Feminists have long complained about how euphemisms are used to cover up reality. One example that immediately springs to mind is the term ‘Domestic Violence’, used to replace the term ‘wife-beating’. The problem with ‘DV’ is that obscures who is usually doing the violence to whom; the OJ Simpson trial’s neologism ‘Domestic Discord’ was a further euphemism of a euphemism. Hide who is doing what to whom, and then hide what the acts being performed actually are. Beating and raping are now ‘discordant’ aspects of a domestic situation, rather than outrages of human rights and dignity.
The latest euphemism that I’ve seen in the blogosphere has been used by some well-meaning women: slut shaming. The meaning of this seems to be to shame a woman by insinuating that she is a ’slut’, that is, a woman having too much sex/ the wrong sex/ whatever. The first problem is using the term ’slut’ at all- to give this pejorative any meaning at all is to give authority to the idea that a woman’s sexual activities are to be policed and labelled. The second problem, to my mind, is more serious, and highlights a fatal flaw in the ’sex positive’/ third wave feminist mindset: saying that X is being ’slut-shamed’ hides what is really going on. It suggests that the main problem is not misogyny, the irrational and poisonous hatred of women by men, but that it is the attitudes of men and women towards sexual behaviour. It hides misogyny.
Now, as I have said above, many insults against women are used to decry her sexual behaviour, with pretty much any type of sexual behaviour being condemned one way or another. But this attitude comes from the intense hatred of women fed and nourished in patriarchy, it does not precede it. The traditional conservative western mind/body dichotomy aligns women with the despised ‘body’ and thus with sexual activity; this hatred is expressed in violence against women, in the rape industry and in pornography. ‘Slut shaming’ is an inadequate phrase. Let us say misogyny. Let us say gynaephobia. Let us say woman-hatred.
The use of ’slut shaming’ as a descriptive label gives the impression that all that is needed is a more open attitude towards sexual activity. Now, this attitude is of course needed, but not in the way in which contemporary culture defines it- the same culture that gives us the term ’slut’ in the first place. Popular wisdom would have us believe that more sex columns, more sex advice, more pornography, more acceptance of harmful sexual practices would bring us to this improved attitude. This obscures the central issue. What is needed is women’s emancipation. Nothing less is good enough.
Not to mention how just saying the word slut makes so many people’s little tongue tingle. One has to wonder if the subject in question, “the slut” is really a concern of the speaker/writer, or was it all just a ruse so one could use/say the word slut.
Comment by The Fabulous Kitty Glendower — April 17, 2009 @ 9:32 am
I think it’s simply used in the usual “third wave” shock category. Use an insulting word to try to make it positive. Kind of like women saying they are sex positive as they take burleque lessons, for example.
The whole sex pos crowd just is weird to me. I think a lot of younger women might just be flooded with “pornification toxic waste.” Domestic violence used to be called wife beating. It’s a false inclusive word. Mention that men do the beating, and there will always be “but women are abusive too…” even though women are being killed and tortured in huge numbers under sex patriarchy.
Hide who is harming whom. Don’t name the perpetrator or the ideology that creates the woman hatred. We know that NAZI doctrine demonized the Jews (male Jews being the main concern naturally), but we don’t have widespread acceptance of the fact that woman hatred is the ideology used to annihilate and degrade women. “Slut shaming” is giving the enemy more amunition not less.
Comment by JayneBB — April 18, 2009 @ 8:48 pm
“domestic discord.”
hah. hah hah.
thanks for reminding me. I use “dv” way too often out of laziness. “woman-beater” is my preferred, but it still doesn’t quite hit the spot. “woman-batterer is pretty close.
thank you for calling attention to that.
Comment by sonia — April 19, 2009 @ 3:05 am
Thanks for this post Laurelin.
ma
The most frustrating euphemism I’ve come across is “comfort women”. I find “sex slave” turns some people on. You can’t say “rape victim” because of the connotations people have added to victim, and you definitly can’t say “rape survivor” because far too many of the women didn’t survive.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that in the patriarchal culture with patriarchal language, sometimes you can’t win.
Comment by hellonhairylegs — April 24, 2009 @ 7:37 am
And that is what happpens when you forget to proof-read. Oops.
