THE WORD “SLUT”
FINAL PRESENTATION
“The time a guy has called me a slut with the most
viciousness in his demeanor, I don’t think he knew my sexual
history, he just knew I was sleeping with someone and he
was angry that I wasn’t interested in sleeping with him.”—
Chrissy, 28
“I am 56 years old and was at my gym swimming laps in the
pool. A younger man approached me and complimented me
on my fitness and swimming skills. He also said “You’ll have
to teach me some time.” I deflected his comment by saying
something such as “Oh, it’s easy/just takes practice.” He
then called me “Puta” (whore) and left the pool area”.—Anne
“When I was in middle school, I was called a whore and a
hoe. I had never even kissed someone before. I had never
had a boyfriend. I’m not sure I had even hugged a member of
the opposite sex that wasn’t like, my dad. But I was called
this because I had big boobs, and sometimes a little cleavage
would come out of my shirt. I’m not talking about push-upbra Anna Nicole Smith cleavage, I mean, I wore unpadded
bras and if my shirt weren’t up to my neck, it was just what
happened. It’s just how it was. I wasn’t inappropriate in any
way shape or form. But I was called a slut. Because if you
embrace who you are and threaten other girls with the idea
that you are more sexually attractive than they are that’s what
you’ll be called.”-Sara, 20
SLUT
DECONSTRUCTED
Slut: an immoral or dissolute woman; prostitute or a dirty,
slovenly woman.
Why is someone who has had multiple sex partners dirty?
“The self disgust, feeling dirty, is an outcome of sex often
remarked on in literature; being clean means being chaste.”
page 230, Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse
Why is the woman immoral?
According to Dworkin, sex is about possession, to be
possessed by many men is to be dirty and therefore immoral.
HOW DOES PATRIARCHY
CONTROL WOMEN?
The word slut is used to reinforce patriarchy.
• Control of a woman’s sexual activities by shaming her
• The word is used to justify violence against women
• Used by women/girls who dislike or envy other
women/girls.
WHAT IS A WOMAN’S
ROLE IN PATRIARCHY?
• Women are taught that they must look good for the male
gaze
• Taught to be submissive, so men could “protect” them
• Taught to support men through their goals and journeys
MEDIA
Films: 40 year old virgin, Wedding Crashers
• Elizabeth Banks in the 40 year old virgin is promiscuous
and is looked down upon by the main character in the film
• Isla Fishers, in Wedding Crashers, is also promiscuous
and is the source of jokes in the films.
“There are so many dirty names for her that one rarely learns
them all, even in one’s native language. There are dirty
names for every female part of her body and for every way of
touching her. There are dirty words, dirty laughs, dirty
noises, dirty jokes, dirty movies, and dirty things to do to her
in the dark. Fucking her is the dirtiest, though it may not be
as dirty as she herself is. Her genitals are dirty in the literal
meaning: stink and blood and urine and mucous and slime.
Her genitals are also dirty in the metaphoric sense: obscene.
She is reviles as filthy, obscene, in religion, pornography,
philosophy, and in most literature and art and psychology.”
-page 214, Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse
THE WORD “FAGGOT”
“I am called a "faggot" relatively often. Sometimes the insult
comes from anonymous Internet users responding to blog
posts I write, like this one, and other times it is hurled at me
by drunken guys at bars. One night I was walking with my
girlfriend through my neighborhood in San Francisco when a
couple of men in a truck slowed down next to us, threw a
beer bottle at my head, called me a "faggot," and shouted at
my girlfriend to "get a real man." So I have a pretty intimate
relationship with the word "faggot." When I hear the word, I
tense up, my body instinctively preparing to defend itself,
and my heart rate quickens”
-Lucas Waldron
FAGGOT VS. SLUT
The word faggot reveals how patriarchy sees women. To be a
faggot means that you are less than a man—you are
feminine, you are like a woman. Therefore, in the system of
patriarchy, women are less than men.
“Boys who conform to the masculine role are similarly
judged on a phantom sexual scale—the short boy with a
slight build who strikes out whenever he’s up to bat is called
a fag, even though his ability in sports says nothing about
his sexual orientation. Yet a “fag” can overcome his status
through bench-pressing; there is little a “slut” can do to
erase her stigma. ” –page xv, Leora tanenbaum, Slut!
Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation
WHAT IS A MAN’S ROLE
IN PATRIARCHY?
A man’s identity is dependent on a woman
•
Patriarchy teaches men not to take responsibility for their
sexual feelings
•
Men might often feel uncomfortable when they are unable to
provide for a woman because they were taught by patriarchy
that women are weaker and need to be protected.
•
Patriarchy teaches that men should feel entitled to have a
woman by their side or to have many women by their side.
•
Patriarchy teaches men that women are their for their visual
pleasure. Excerpt from 5 Ways Modern Men are Trained to
Hate Women: “She owes it to us to be pretty. That’s the social
contract as we’ve understood it from the time we were
toddlers. ”
•
Taught to see women as objects (through pornography)
•
Patriarchy makes men feel powerless.
DANGERS OF
PATRIARCHY
Patriarchy assumes that men always want sex and that
women are always available for sex.
“Current dogma is to teach by rote that sex is “healthy” as if
it existed outside social relations, as if it had no ties to
anything mean or lowdown, to history, to power, to the
dispossession of women from freedom. But for sex not to
mean dirt—for sex not to dirty—the status of women would
have to change radically; there would have to be equality for
all women, not personal exemptions from insult for some
women in some circumstances.”
Page 218, Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse
TOWARDS A HEALTHY
SOCIETY
In order to have healthy relationships between men and
women, and in order for these words to become useless,
men and women must be equal.
Feminist masculinity
• Integrity
• Self love
• Emotional awareness
• Assertiveness
• Relational skill, being empathetic, connected