A Proud Slut

Slut Walk originated in Toronto in response to a police constables derogatory remark while delivering a lecture on women’s safety issues. To quote him, "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." The uproar it created had since spread like wildfire across the globe. The slut walks are aimed at redefining the term slut, a word which is derogatorily used to shame women. Debated have ensued. Feminism has been cheered and jeered alternately. The gesture was lost on some women who blamed feminism for destroying family values.

 Slut Walk has given women a platform to reaffirm their position in society, to voice their protest. The male-female imbalance in society is on a tethering edge. While men continue to dominate, women have long ago stopped giving in to the demands of a patriarchal society. The trend started in the West and has percolated into the conservative Arab world. Scores of female protestors camped out in tents along with male protestors in Tahrir Square during the revolution in Egypt. It invited a lot of criticism and the army dragged a few female protestors and forcibly performed virginity tests on them to secure themselves against any rape claims later on; acting on the misogynistic belief that only virgins can be raped. This move did not discourage the women and they came out strongly in large numbers demanding rights for women once the new government is formed.

Not all women resort to aggressive feminism to get their views across. Some women use sarcasm and humor like Jennifer McCreight. She performed the famous Boobquake experiment to poke fun at Kazem Seddiqi, an Iranian religious leader for claiming that immodestly dressed women lead men astray and cause earthquakes. Similar to Slut Walk, Boobquake saw scores of provocatively dressed women participating in the experiment verifying Seddiqi’s claim. Some argue that women use these occasions to dress provocatively in order to affirm their feminity. We don’t need to affirm our feminity. We need to affirm our already existing right to dress as we chose and not be harassed for it. It has been debated since the start of time yet no ‘consensus’ has been reached till today. First of all I wonder why we argue in the first place. Men and women both started out wearing nothing. Slowly with the start of family and society or maybe because of eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of heaven we realized about shame. Both the genders clothed themselves to protect their modesty. But somehow in the course of history or evolution or both, men established their right to wear what they preferred be it loincloth, skirt, jodhpurs or simply trousers. But women had to fight and fight and fight. Women wearing trousers is ubiquitous these days. But there was once a time when they were branded evil, whores (or simply sluts) if they were found wearing one. The logic was women shouldn’t wear clothes meant for men. Instead they were encouraged to wear skirts and dresses. Today the same society is saying that women wearing short skirts are sluts. I say no point listening to these confused and confounded people who can’t get it straight in their heads.

Very soon India will have its own slut walk in the national capital. This created quite a flutter among some men who were eager to participate in the walk for all the wrong reasons. Some wanted to photograph themselves walking alongside skimpily clad women. Others wanted to click high definition images. Their fantasies suffered quite a blow when it was decided that women would dress in traditional Indian attire to stress on the fact that they suffer harassment and abuse even when they are not “immodestly” dressed. India still has a long way to go as far as women’s rights are concerned. In spite of being a democracy with a stable ruling coalition, India has been named in the top five countries where women live dangerously. Other countries featuring in the top five are Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia. These countries can argue that they have been plagued by civil war, terrorism, hunger, unstable government hence women are in a pitiable state (though that’s no excuse at all) . What excuse do we have? It’s been more than sixty years since independence. How much longer do they want us wait and watch? And what do the men of country think regarding women’s rights to make her own choices?

Our voices can no longer be smothered by steely glares or fear. The tables had started turning a while back. We are no more afraid of giving voice to our thoughts or telling our daughters to live their lives as they think right. Societies have a tendency to stubbornly refuse to accept anything that challenges the established norm. Be it the Earth revolving around the sun or votes for women. But they accept it eventually when they can no longer resist the change. And therein lies our victory.