Gender Blog Project

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Summary

By DM

This project has definitely made me realize how big of a deal this is. I will admit that I was pretty close minded about these type of subjects and at one point I was the person actually on the other side of the spectrum slut shaming girls myself, judging  their clothes or them based on what they’ve done sexually. But with some maturity and looking deeper into I see this for what it really is and realize that it’s not the girls who are the problem but it’s the people slut shaming that makes the problems. With my experiences of being slut shammed I never took it personally because I knew that I wasn’t but not everyone can feel that confident about it. You never what kind of affect you have on people saying hurtful things like that.

I’ve learned my lesson and I can definitely say that I learned my lesson and I’m glad that I did do this project otherwise who knows if my views would’ve changed and I could’ve possibly still had an ignorant mind of thinking. Not realizing that people are losing their lives to this everyday and words truly are powerful and people should become more mindful of that, not to mention the rape cases because “she was asking for it.” It’s terrifying when you think if how deep this can actually go and maybe hats why people don’t take the time to understand it, maybe they dint want to accept the truth because it’s too painful to accept.

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Annotated list of Sources

Armstrong, E., Hamilton, L., & Seely, J. L. (2014). "Good Girls":Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus. Social Psychology Quaterly, 100-122.

This talk about different girls perspectives based on their social class or just their personal opinions on it. They also did social experiments on it and just really took a deeper look into where slut shaming comes from and how it’s developed.

Die, F. o. (Director). (2015). Walk of No shame [Motion Picture].

This is Amber Rose making of video saying there is no shame in the walk of shame and really promoting pride in not being ashamed for having sex.

Reger, J. (2015). The Story of a Slut Walk: Sexuality, Race, and Generational Divisions in Contemparary Feminist Activism. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 84-112.

Jo took an inside look on the Slut Walks  to give a better outlook on what it's all about and talks about the pros and cons of it all.

Tanenbaum, L. (2015, April 15). Huffington Post. Retrieved from TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leora-tanenbaum/the-truth-about-slut-shaming_b_7054162.html

Leora is known for talking about slut shaming and wrote this article just talking about the main points of it and how it’s affecting our society and becoming far too general with people doing it.

Tekanji. (2010, April 4). Finally, A Feminst 101 Blog. Retrieved from Word Press: https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/what-is-slut-shaming/

This talk about what specifically slut shaming actually is and then gets more into detail on the effects of it.

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Suggested Solutions

By DM

One of the first things that need to done to eradicate slut shaming is bringing more awareness. I have stated this throughout my paper I feel strongly that this is still not getting recognized enough. I know that this would help because if we bring enough light to the situation people can no longer brush it under the rug anymore. It’s easy to ignore as long as no one talk about it. People in authority need to defend it as well so it doesn’t just gets dismissed. Like the cop that said women were getting attacked because of their clothing, he could’ve made a bigger change seeing as he’s an authority figure but he didn’t take that opportunity instead h used his power to do the exact opposite and that’s exactly what we don’t need. It would also help if people as a society would realize the harm and damage it does to people then maybe they’d think twice before they become so judgmental.

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Summary

By DM

After doing all this research I noticed that it was more recognized than I thought it was but still not enough as it should be. They have “slut walks” all over the world so it is getting some type of recognition and I think the term slut shaming is becoming bigger in the social media mainly. Because so many celebrities are sexualized regardless they don’t really bring too much attention but I do know that amber rose did the walk of no shame, which is where the walk of “shame” is when the women leaves a man’s house the next morning after having sex and it’s considered shameful but Amber Rose made a video as a statement saying there is no shame in that. It’s so easy for society to shame women for having sex and it shouldn’t be that way.

This definitely opened up my perception of slut shaming and I knew of it but I hadn’t heard of the term slut shaming until last year. It made me interested in the topic and discover more but I still didn’t go that far until doing the research for this paper. It definitely lets you know that this is a real and serious issue that people are not taking serious enough. When you think about how silly it is just to judge someone based on their clothing it makes you lose faith in society a little bit. Even as women I think we should be more aware than men because since women do it as well knowing that they could be a victim themselves doesn’t make it any better.

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Description of how the problem is an Intersectional Issue

By DM

Slut shaming is an intersectional issue because not only does it affect gender but it also affects race as well. Generally women of color specifically black women have a harder time and are judged harshly when It comes to sex shaming. Now there was a particular incident where Nicki Minaj was highly criticized about her Anaconda video and she felt that there are other races predominantly white who can do the same and people accept it. For instance, Miley Cyrus was completely naked for part of her wrecking ball video and continues to dress liberally but it’s not judged like those outside of the Caucasian race. Even go back as far as to when black women where sexualized for having voluptuous bodies but now people like Kylie Jenner have gotten surgeries to get the same things but instead become glorified for it.

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Discussion of an Institutional example

By DM

Sexualizing clothes in school is a part of sex shaming because the whole idea is if girls wear short and a tank top they don’t value themselves at least that what the school system makes it seem as. Most schools have a dress code and it tends to be really strict on what you can and cannot wear. I even got put into in school detention for ripped jeans back when I was in high school. I think the school system restricting what girls wear because they feel like it would cause a distraction is ridiculous. Why does a gender have to be restricted because others don’t have control enough to realize that clothes are just clothes? Women are consistently trying to change and conform to society rules of how to not be “slutty.” It seems that once the women had to basically take the blame or be the one to make the change. I notice that there are plenty of rules for dress code as far as females but I don’t remember anything restricting guys. The double standard is aggravating and need to come to an end.

