On The Semantic Inaccuracy Of The Term "Slut Shaming"

via A Lofty Existence

Today, ​@FeministaJones published a great essay that explains why she takes issue with the term "slut shaming." In it, she describes the way we use language to imply specific connotations, and how that language applies when we coin terms about behaviour.

When I realized what the essay was about, I was apprehensive at first. After all, what we understand to be slut shaming within feminist discourse (ie. shaming women for their sexual choices) is definitely something that happens, and is quite obviously a practice that needs to be eradicated. I was unsure of why anyone would take issue with a term that seeks to identify and name that behaviour. 

But since I've been following @FeministaJones for almost a year now and I very much respect her voice and opinion, specifically as a sex positive black woman who writes openly about her sex life, her interest in kink, and the difficulties of confronting that in a society rife with respectability when it comes to black female bodies, I knew that I should do myself a favour and read it before drawing conclusions. 

I'm really glad I did.

Jones's argument is essentially this: When we "defend" women from being shamed for "being sluts", we are implicitly agreeing that they are sluts.

How? Well she breaks it down wonderfully by examining the ways in which we talk about female sexuality, and the words we use to describe female sexual behaviour within the patriarchal system.

"By definition, a “slut” is a woman, described as slovenly and promiscuous. Slovenly is by no means a compliment and promiscuous certainly has negative connotations. Think of what comes to mind when you think of that particular adjective. Be honest—isn’t your first thought about a woman? How often are men described as promiscuous?"

She also juxtaposes this with the terms "victim blaming" and "fat shaming" to underscore that when we use those terms, we are defending people from being shamed for who they are.

So why do we use “slut-shaming” in the same way? Following the usage of “victim blaming” and “fat shaming”, are we not basically calling women sluts when we talk about them being “slut shamed”? Are we not calling upon the prevalence and relevance of abusive terms and labeling women accordingly, while attempting to empathize with the shame they experience?

Following that thinking, when we frame the phenomenon of women being shamed for their sexual choices as "slut-shaming", we are implying that we are also defending them from being who they are, and stating that who they are is a "slut". The term effectively says "It's totally fine women are sluts. There's nothing wrong with that."

What Jones essentially says in her essays is that there shouldn't be derogatory terms to describe women's sexual behaviour (she also examines the usage of "whore", "promiscuous" and "prostitute"), and that by invoking those terms to defend ourselves we are inadvertently validating them. As we all know, a woman does not have to engage in sexual activity of any kind to be slut shamed, as the shaming stems from the desire to control women's sexual behaviour.

We are not “sluts”. We are WOMEN and we are being shamed because we are women (who have sex). It is important to keep this at the forefront of the discussion and not rely on catchy buzzwords to make points that, quite honestly, are counterproductive. If we uphold this idea of “slut shaming”, we agree that the word for a woman who enjoys sex is a slut. We become complicit with upholding the standards of sexual morality that generated these words. We are actively accepting and sustaining the limitations placed on sexual enjoyment. We are operating within the parameters of respectability when it comes to sexual pleasure and expression and we’re essentially agreeing that it’s OK to call women sluts. It is never OK to call a woman a slut, even if you’re fighting against so-called “slut shaming”.

FJ was kind enough to engage with me on twitter about her essay and I've complied the conversation so you can see my thought process if you so choose. I had never really considered the term from this perspective before and I appreciated the opportunity to critically think about something that I've taken for granted for quite some time.

I have always seen the reclamation of the term "slut" as a way to take the sting out of something that was created as a weapon against women who refuse to have their morality tied to their sexuality, but after reading this essay, I see that practice in a different light. Reclaiming slut is almost like willingly accepting blame for a crime you didn't commit, or rather for doing something that shouldn't be a crime in the first place.

While I won't go as far as calling for a moratorium on the term as FJ does, I do think it's important to constantly be questioning and critically thinking about the terms we use to describe the influences we come up against. Jones's essay was very enlightening, and I definitely recommend giving it a complete read.

How Ramaa Mosley And #GirlRising Tried To Co-Opt The #BringBackOurGirls Movement

ABC News

Ramaa Mosley, a film director and documentarian, gave several interviews (on ABC, CNN and MSNBC that we know of so far, though reports have mentioned interviews on NPR and ET as well) claiming credit for launching the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls and starting a global movement. I've previously written about this here and here, but here's the information all in one place. 

The story was framed as a "simple LA mom, who didn't even know what a hashtag was(!) was so moved by the story that she decided she HAD TO DO SOMETHING."

