Back in the winter 2010, on of our monthly themes was Sex & Society. This covered topics like prostitution, sexual attitudes and some aspects of fear with dating. It’s that we are going to focus on in my latest feminist rant, in honour of our most recent vintage frog lore from that series. The thrust of the earlier “Don’t be a creep” post highlighted women’s tendency to err on the side of caution in their day to day life and especially in dating. The post preceding it was one of my more ranty ones, entitled Fear and Dating.

The part that stuck with me was the horrific picture the post carried, the same one pictured above. This very real advert by run in London by the Transport agency is evidence of victim blaming at it’s most public. Why didn’t they run a series with “Stop please stop raping young women” and a picture of a man’s bollocks being removed by court enforced castration?
I will tell you why – because even in western society in the year 2012 we still blame victims of sexual attacks for their attack. This is the reason behind SlutWalk.

Let’s remind ourselves; apparently ‘“Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized,” Toronto police Const. Michael Sanguinetti told a class on rape at Osgoode Hall Law School…’ as quoted in the Toronto Star in early 2011. As a result, Sonya J F Barnett and Heather Jarvis created an organized protest called SlutWalk Toronto (which ROCKED).This went global. To date there have SlutWalks in London, NYC, Melbourne, Delhi and beyond.

The huge take up on SlutWalk is just further evidence of the ongoing frustrations felt towards the archaic attitudes to blaming the victims. While in countries like Canada and Britain many may choose to point the finger at the victim in an unsympathetic way, it is nothing in the scale of some countries’ actions…

Saudi Arabia’s sentencing the female victim of a gang rape with a six month imprisonment and 200 lashes, for having committed adultery and then spoken to the international press (which led to the original 100 lashes and three month imprisonment being doubled).

The same original sentence was meted out again, when a young Saudi woman who was a victim of rape was impregnated in an attack in 2009.

In Dubai, a woman who accused three men of gang rape was then charged with adultery.

In Afghanistan up to TWELVE YEARS sentence is for the criminal charge of “adultery by force”. That charge being for the party who was forced rather than the actual criminal.

Just typing that list of injustices brings my blood pressure up. SlutWalk is a great start and the idea of international focus on ceasing to push an education of “don’t dress to be raped” is fantastic. But it can’t end there. While societies out there still expect women to commit suicide to remove the shame of a rape or to marry their attackers to restore their family honour – the fight is far from over. It hasn’t even begun. It can’t just be a targeted effort on any one part of the issue. A full scale campaign by everyone with an ounce of human decency needs to waged on the judiciaries and governments supporting such travesties with law.

~ ~ Here endeth today’s rant ~ ~