Comment by hellonhairylegs — April 24, 2009 @ 7:38 am
Yes, the concept of “slut-shaming” is very weak analysis. Also radical feminists are much more likely to be accused of slut-shaming by the third wave we luv men brigade than say, male porn users who watch stuff like “Cock Choking Sluts” (so easily googleable).
The former are apparently slut shamers for objecting to these types of things, whilst the men who call women sluts and believe that’s what we are and that’s how we should be treated, and of course who enjoy pornography promoting the same message aren’t to be challenged. You’ll never see a third waver arguing with a man about his masturbating to “Cock Choking Sluts”. Somehow that doesn’t come under the heading of slut-shaming.
Also agree with you Kitty, that the third wavers use the term because it makes them feel a bit daring to say “slut”.
Comment by delphyne — April 28, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
The biggest problem I have with the word slut (or terms like slut shaming) is that it totally invisiblises men.
And, it normally has to be more than one man to ‘make a woman a slut’. This should expose the class action of males in defaming females. So you have to ask; just who are the “slut-makers”? And shouldn’t the slut-makers get all the blame rather than the “slut”? After all, the slut-makers have a more active role.
And yep, there is a problem when patriarchy controls the language.
Comment by stormy — April 29, 2009 @ 8:08 am
Most of the people who ever called me a slut in my life have been men.
Assholes.
Comment by delphyne — April 29, 2009 @ 11:21 pm
Really insightful commentary here. I’ve heard one or two folks use the term “slut shaming” and I was turned off by it because it used the word “slut” unquestioningly. But I also couldn’t identify or articulate WHY exactly the concept is so awful.
I have no clue of how many folks have called me a “slut,” but I am going to guess that it was slightly more men than women that called me that. Women who call other women “sluts” are trying to divert attention away from themselves, or to avoid the risk of being labeled “sluts” themselves. Such is the power of misogyny and the Patriarchy.
Comment by Lara — May 3, 2009 @ 3:44 am
I feel a little differently about it. The “slut” in “slut-shaming” always read to me like an implicit judgement of the term altogether, mocking the misogyny that thinks woman and slut are one and the same. I think it’s weakness is in making light of the harmfulness of said misogyny.
Comment by Lauren — May 8, 2009 @ 2:38 am
You claim that a culture of misogyny precedes and underlies disapprobation of female sexual behaviour.
I have three questions about this claim.
1. If ours is a culture of misogyny, what can be done about this? I am not asking for a programme of change, or at least not only that. I am asking about the possibility of change. At present, my view is that, if our current culture is misogynistic, our future culture is going to be misogynistic. I would like to think otherwise, but I do not see how to do so and feel that I have remained honest with myself. In plain words, can you give me cause to think otherwise?
2. I have heard that disapprobation of female sexual behaviour is common in most cultures, including most non-Western cultures. If this is true, then what you call the “traditional conservative western mind/body dichotomy”, although perhaps a description of our culture, or of an earlier stage of our culture, does not seem to me to be an explanation of the origin of misogyny. If our culture is indeed misogynistic, I would like to understand the origin of that misogyny. Do you have any ideas about that?
3. After women are emancipated, as you understand that event, will our culture still disapprove of some female sexual behaviour? And if so, how will that disapprobation differ from what we now have? I do not think that the only difference will be in the words we use to express it. But I am not sure how the disapprobation will change either. What do you think about this?
Comment by benice — June 1, 2009 @ 10:08 pm
1. Just because something is and was one way does not mean it cannot be changed. I am of the opinion that almost everything can be changed. I see nothing inevitable about misogyny. It requires men to chose to change.
2. I don’t know what the origin of misogny is. I don’t intend to debate it, as it takes us away from what we do in the here and now and how we analyse and diagnose the here and now. All I know is that the mind/body dichotomy perpetuates misogyny, for the reasons I have mentioned in the post. The origin of misogyny is one of those endless debates, and not one I chose to pursue. Many feminist writers have discussed it, however, so you could always read up on their ideas if this topic interests you. Gerda Lerner is one such example.
3. In a society in which women are free to be human beings I see no reason why sexual behaviour would be condemned when it harms nobody.
I did not publish your comment on my other thread as I deemed it insensitive to the post and to the feelings of other commentators. I hope you understand my decision.
