Slutwalk Campaign: Empowering Women

Sexual assault does not happen to individuals based on what they wear. Sluttiness is a social construct that is intended to control and harm women’s views of themselves as well as each other. The Slutwalk campaign was run by predominantly white women who, even on behalf of being left out of equality shaping movements by men, marginalized anyone who wasn’t a white woman. Whether this was done intentionally or not, it was still a racially exclusive movement.

The campaign dropped from an inclusive and empowering movement to an effectively silenced one for the voices of women of color. When allying with police headquarters, the campaign ignored the fact that the entire campaign was based on a remark made by a man who the same police currently protect and employ hundreds of sexist and racist men like Sanguinetti.

Groups like the Crunk Feminist Collective, Walia, and others released a statement on how they did not feel apart from the Slutwalk Campaign, stating: “‘sluttiness’ and ‘slut-shaming’ around sexuality are central to white women’s experience of sexuality,”

“To reclaim ‘slut’ as a black woman does not move them away from previous binaries.”

“We are always already sexually free, insatiable, ready to go, freaky, dirty, and, by consequence, unrapable.”

“When it comes to reclamations of sexuality, in some sense, black women are already fucked. ”

If the Slutwalk campaign had a more diverse committee, there would have been a better platform to continue the campaign in a more culturally diverse setting that would include ALL women.