Slut-shaming

[VisionGirl]

I'm not sure that anyone was saying that men are just naturally more objectifying of women. Some scientists will say that men's brains are more attuned to visual stimulation, but there is so much societal shaping that happens that I think it's hard to differentiate. Babies are not born sexists, racists, homophobes, etc. It's not necessarily an individual man's "fault" that things are as they are. Just like it's not my "fault" that racism exists. But it's certainly up to each of us to recognize these things in society and ourselves and challenge them. I'm not sure why we're so focused on this one point, I wish we could move on in this discussion!

I want to make a point about the issue of objectification. Because I'm a mother, and because of the volunteer work I do which is with pregnant woman and new mothers, the issue of public breastfeeding is a great example of the objectification & over-sexualization of womens' bodies in our culture. Now, I'm speaking mostly of the United States here, I know that some of you are from countries where this is not such a big issue. Breasts themselves are ubiquitious, both in advertising and in the way people dress. But people have vehement, visceral reactions to breastfeeding in public, and a lot of it gets down to the over-sexualization of breasts, which is a fairly recent phenomenon in western society. American Puritanism has something to do with this. Many mothers I know have faced scrutiny for breastfeeding, both in public and in their private homes (often by & in the presence of other family members).

 

[Kean]

This popped up on my Twitter feed yesterday and I think it makes its point very well.

 

[eponinethen]

I just that distinction, noting that not all people of a certain class, race, standing, whatever, are alike, is important. It's not hard to point that out. It isn't onerous. Most of what you wrote had me nodding my head in agreement, but I don't think the discussion is a fair one without making such a distinction. I'm sure people here will roll their eyes at that or think it's lame, but to me it isn't.

I definitely don't think that's lame. It is super important. It is also very important that people belong to many different "categories" (for instance, the situation for middle class white women and working class black women is very different). I want to be very clear that I'm talking about categories and structures. But I also think that saying "men tend to do this" does not mean "all men are the same" or "all men do this".
BUT it's also not the same thing for the underprivileged "group" in a particular hierarchy to point out inequalities or structures, as for the privileged "group". (As in, generally, white people aren't the best suited for pointing out racism and cis-men aren't the best suited for pointing out sexism, etc.)

(And I haven't seen anyone in this discussion disagreeing with the original post "“ everyone seems to agree that slut-shaming in general is bad.)

 

[Blaze]

BUT it's also not the same thing for the underprivileged "group" in a particular hierarchy to point out inequalities or structures, as for the privileged "group". (As in, generally, white people aren't the best suited for pointing out racism and cis-men aren't the best suited for pointing out sexism, etc.))

I think this a very important point (which again should NOT be generalized to everyone of course). I don't know how many time I've been told to loosen up when someone makes a joke about my culture, or when someone makes a joke about my sexual orientation, or me being a woman, when in fact all said jokes are very offensive and made by people who are not in the position to decide whether the joke is offensive or not. I'm not talking about light hearted jokes or comments that are actually funny, those I will laugh along with, I'm talking about some very offensive jokes/comment, eg: the one I hear the most often being people saying "I'd rather be gay than be *insert something with a very negative connotation*" and then they tell me to chill out, and that I knew what they meant. Again, you'll have those awesome people that will recognise the sexism/racism etc and will defend you/or the group and call people out, but you'll also have those of said privileged group that are telling you that it wasn't racist/sexist etc.

That being said, I also don't think that being a minority gives you the right to be prejudiced towards the privileged group (ie: for this discussion woman should not trash man in order to make a point). But being a minority/underprivileged group does essentially give you the right to decide what is offensive to you or your group (exactly what you were saying here, how black people are better suited to recognize racism toward their own race). I think of course we shouldn't limit things, after all some of the best feminist are men, but the right to find something offensive should first and foremost go back to the underprivileged group, as long as this is not exaggerated (just to give an extreme example, a woman getting offended for a man holding her door because he is treating woman differently than man is bullshit, no one in their right mind would actually classify that as real sexism).

I'm not too sure if my post is clear, and I did diverge a lot from the main topic, sorry about that! I just think that this particular point also applies to more than sexism. I just think it's important that to get things to change, it's important for the unprivileged group to be very careful about how they talk about it, and it's very important not to attack anyone else to put your point across.

Wow, well I guess my post didn't have much to do with slut-shamming, of course I agree with everyone else on the topic.