interesting approach would be to compare and contrast some of the tactics from the first speak-out on rape in 1971 by the NY Radical Feminists. The movement is very “out there”, but has been successful in evoking response. One of the most interesting aspects to study in regards to Slut Walks are people’s response to them. Since it a fairly new, evocative movement there are sure to be many opinionated responses. Many people may view the activism as “outlandish” and “crazy”. So it would be important to receive a wide variety of reactions. In order to study the movement appropriately, reactions from people involved and responses from bystanders are equally important to getting an overall read of the tactic. As a fairly grassroots movement, there is a lot of conflict and debate about the tactics and manner in which the Slut Walks are occurring. Many responses have critiqued the movement’s efforts as irrelevant to making any type of social change. For some observers, Slut Walks are nothing but a ‘‘public peep show’’ (Powers, 2011), a tamer version of Girls Gone Wild videos. There is also a plenty of criticism that the movement focus too much on the heteronormative framework. According to Dow and Woods (2014), it doesn’t challenge the substantial violence against LGBTQ people because they do not conform to dominant definitions and performances of gender and sexuality (p. 30). While the opportunity gives people a platform to be self-expressive and building public consciousness, there is the debate that it isn’t doing enough to ignite social chance through institutions. One of the main tactics used throughout this movement is mobilization through excessive media coverage and I believe the most efficient way to examine the tactics of Slut Walks would be to consider the debate about its long-standing impact politically. “Feminists who see social change occurring through restructuring of institutions might question whether Slut Walks have the possibility of going beyond the self expressive moment of street marches and the resulting short-term attention of local and national media.” Many people have spoken out suggesting that the movement is validating the pornifaciton of women. Social change regarding this topic, will only occur, “ not by fraternizing with oppressive ideologies but by resisting them, all the while being keenly aware of their existence and sedimented character in cultural life” (Dow & Wood, 2014, p. 32). While the movement’s goal is to make social change, they are struggling in building long-standing effects. While it largely important to critique the structural perspective because it is a grassroots movement with political intent, it is hard to ignore the factor of framing. Before understanding the framing process with the movement, it is important to recognize that it is almost impossible to create a universal idea of feminism and therefore, it is difficult to build collective actions under the umbrella term of “feminism”. Framing has played a huge role in the longevity of the movement, but has equally been criticized for not reaching out to all parties. In that way, in addition to being a positive tactic of the movement, is also considered a limitation. For instance, the movement has been considered a fairly white movement and one that disregards women of color. In studying the movement’s ability to reach an audience, it is critical to look into its treatment and frames towards minority groups including women of color and the LGBTQ community. The movement is referred to as a grassroots movement so it is directly linked to a political movement.
The movement has an attitude of freedom, of creativity, of unrestrained political enthusiasm, of willingness to band together with ordinary citizens. It became widely discussed amongst news presenters, radio hosts, political and social pundits, bloggers and DJs. According to the Washington Post, “Slut Walks have cropped up organically, in city after city, fueled by raw emotional and political energy of young women”. These women are making an attempt to have their local actions move beyond the layers of rape and to truly the politics of feminism. The disagreements about the Slut Walks are “grounded in clashing political investments in feminism, disagreements over strategies, tactics, and priorities, and related conflicts over theories of social change that have divided feminists for decades, if not centuries” (Dow & Wood, p. 23). The movement presented as “media-savvy street theater” really strikes at the concept of personal as political. The movement is eager to make changes regarding victim blaming and rape, but there is a lot of debate if the tactics are strong enough to ignite any institutional change. A lot could be learned about the success of movement by attending one of the many walks and experiencing the counter reaction. This movement has certainly provoked an array of responses, which challenges the issue of the relationship between agency and structure in the pursuit of social change (Dow & Wood, p. 31). Even though this movement has a clear political message, they are struggling to get the message to provoke change beyond a local or personal level. Therefore, interviews with participants and feminist actors would be helpful in determining how Slut Walks could become a more influential and long-term
movement.