If you’re a woman, chances are you’ve heard the word “slut” being used derogatorily in some way.
Maybe your first exposure to this harsh term came from the media, where you watched female side characters get degraded for dressing up and showing out. Or maybe you’ve heard it about yourself: angry exes looking to hurt your feelings, complete strangers yelling it at you for no reason, or even your peers judging you for how you look or live your life.
The word “slut” is used to identify someone who shows off their body and sleeps around too much. But who gets to decide what counts as too much skin to show or how many people are too many to be with?
On the other end of the spectrum are girls who don’t dress in the most conventionally feminine way, who prefer to cover up, and who don’t sleep around much—or at all. The second they step out of line, they’ll still have the label of “slut” slapped onto them.
No change in behaviour is going to save you from being labelled a “slut,” a “whore,” or a “bitch.” The problem is not how you dress or how you act; it’s that you’re not a cisgender heterosexual man. The problem is a culture of misogyny that polices people’s behaviour and demonizes them for simply existing.
The word “slut” refers to a set of behaviours men are often praised for. In this misogynist culture, most men can sleep around as much as they like and they’re praised for having game, or for their “rizz.” To sleep around is to conform to patriarchal standards of masculinity. Men can walk around shirtless, but God forbid women walk around in a bikini top.
This issue of what counts as a slut intersects with many other things, too. Misogyny is chief among them, but the politics of bodily autonomy are important to factor into this too, on top of race, fatphobia, and sexuality.
If a cis white woman is called a slut for dressing up, then a Black woman is going to be called all that and more because being racialized means your appearance is scrutinized even more. A skinny woman might get praise for wearing crop tops and tight clothes, but if you’re not straight-sized, you’re more likely to have your body made fun of.
And while cis-gendered women face harassment for their performance of gender, transwomen struggle even more under our misogynistic culture’s policing of gender performance. First, they must jump over hurdles to be perceived as women at all, then they must deal with their gender presentation being judged, scrutinized, and picked apart ten times more.
“Slut” is just one of many pieces in the toolbox misogynists can employ whenever they feel like it. To truly understand its meaning and harm means peeling back the layers of patriarchy and how it polices women’s bodies.
Whether you sleep with many people or not, whether you wear crop tops or not, whether you conform to conventional femininity or not, there’s no escape from the label and there’s no one right way to behave, and so, ultimately, the word is meaningless.
The word “slut” is a concept constructed and upheld by the patriarchy. The only way to escape it is to allow yourself to disconnect meaning from it.
At the end of the day, the clothes you wear, the number of people you sleep with, or the way you behave don’t make you a slut—it simply makes you a person.
Tags
Derogatory, Double Standard, Patriarchy, slut
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.