Despite the fact that twitter's own analytics tools, as well as several other sources made it clear that the hashtag was in fact created in Nigeria, by Ibrahim M. Abdullahi and largely amplified by Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, and her 126K followers, Mosley shamelessly positioned herself as the leader of a movement.

On bell hooks, Sexual Agency And Combating Sexual Stereotypes Of Black Women

bell hooks via The New School

On Tuesday afternoon, legendary author, feminist and academic, bell hooks led a panel entitled Are You Still A Slave? Liberating The Black Female Body (embedded after the jump) at The New School. Joining her were author Marci Blackman, author and activist, Janet Mock, and film director Shola Lynch. What followed was an instructive and interesting dialogue about the politics of black womanhood, sexuality, and creating anti-imperialist images within a heteropatriarchial, white supremacist society.

One point of contention that stuck out to me however, was bell hook's comments about Beyoncé, and her belief that Beyoncé's brand was harmful to young black girls. bell even went so far as to say, in response to a question about creating liberatory sex positive framework that honours the agency of black women, that she believed black women should embrace celibacy as a political means to counteract stereotypes of hypersexuality (around the 1:25:30 mark).

If you've been following this blog at all in the last few months, then you know that I vehemently disagree with this point of view, and have written on several occasions about why I believe that Beyoncé's new overtly sexual image is empowering and instructive to black women when viewed through a womanist lens. But I've been thinking about why bell's statement's bothered me so much, and I think I've finally figured out why.

Things I Love: Lupita Nyong'o Is People's Most Beautiful Woman 2014

It shouldn't have to matter, but it does. Waking up to the news that Lupita was named People's Most Beautiful Woman for 2014 was enough to put me in a good mood for most of today.

This cover means a lot to me. As I've written about before, Lupita's It Girl status is a momentous coup within a system that actively demonizes and degrades women who look like her (and me!). She is the anti-thesis of what is considered the ideal: not just black, but dark skinned, with full lips, a muscular frame and close cropped, natural hair. She is the opposite of everything we've been told we're supposed to find beautiful, and yet here she is, dazzling away on the cover, being heralded as the most beautiful woman in the world.

It matters. It really does. And I can understand the impulse to say that it's no big deal in the long run. After all, it's People Magazine. The arbitrary title of "Most Beautiful" is not so secretly bestowed upon those with best publicists. But it's a huge fucking deal because black women usually aren't even allowed to play in this sandbox. In 25 years, Lupita is only the third black woman to be named "Most Beautiful", while Julia Roberts alone, has nabbed it four times!

Yes, she's obviously gorgeous and it seems like a no-brainer, but obviously gorgeous black women have been told they were hideously ugly for FOREVER, simply because of their blackness. And while Lupita certainly can't change everything, and shouldn't have to, she does seem to be unintentionally spearheading a seismic shift in beauty standards, and it's wondrous to behold.

What I love so much about Lupita however, is that she is completely aware of the socio-cultural impact that her visibility has on our culture, and isn't afraid to speak openly and honestly about it. She consistently articulates that she understands what her success as a black woman means, and how much potential for change she signifies, because she once felt the same way. She is acutely aware that she is helping to chip away at our anti-black vision of beauty, and she isn't shying away from leading the charge. Her sheer joy shines through, and it encourages the rest of us to find our own inner joy.

My only further wish for Lupita is that her star continues to rise. It's easy to call her beautiful and declare the system no longer racist, but the proof is in the pudding. It remains to be seen if Hollywood is going to allow her to follow through on the promise that they implicitly made when they gave her that statue, by giving her access to solid, meaty roles deserving of her talent.

Trudy over at  Gradient Lair wrote another great essay over that you should also check out that deals a little more deeply with the impact that Lupita's cover has, and the misogynoir and colourism that her visibility combats, and I encourage you to read it.

All in all, seeing this cover made my day, and made me tear up a little. It's officially #BlackGirlTime.

On The Erasure of People Of Colour From Dystopian Fiction

I've been thinking a lot about the comments made by Noah co-screenwriter Ari Handel that have been circulating recently. Asked about the extreme whiteness of the cast, Handel said that the "the race of the individual doesn't matter." Presumably this was meant to be a defense:

"From the beginning, we were concerned about casting, the issue of race. What we realized is that this story is functioning at the level of myth, and as a mythical story, the race of the individuals doesn't matter. They're supposed to be stand-ins for all people. Either you end up with a Bennetton ad or the crew of the Starship Enterprise."

