Slut Shaming, And Other Idiocy


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Amber Michelin-Jones and Rebecca Lynn Kelly
Amber Michelin-Jones, left, and Rebecca Lynn Kelly were dressed in tops that Menihek High School deemed inappropriate for class. Thirty students were sent home. (Chris Ensing/CBC)

Welcome to the cusp of spring-summer.

Now that the weather is turning, the slut shaming and attacks on women’s clothing choices will ramp up.

In Labrador, 28 girls were sent home from school because their clothing contravened the dress code. They also sent home two boys whose shirts bared their shoulders. 47% of those voting on the CBC story’s webpoll supported the school’s decision.

But Memorial University professor Patricia Dold share some inconvenient truth about this:

Male students and teachers they apparently were distracting should be the ones under the microscope. … Dold said that the school should have an open conversation with students about the issue.

via Bra-strap furor at Labrador school made teen girls ‘scapegoats’ – Newfoundland & Labrador – CBC News.

An open conversation would be welcome, but in our society, we don’t have those open conversations. Instead…

Instead, we have slut shaming. “Society,” men and women alike, criticize women who dress like “sluts” [however people define that] and suggest that those who dress like this woman [above] are just asking to be raped. What happens to the slut shamers who disrespect women who dress like this, when this woman was raped while actually wearing sweat pants and a hoodie?

That kind of disconnect is inefficient to the slut shaming agenda. so they ignore it. It’s the substance of ignorance.

So beyond teens dressing for summer then getting punished for lude boys being distracted by them, and women being raped when they’re NOT actually weary the “slutty” clothes, women who do well in high school often don’t make as much money as white men who do worse in school.

chart

And what do our politicians do about any of this?

About as much as all the high schools that are not having open dialogues about dress codes, gender respect and slut shaming.

Indeed, our equality-champion prime minister and his crew just sits around; here’s all they are able to vomit out:

Citing the facts that aboriginal women are four times more likely to be murdered than white women, and that nearly one quarter of aboriginal women are victims of domestic abuse, the department has begun to explore new policy options: options as diverse as sighing, shaking their heads, and muttering “it’s a damn shame”.

“Is there some sort of historical context to all this?” said Prime Minister Harper. “Because it almost seems as though the conditions for this crisis might have been brought about by institutional racism.”

“Surely not, though?” Harper added.

via Feds wish someone, anyone would do something about missing aboriginal women – The Beaverton – North America’s Trusted Source of News.

It would be really great if an actual leader, any leader, would step up and convene these conversations.

And short of that [I’m not holding my breath], it’s up to us, “society,” to start walking the talk of building a less idiotic, offensive and dangerous world.

 

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun
Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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