I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet (38 page)

Wanjuki was able to mobilize a mass grassroots movement—she gathered over 176,000 signatures for her petition to the Department of Education—because of the Internet. “People listened to me because I was able to use the Internet to craft my story,” she says. “And then we launched another petition to gain support for our recommendations for the White House task force.
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We were told that our group was instrumental in the formation of the White House task force and the federal push to address campus sexual violence, which is a huge honor and extremely encouraging.”

Wanjuki adds, though, that the progress to hold colleges accountable for sweeping rape under the rug is “bittersweet.” On the one hand, “It was incredible to see the president of the United States talk about an issue about which I’ve been trying to bring awareness for years. I am so pleased to see survivors now have the community, support, knowledge, and resources that I did not have that allows them to more easily get
retribution after being harmed by an abuser and a school.” But on the other hand, she admits that “it’s hard to also see these people get the justice that I never got while still struggling with the consequences of Tufts’s apathy.” In a sense, Wanjuki and the other activists who paved the way for the White House task force sacrificed themselves so that other students will now benefit.

Girls and young women who feel more comfortable speaking into a camera rather than typing on a keyboard also share their stories on the Internet. In August 2011, a thirteen-year-old eighth-grade girl from Vancouver, Sarah Sloan MacLeod, posted a four-minute video on YouTube under the name “astrorice” titled “Slut Shaming and Why It’s Wrong.” With her big, wide-set eyes, long light-brown hair, and braces, she looked like the child she was. But when she opened her mouth, her sophisticated analysis of gendered violence belied her age. She looked straight at the camera and, with tremendous expressiveness, said,

S
lut-shaming is the unfortunate phenomenon in which people degrade or mock a woman because she dresses in tight or revealing clothing, enjoys sex, has sex a lot, or may just even be rumored to participate in sexual activity. The message that slut-shaming sends to women is that sex is bad, having sex with more than one person is horrible, and everyone will hate you for having sex at all. That message is complete and utter—excuse my French—bullshit. [
Rolls her eyes.
] Yes, I’m thirteen and I said the word “bullshit.” Yes, I’m thirteen and I’m talking about slut-shaming. [
Pauses and puts on a pair of sunglasses.
] Deal with it.

MacLeod went on to inform her viewers that slut-shaming is connected with the widespread attitude that rape is not a serious crime because the woman who is raped is just a slut. She concluded,

I
’m noting a lot of other girls my age starting to say it, and it shocks me every time. How can they use such offensive language in such a casual manner? It’s like they don’t even know the meaning behind their words—and that’s the thing. They don’t know.
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Four months later, MacLeod’s video had gone viral, with over six hundred thousand views. Anderson Cooper flew her out to New York to speak on his daytime television show for a program on teenage girls’ pledging abstinence until marriage. On the program, MacLeod—who had yet to turn fourteen—told Cooper, “The abstinence movement promotes traditional gender norms, saying that women’s worth and value come from their sexuality, which is completely untrue because my worth and value obviously don’t come from anywhere like that. I have so many traits that I personally find better than that.”

MacLeod’s YouTube video, like Hollaback! and RapedAtTufts.info, is not only an example of a girl taking control over slut-shaming; it’s also a call to others to spread the word. MacLeod recommended that her YouTube audience forward the link to anyone guilty of slut-shaming. “How awesome would it be to change the opinion of even just one person?”

MacLeod’s video became an Internet sensation because of her mature presentation of adult ideas. No one expects a thirteen-year-old with braces to spout nuanced analysis of
gendered violence. She was effective because she stood out as unusual. Yet I suspect that as she grows to adulthood, her videos will remain persuasive because she speaks accessibly, intelligently, and directly to ordinary people in plain language everyone can understand. Her message is clear: Slut-shaming is wrong and leads to violence.

Many other girls and young women also turn to simple, cheap, homemade videos to spread the message that slut-shaming is damaging to girls and women. After the YouTube personality Jenna Marbles uploaded her nine-minute video “Things I Don’t Understand About Girls Part 2: Slut Edition,” in December 2012, online reactions were swift and fierce. Franchesca Ramsey is a black comedian who riffs on racism and sexism and is best known for her hilarious send-up of offensive comments made by white women ignorant of their racial privilege in her YouTube video “Shit White Girls Say . . . to Black Girls,” which has been viewed by over ten million people. Because of her edgy humor, her serious tone in the video “How Slut Shaming Becomes Victim Blaming” is all the more potent. She addressed the portion of the Jenna Marbles video in which Marbles suggests that “sluts” who have a “one-night stand” are taking a big risk because the guy they go home with may have “like, ten roommates in the other room that are all just waiting to close in and gang-bang you for the night.” Standing in front of a stark white screen, Ramsey looks at the camera and says matter-of-factly,

T
his is not an attack on Jenna Marbles. This is really about a larger problem, and she’s just kind of opened the door to the conversation. I’ve decided to chime in here
because I actually have personal experience with this. Awesome! Of all the things I never thought I’d be sharing on the Internet, this is definitely one of them.

When I was eighteen, just past my eighteenth birthday, I was date-raped. That is how I lost my virginity. . . . For my eighteenth birthday, one of the girls that I worked with took me to a concert. She bought me concert tickets, and we went with her boyfriend and his roommate. Somewhere through the course of drinking all day and not really eating very much and kind of feeling pressured to drink because I was not really a drinker, when it was time to leave the concert, I was, like, beyond inebriated. Like, stumbling and slurring my words and having a hard time—and so clearly, I could not drive home. And in retrospect, I don’t know if there was something in my drink because I’ve never, ever gotten like that post the situation. I blacked out—like, done-zo. Like, no recollection, was not conscious.