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Walk of NO Shame

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Discussion of an everyday example

By DM

An everyday example is a girl posts a picture online with clothes that are considered revealing. People who are bold enough may comment negatively under her pictures. Calling her a slut or a ho, both male and female. This is something common that happens all the time on social media and even if they don’t comment they still might say something about it verbally. At the end of the day whether people feel like they are just expressing their opinions or trying to be funny these things can be very hurtful to the person on the other side of that. There’s was a movie made on it similar to the scenario that I gave where she a young girl in high school just trying to get the affection of a boy in school and decided to start “sexting” him which means sending naked pictures. And he decided to show them all over social media and of course people proceeded to badger her at school and online calling her ho and sluts and just harassing her. So she committed suicide. This may have only been a movie but this does also happen in real life and is very serious. Someone shouldn’t want to end their life just because people have nothing better to do than to judge it’s not worth it.

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Analysis of a second scholarly source

By DM

The next scholarly source that I used was, The Story of a Slut Walk 1: Sexuality, Race, and Generational Divisions in Contemporary Feminist Activism.  This source talk about how the rise of slut walk began once an officer suggested rape came from women dressing like sluts. This had women from all over enraged which is what ultimately encouraged these walks because people still generally believe or just accept as common nature that what you wear makes you who you are and that’s just not accurate. So Jo Reger took upon himself to do further research and evaluate these slut walks from his own ideas. A lot of people had their own personal opinions about the slut walks and didn’t necessarily support them and he followed up on that as well. Reger talks about how in the slut walks the general idea is to take the word slut back, to take away the negative connotation. But it backfires for the others who don’t want to call themselves sluts to empower it in a positive light instead they think it’s better to just get rid of it completely which obviously causes a clash. I think this scholarly source is a lot different because this is personally only one author that’s a lot less facts and opinions but instead more observational and used his own personal experiences of actually going to see the walks. I never thought about this aspect of the project until looking at this newly found information and I think this can become contradicting at times.

file:///C:/Users/Deedra/Downloads/Journal%20of%20Contemporary%20Ethnography-2015-Reger-84-112.pdf

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Analysis of a Scholarly Source

This scholarly source, “Good Girls”: Gender, Social Class, and Slut Disclosure on Campus made some very good points and go a little more I depth about slut shaming. They brought up a good point that I feel doesn’t always get recognized or is generally looked over and that’s the women slut shaming each other. This is just as common if not worse than the males doing it to females. I feel like more often than not as women they kind of get a pass and I think it’s long overdue that it starts getting some recognition. They also mentioned how it has a lot to do with the way you dress. They even did a social experiment where they had girls get dressed up in front of the mirror and as they were doing that they often asked or wondered if what they were wearing made them look promiscuous. They talked about the different mindsets that women have on what it means to be a slut some thought having se while not in a serious relationship was slutty, others would say no it depends on your number, then some would say it not about the number some thought it was the way the way you dress which plains the social experiment. I would think that someone concerned about this topic would want to figure out a way for women to be more empowering towards each other I mean seeing as slut shaming “reinforces male dominance and subordinates women. (p.101, Armstrong)” so as one gender I think we should be uplifting and not bring us down further.

file:///C:/Users/Deedra/Downloads/Social%20Psychology%20Quarterly-2014-Armstrong-100-22%20(1).pdf

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Analysis of a Web Source

The Huffington post was about basically the basis of what slut shaming actually is and how in depth it actually goes. Leora Tanenbaum, who wrote this article, also wrote the book I Am Not a Slut: Slut shaming in the Age of the Internet. One of her main points in the article was that women must be feminine and show some type of sexuality but if they show too much then they are labeled as a slut or a ho. If they are not sexualized enough then they are not feminine enough so they’re basically put into this box where, as a woman, you have to be sexy enough to be accepted but not too much. She also touched on how this term has been so generalized that people say it without even knowing of a girl or women’s sexuality. “I have yet to meet an American woman under the age of 25 who has not been called a "slut" or a "ho" at some point in her life. (Tanenbaum, 2015)” I agree with her on these points because this is very true and common. I think a person who cares about justice within this topic would ask how we can try to stop slut shaming which would seems almost impossible right now or at least bring more attention to it because it needs a lot more attention than its getting and I think people are just starting to realize that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leora-tanenbaum/the-truth-about-slut-shaming_b_7054162.html

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Introduction

Sex Shaming

by DM

Why is it okay for a man to have sex with multiple women and get praised for it while a women does it, and it doesn’t even necessarily have to be a lot of men it could just be someone that they are not in a relationship with per say and they get judged very harshly? There’s not a good reason to justify it, but instead women should be treated as equal. This is a problem because there are plenty of things that women have to endure and encounter as unfair but I chose this one because I think this particular problem damages women in more ways than one.

For example, calling women derogatory names such as a slut, whore, hoe, hooker etc. may seem funny or entertaining to some but to the women that’s on the other end of that criticism could be dealing with a lot. This might make some women depressed or depending on how bad the situation gets maybe wanting to commit suicide. Women shouldn’t be held up to the expectations of what society feels they should be. They should be able to feel liberal and free, and this is something that I feel has not gotten better over time. Women are still judged to this day and I really don’t feel as though it lightened up.

When I say that there should be equality I don’t mean that women should get praised for having sex nor do I think men should continue to get praised for it, but I do think that neither should be judged in a negative or positive way. It should just be that they do as they please with their own bodies. People tend to feel this entitlement that they have the right to judge people based on what they do when in actuality it’s honestly no one’s business but their own. Society may make it seem sometimes that you have more freedom than you actually do. People are put up to this normal standard of what you should be and anything outside of this is judged and fairly harsh on women I might add.