Handel's comments were so completely bizarre to me because of how blatantly they reinforced the problematic idea that whiteness is a universal experience that everyone and anyone can relate to. He acknowledges that the movie is myth (and therefore a fiction they have created, over which they have total control) yet refuses to acknowledge that this does not in any way, logically translate into an all-white cast. His words reminded me of a little quote from novelist Kayla Ancrum I stumbled upon a little while ago while perusing a tumblr blog about women of colour in sci-fi and fantasy:

"Seriously guys, put PoC in your sci-fi movies, books, and tv shows. Seeing a film with none of them at all is actually kind of scary for me."

"It would be like you sitting down to watch a movie about a dystopian near future and there are absolutely no men and the plot doesn't address that at all. Like, literally wouldn't your first thought be that men were at some point eradicated completely by the women?"

"That is what we're pretty much forced to think about your entirely white fictional society. Maybe y'all herded us into death camps Maybe y'all just shot us all in the streets. All I know is there are none of us left and no one seems to find it suspicious or unusual."

"If you don't want people to think that about your work, then for the love of God, include us in your narrative."

It got me thinking. What does it mean that so many white authors and filmmakers find it perfectly natural to erase the presence of people of colour from their dystopian narratives? Forget addressing the issue of fleshing out actual minority characters, but literally just not including them at all?

Illustraion by Ron Ackins

The usual argument here is that authors are allowed to create whatever characters and worlds they wish, and that they shouldn't be forced to be "politically correct" about their imaginations. In theory, I agree. But when we exist a world where racial disparities often dictate things like access to wealth, proper healthcare, proper education and fair treatment under the law, it's disingenuous to pretend that continuing to marginalize people of color in fictional venues is anything less than equally egregious. The fact that so many authors think that it's not a problem to completely omit the very existence of millions of people and cultures entirely when constructing a narrative, is a product of white supremacy and the attitudes and thinking that come with it.

I've seen it said that the reason many black authors gravitate towards futurism in their works of fiction is because it allows them to envision a different world where they set the rules and I can definitely see the appeal. With the ability to craft a narrative completely from scratch, science fiction is a way to create characters that reflect us, as well as help us explore a world free from the political constraints that plague us in the real world. It's why speculative fiction is so intriguing to me. At it's core, it's all about answering the question, "What if?"

To me, this is why I tend to lean towards Ancrum's thinking. If we're talking dystopias; worlds in which the theoretical apocalypse has already come and gone, and there are no people who look like me in it? I'm going to wonder about why that is. I'm going to wonder if that whiteness was intentionally constructed by the people who remain in that world. I'm going to wonder if the people like me were exterminated. There is, after all, a "historically accurate" precedent for that assumption.

When it comes to an author or filmmaker having free reign over their imagination, my concern about their inclusion of people of color isn't about trying to please everyone. It's about wondering what kind of thinking they live by wherein minority people simply do not exist, the issue is never mentioned, and the fact that they are nowhere to be found is nothing to be alarmed about. It makes me wonder about the kind of people they are that their race blindness is so severe that even in their minds, we're invisible. Or worse, that the only people they recognize as human, are white.

Personally, I think the lack of diversity in science fiction is particularly egregious because it's the one area where you can't claim "historical accuracy." Speculative fiction opens up possibilities that would never exist in the real world, allowing us to imagine scenarios that we could only dream of in real life. That so many of those imagined possibilities still include whiteness as the default, to the point of whitewashing characters originally imagined as non-white, is disheartening.

When you get to create a world completely from scratch, where you could rewrite the laws of gravity or the science behind genetics should you so choose, but your vision of all the people is still lily white? I really do find that worrisome. It bugs me that people are more easily able to imagine the existence of non-human intelligent beings, or interactions with a completely alien race, than that a protagonist might be anything other than white. It tells me that in the real world, we have a problem imagining the humanity of people of color. It tells me that as a culture we still see people of color as nothing more than bit players in the lives of white characters, if we even see them at all. Why is it that so many people find nothing problematic about the willful erasure of people of color from their visions of the future? Because there's a real and almost tangible problem with race if audiences can suspend their disbelief enough to accept that a fictional character can burst in to flames, repeatedly, at will, and not die, but not enough to accept that the same character could be black.

I don't think that we should force our way into meetings and demand that casts be more diverse, or hold authors hostage until they rewrite the features of their protagonists, but I also don't think there's anything wrong with continuing to hold people accountable for the prejudices they may display through their creative choices. I can't force anyone to recognize the implications of the message they send when they simply "forget" to write minority people into existence, but I can keep pointing out how those biases in fiction, in representation, continue to affect the way we interact with race in the real world.

In the same way that authors and filmmakers continue to question why they should include people of color in their narratives, I continue to ask:
What exactly is it do they think their stories will lose if they did?