It wasn’t until the morning that I even realized that I had sex and I was like, “Wait a second—what, what happened? This doesn’t feel right.” And I asked my girlfriend and she was like, “Yeah, you totally had sex with him, you were like, so bad.”

I remember feeling mortified, just thinking, “Oh my god, why did this happen to me?” I mean, just all of those horrible thoughts going through my head, blaming myself. I told her, I begged her, “Please don’t say anything about this at work.” She told my coworkers. She told my manager, and they said horrible things to me. [
Chokes up and tears come to her eyes.
] They called me a slut, and I was the running joke. I was the running joke at work. . . .

I’m making this video because there are women that speak out about experiences that have happened to them, about their rape experiences. And time and again, everyone tells them, “Well, it was your fault. You shouldn’t have done this, you shouldn’t have done that.” No. Can we stop telling girls that they “shouldn’t get raped” and instead tell men to stop fucking raping women and to stop taking advantage of women? [
Chokes up again, and tears slide down her cheeks
.] . . .

There are people of all spectrums and walks of life that are affected by sexual assault and abuse, and the best way to prevent it and to make sure that those who are responsible are held accountable is to stop blaming our victims and to continue being smart and finding ways to protect ourselves and protect each other. I’ll see you guys later.
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After posting this video, Ramsey decided that she would not participate in online comments. “I will not be answering any further comments on this video,” she posted on YouTube. “Thank you for understanding.” No further comments are necessary because her video speaks for itself. Girls’ and women’s individual stories offer evidence that no one deserves to be called a slut and that no one deserves to be sexually assaulted. Personal, intimate stories help make the case that slut-shaming must end.

Ramsey wasn’t the only young woman who responded to Marbles. There are over fifty direct video responses on YouTube. Laci Green’s video critiques the idea that sluts don’t deserve respect because, she says, that leads to “women not deserving of respect.”
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In her own video response, Hayley
G. Hoover speaks directly to Marbles. She says, “You portray ‘sluts’ as different from normal or regular girls. Good things happen to regular girls and bad things happen to sluts.” But, Hoover says, “when we make the separation, we start to justify that if a regular girl is attacked in an alley, that’s rape, but if a ‘slut’ goes home with someone, making a dumb decision, that’s her being stupid,” and if she had made a better decision, she would not have been raped.
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Some of the responses were created by men. Titles include “A Male Perspective: Jenna Marbles’ Slut-Shaming”; “Response to Jenna Marbles and Slut Shaming Part 1: Rape is Not OK!!!”; “Things I Don’t Understand About Jenna Marbles: Stupid Idiot Edition”; and “The Dangers of Slut-Shaming: Black Guy Edition.”

A photo can be just as effective as a video. Sixteen-year-old Jada, a black girl from the Houston area, was raped in June 2014 after her drink was spiked at a party. Photos of her, half-naked and unconscious, were taken and circulated, going viral. Twitter users mocked her by mimicking her passed-out pose. But Jada (who has chosen to reveal her first name) seized control of the story. She posted a photo of her face and her fist, uplifted defiantly, with the hashtag #IAmJada. In this way, she reframed the narrative about her—that she was a slut—into an image of courage.
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Although the Internet enables slut-shaming messages to spread far and wide, it also provides a mechanism for resistance. But can resistant, lone voices alter public opinion? In the cacophony of videos and testimonials, will these voices stand out? If enough people shout, it will be impossible to ignore them.

The StopSlut Movement

These individual stories are inspiring. Yet it’s unrealistic to expect that every young woman has the courage, savvy, or energy to fight back individually—nor should we expect a feisty response, on the Internet or in any other venue, to be her personal responsibility. Real change can only occur when masses of people come together to use their power and influence collectively.

An emerging social movement called StopSlut is leading the way. Katie Cappiello and Meg McInerney are at the forefront of this effort to educate young people. The kick-off for StopSlut took place in October 2013 at a conference held in New York City at the New School in Greenwich Village. Over two hundred people attended, most of them boys and girls ages thirteen to eighteen. Panels were held on meanings of the word “slut” (in which I participated) and what bystanders and young women can do to fight back against slut-labeling. In between each panel, a racially diverse group of teenage girls and boys bravely climbed up to the stage, faced the audience, and shared their own raw experiences with the word.

A girl told us that the doorman of her apartment building last year grabbed her breasts; when her parents pressed to get him fired, other residents paid for his lawyer. Another girl told everyone that she used to dance to Jay-Z’s music, even when he made fun of “hos,” until she realized that she and her friends were the ones being called “hos,” and she decided that she didn’t want to dance to her own degradation. A boy
wanted everyone to know that his friend was called a slut just because she broke up with her boyfriend after he had pressured her sexually. Everyone believed the ex-boyfriend, a member of the wrestling team, while the girl stopped eating and became anorexic.

Throughout the day, the stories tumbled out nonstop. A queer girl got up on the stage to point out that any girl who expresses an interest in sexuality—with a boy or a girl—gets called a slut. A boy from an elite private school in the city shared that he knew the term “slut” was immoral when his guy friend, who “hooked up with random girls,” called a girl who had hooked up with a random guy “a fucking slut.” He said, “That made me a feminist.” His guy friends ask him, “Why do you even care?” He tells them, “Every guy has a mother. A mother is a woman. You can’t treat a woman as less than a guy. That’s just stupid.” A boy who introduced himself with the stage name Prince Akeem recited a poem he’d penned about the time he called his best friend a “slut” and a “freak” when she was thirteen, but then realized he had done something profoundly wrong. He concluded,

She’s not a bitch, hoe, or slut,

She’s a queen, angel, and a goddess.

My final message to you, the people,

Please! Do not for any reason make your best friend or anyone else a target.

Repeat after me,

NO SLUT!

NO SLUT!

NO SLUT!

It could be my mother, my sister, or my niece.