Slut Shaming contributes to rape culture?- Leena Jenson
Slut shaming is the act of stigmatizing a women due to promiscuous or sexually proactive behavior. While rape culture is when societal attitudes end up normalising sexual assault and abuse.
In 2017 during October the #metoo movement started which shone light upon the abuse of women (specifically) in the work place and in society, when victims started to speak up and communicate what happened to them using social media primarily to share their story.
Amber Rose an American model and actress talked about slut shaming and linked it rape culture. Rose argued that as society we slut shame women thus objectifying them and we then start blame women for them being raped as their dress was “asking for it.”
Rape culture normalizes rape by blaming the victims for what they were wearing or how they were acting, but rape happens because of rapists not clothes, yet we blame victims. Research illustrates that for the most part victims of sexual assault are modestly dressed, and it is more likely to happen in the work place.
In 2011 Amber Rose started the ‘Amber Rose slut walk’ where people would wear and much and as little as they want to bring awareness to slut shaming and to prevent it. The #metoo movement led to people coming out in a bid to aid rape culture with people carrying signs which read, “my little red dress doesn’t say yes” and “I was wearing much more than this when I was raped” which showed that rapists didn’t care what they wore so why do we.
The #metoo movement has helped to bring justice to women and instead of asking, “what were you wearing?” people are asking, “how did it happen?” This shows as a society we are growing and with the help of social media and people coming forward rape culture is being tackled head-on. But we still have a long way to go before it’s ended.
