I have no idea. I am saying I have profound issues with the word, which prevents any participation by me or others who feel like me. Probably an age thing. I hate the word slut, which was used against me for the first few decades of my life, and I don’t want anything to do with that word. The women I have talked to feel the same way. Are we just weird? Well, maybe we are. This is the south, and the word just rankles among us rednecks, many of whom get called sluts because of the way we look or act.

But I must second these comments:

susurro: the slut walks have also been getting push back from women of color and working class, non-college attending, women who point out that the reclamation of certain names, styles of dress, and modes of expression in public space in these and other mainstream actions are only transgressive for those with the privilege to put them on and take them off with limited threat.

Good point. This goes to the heart of my hatred of the term and the whole gestalt around it. Where I come from, once you’re a slut, well, you’re a slut. (when you’re a jet, you’re a jet all the way)

And what Claire said.

It’s probably an age thing, as I said… in my day, slut was fightin words. Get ready to throw down!

(Also, there’s this fabulous little video on feministing by this guy singing a song to the tune of Madonna’s Like a Virgin, with the lyrics “there’s no such thing as virginity” because it’s a made-up patriarchal construct.)

Actually a lot of lesbian separatists are very proud of virginity… ever heard of Bev Jo? (Mary Daly?) To them, it means one is untainted by patriarchy and is therefore considered a positive good.

(Did you miss that part of the post?)

From what I understand, dressing provocatively is NOT at all required. All of the news coverage has said that it’s all kinds of women, although the demographics skew younger (infants and teens to 40s). I wonder if some of the videos available focus on the provocatively dressed women for all of the reasons you cite.

I don’t wear “mom jeans,” though. Girlfriend, please.

If you do, you should consider adopting the costume of an 18th-century Ursuline nun. I’m (sort of) serious:

I can imagine a walk where you had women of all ages and shapes and sizes, and from many walks of life, dressed in everything from “slutty” nightclub attire to “mom” jeans, nun’s habits and professional career-woman uniforms and everything in between. “Any woman can be called a ‘slut’”, would be the message, “and we’re here to challenge that label. It doesn’t matter what a woman is wearing (her night-out-on-the-town bustier or her drop-the-kids-off-at-preschool sweatshirt), it’s not okay to rape her.”

But women marching in (conventionally-coded) “slutty” clothing and calling themselves “sluts” in order to reclaim the term? Sorry, no, but I’m not signing on for this one.

I think I sort of get the ‘reappropriation of the oppressive label’ move in order to rob it of its power to hurt and shame. But that kind of thing is very tricky to pull off; and in many cases, imho, the expected gains are not worth the risks of backlash and of potential further losses (better to propose an alternative term, and, in this case, to demand better training for police officers).

From what I’m seeing and reading, there certainly *is* a “defending the right to be ‘slutty’” element to these marches (maybe not in the original vision, but that’s how they’re now playing out). And I honestly don’t see how this doesn’t serve to further normalize the prOnification of women and the glorification of PrOn-culture ‘hottness’ as the new standard. “You see?! They’re ALL sluts! Hell, even the feminists are sluts! And, man, some of those little feminist cuties: hawt!” Ugh.

If this the future of feminism, the revolution is over, for sure.