Slut Walks: A Social Movement Analysis

Slut Walks is a social movement that emerged during an incident on January 24, 2011 at York University in Canada. Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti openly stated that women should “ avoid dressing like sluts” if they wished to stop sexual assault (Stampler, 2011). In response, eventual cofounders of Slut Walk Toronto, Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis, expressed that the word slut should and can be redeemed by women. The two women ignited movement when they reached out to others who want to fight against victim blaming and slut shaming to join them in a Slut Walk. The Slut Walk movement is fairly new, but research often compares and contrasts it to previous feminist movements as a way to analyze the evolution of feminist activism. Looking
The movement has an attitude of freedom, of creativity, of unrestrained political enthusiasm, of willingness to band together with ordinary citizens. It became widely discussed amongst news presenters, radio hosts, political and social pundits, bloggers and DJs. According to the Washington Post, “Slut Walks have cropped up organically, in city after city, fueled by raw emotional and political energy of young women”. These women are making an attempt to have their local actions move beyond the layers of rape and to truly the politics of feminism. The disagreements about the Slut Walks are “grounded in clashing political investments in feminism, disagreements over strategies, tactics, and priorities, and related conflicts over theories of social change that have divided feminists for decades, if not centuries” (Dow & Wood, p. 23). The movement presented as “media-savvy street theater” really strikes at the concept of personal as political. The movement is eager to make changes regarding victim blaming and rape, but there is a lot of debate if the tactics are strong enough to ignite any institutional change. A lot could be learned about the success of movement by attending one of the many walks and experiencing the counter reaction. This movement has certainly provoked an array of responses, which challenges the issue of the relationship between agency and structure in the pursuit of social change (Dow & Wood, p. 31). Even though this movement has a clear political message, they are struggling to get the message to provoke change beyond a local or personal level. Therefore, interviews with participants and feminist actors would be helpful in determining how Slut Walks could become a more influential and long-term