How people dress is not an invitation to slut shame them.
Let’s talk about slut shaming, particularly women slut shaming other women. I have unfortunately witnessed this firsthand a few times… I was out with one of my friends on this particular night she chose to wear a body hugging, off the shoulder, semi short black dress with a pair of thigh high boots and, most importantly, felt absolutely confident and beautiful in this outfit. My friend and I had gone outside as we were ending our night out. As we were waiting outside for our ride home a woman was walking up to the go into the bar with her two friends, and my friend and I moved out of the way. As we were moving off to the side I heard one woman say to my friend, “put some clothes on.” I was speechless in the worst way; I could not comprehend what I had just heard. I almost tried to give this woman the benefit of the doubt as I thought “oh it’s winter, that’s why she said it”, but I knew in my gut by the tone of her voice and how she wouldn’t look us straight in the eyes when she said it, she meant exactly what she said.
Those four words “put some clothes on” sent me into a feminist rage. What was most disappointing about this interaction was that it was another woman saying it. If a guy had said that it wouldn’t have phased me, I would have just taken it as oh some looser who wants to start a fight with two girls. In the year 2021 aren’t women supposed to be sticking together? Why would we bring one another down, especially when it’s about something we are wearing?
What gave this woman the right to tell a younger woman what she should and shouldn’t be wearing? Answer is - she has no right. She went out of her way to degrade another woman and that is really sad.
Beyond that statement being absolutely beyond rude, this woman clearly doesn’t comprehend how many ways that slut shaming is both directly and indirectly pushed onto young women already. The most direct way of slut shaming is via direct statements like what that woman said to my friend. An indirect form of slut shamming is dress codes at school. I went to a catholic high school so naturally the dress code seemed to be even more strict than perhaps a public school. On warm summer days girls would wear tank tops to school. These girls would be met in the halls by a female teacher seeing how thick girls’ tank top straps were. If they weren’t super thick, she would either give girls sweaters to wear or ask them to change. The reasoning for this was always the same, “it makes it hard for people to focus.” This is infuriating because by “people” we know they tend to mean boys. So, a girl is immediately meant to feel ashamed that her shoulders are exposed? Shouldn’t there be bigger things to worry about then an exposed shoulder???
There is a fair chance that a good majority of women have been either indirectly or directly slut shamed to different degrees, so why would we do it to one another? Some women like to dress more conservative as that’s their preference. Conversely, there are also women who prefer to dress in a way where they are able to show off their assets because its empowering for them. So why would we make either one feels bad about that? Slut shaming can lead to decreased self-esteem/ confidence. I think as women we should all work to be less judgmental of other women on what she’s wearing.
At the end of the day, it’s just clothes
Written by: Anonymous