Comment by Laurelin — June 2, 2009 @ 7:08 am
I was not wanting to debate! My questions are genuine. I do not know much about feminism, and I am trying to get a sense of what to make of it and where to begin.
I have tried reading some feminist theorists and taking some courses with teachers who identify as feminist. So far, I have felt confused. I felt that I was being shown how to “perform” feminism but not being told why doing so made sense.
When I have questioned this, my classmates and even my teachers have been very aggressive. To them, the need to perform feminism is obvious and nothing more is left to say. (Your post on proof is like this.) And they are right. The need to perform feminism *is* obvious.
But my question is not about *why* we should perform feminism but *whether* feminism can succeed. Because performing feminism will change my life and make it harder and ruin some of my relationships—and I want to know that this is not for nothing.
I want to know that performing feminism will be throwing myself forward into a better world and not just throwing myself against a wall of biological imperatives that no personal or cultural change can overcome. (This is what my question about pornography was about. And, sure, I understand.)
Comment by benice — June 2, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
All I can suggest is that you keep reading up on feminist texts, basically. That’s the only way really to come to one’s own conclusions about these issues. There are also some wonderful blogs out there- see my blogroll. I’m not sure what ‘performing’ feminism is, to be honest. I don’t know that I ‘perform’ anything. And obviously I disagree with you about my ‘proof’ post. I suggest you look at the comments on that post, and see what the post meant to other women.
To me, there is no question about feminism. I do believe it can succeed, and at any rate, my conscience won’t let me not try.
Comment by Laurelin — June 2, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
Thanks, Laurelin. I picked up Lerner’s book on the origin of patriarchy. Can you recommend any other books, especially books that are simply written and not too engaged in academic tussles, that address these very basic questions about the possibility of changing society along feminist lines?
About performance, I have in mind something a math teacher once told me when I asked her why we went about solving problems in the way we did. “You could talk to S. about the history and philosophy of math,” she told me. “But in this class, our aim is to become skilled at doing math in this way. And that is mostly a matter of performing math, until it gets in your bones, and not so much about interrogating it. And, you know, if you perform it long enough, if you work through enough proofs, eventually you’ll get a sense for what makes a good proof, and the sense of going on in the way we do will become clear.” This turned out to be pretty good advice.
But I am not sure that feminism is like math. It doesn’t seem, on first glance, to be a skill in the way that working through mathematical proofs is a skill. It seems to be a commitment to living in a certain way, and to brining a certain sort of world into being—which asks more, and promises more too, than learning math. So I am trying to be a little bit more cautious with feminism.
Some of my religious friends have told me about their commitments that one must first commit and then, after having gone along under that commitment, its value will be apparent. You will see it in the blessings that going on in that way gathers about you as you pass. And so I tried that. And I found that they were right. I did gain a deeper appreciation for their commitment by sharing it for a time, by really working at it. I saw some good things there that I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. (I eventually also decided that progressive politics is the most refined carrier of the Christian tradition and a more honest form of commitment, and looking into feminism is part of investigating that.)
So I am open to the idea that the best way to learn feminism is to perform feminism, to commit myself to living in light of the change it promises. And I hope to keep reading texts and blogs. But I also want to be careful too.
By the way, I think you’re right about pornography and proof. The pornography is itself, obvious, the proof that pornography is harmful. And, reading those comments, I think you were right to remove my question. I should have been more careful about others’ relations to the topics as well as my own. So I would like to rephrase my question. “Granted that pornography is itself proof of the harm of pornography,” I want to ask, “what proof do we have that a less harmful alternative to pornography exists?”
In my view, an answer to this question cannot just point out that banning pornography would remove the manifest harm that pornography embodies and entails. It must also show that the drives, desires, habits, customs, or whatever that lie behind and find their outlet in pornography can be dealt with in a less harmful way. I think that part of this argument will point out how pornography not only draws on but also reinforces certain patterns of desire. But I think that the argument must go farther than that. I think this because it seems obvious to me (1) that the appetite for pornography is not all or only aroused by pornography itself and (2) that, were pornography forbidden, at least some of those appetites would remain and seek other outlets.
Sorry for the length. I do appreciate your frank replies.
Comment by benice — June 3, 2009 @ 12:15 am
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