‘We are not sluts’

Neither saints nor whores, only women. Photo: AF3IRM

…is AF3IRM’s categorical response to SlutWalk, a protest movement against the law enforcement establishment blaming provocatively dressed women for their rape.

The movement began in Canada following a Toronto police officer’s incendiary ‘dressed like sluts, they are sluts’ statement in reference to some victims of sexual molestation. That the observation came from a member of the law enforcement establishment, angered women’s movements worldwide.

While the Association of Filipinas, Feminists Fighting Imperialism, Re-feudalization, and Marginalization joins the global condemnation of the Toronto cop’s statement, it takes exception to the use of the word “slut.”

“We reject this label, refuse this identity, and view it as an abomination,” AF3IRM says.

“White mainstream women can afford to do this play on the word. We cannot,” explained feminist, novelist and founding member Ninotchka Rosca to The FilAm. “If organizers wanted a broad-ranging movement against blaming rape victims, they should take that into consideration. Hence our message that the women’s movement is not monochromatic (as in) one color, one history, one perspective on such issues.”

Actually, there are many variations of the label “slut,” says the statement.

“In places in Asia like the Philippines, it was ‘little brown fucking machines powered by rice’ (LBFMPBRs). These events continue to this day, and it would be a grievous dishonor to our cousins who continue to struggle against imperialism, globalization and occupation in our families’ countries of origin to accept a label coming from a white police officer in the city of Toronto, Canada.

“This label has become integrated in our languages and cultures, and has followed us across oceans into our own communities here in the United States. It has followed the poisonous spread of feudalism and capitalism into the economies and ultimately cultures of the global South, building its own systems of power and exploitation of women’s bodies. It has followed us into migration and still plagues us in our communities here in the United States,” argues AF3IRM as it calls on the SlutWalk steering committee to reassess the use of language that is “offensive to our history.”

What AF3IRM would like to see is for “slut” and other words derogatory to woman removed from the common vocabulary.



One Comment

  1. Lydia S. wrote:

    Thank you again for all the exceptional articles, and for a lot more to come.

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