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From SlutWalks to SuicideGirls: Feminist Resistance in the Third Wave and Postfeminist Era

Tram Nguyen

WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, Volume 41, Numbers 3 & 4, Fall/Winter 2013, pp. 157-172 (Article)

Published by The Feminist Press DOI:

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https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2013.0102

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157WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly 41: 3 & 4 (Fall/Winter 2013) © 2013 by Tram Nguyen. All rights reserved.

Over two decades ago in the January 1992 issue of Ms. magazine, Rebecca Walker called for a Third Wave of feminist consciousness. Walker was incensed by a collocation of events hinging on race, gender, and class ide- ologies. With Shannon Liss, she mobilized a collective and foundation to promote voting rights, education, wage, and prison reform. They provided those in need with emergency funding for abortions, women-led projects, and reproductive rights activism (Walker and Liss 2012). Although she coins the term, Walker is less interested in developing a coherent, new feminist theory than in building coalitions with other social justice leagues through the Third Wave Foundation. Hers is a feminism of intersectional- ity, but one that also proffers self-empowerment, lived experience, and the plurality of pleasure. To Be Real, an anthology of stories and testimonials from women and men, reflects the confessional and individualist drive of the Third Wave.

The work of conceptualizing this new feminism continues to be negoti- ated by feminist academics and practitioners for whom the core of Third Wave feminism is its rejection of Second Wave’s seeming essentialist and rigid positioning of women’s politics and lives.

But Third Wave feminism is troubled by divisions within its still-form- ing body of activism and theories, as well as by postfeminist seductions. While Third Wave feminists such as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Rich- ards reject the label of “postfeminist,” a skein of their Third Wave feminism that advocates embracing the pleasures of “girl culture” coincides with postfeminist tenets. The term “postfeminism” first appears in Susan Bolo- tin’s 1982 article “Voices from the Postfeminism Generation,” in which the

From SlutWalks to SuicideGirls: Feminist Resistance in the Third Wave and Postfeminist Era

Tram Nguyen

author contends that the battle for equality has been won, and it is time to stop “harping” on women’s oppression (29).1 Naomi Wolf would go so far as to assert that Second Wave feminism victimizes women and exaggerates claims of women’s suffering and gender inequalities (1993, 135). For Wolf, who is situated in both Third Wave and postfeminist camps, the alternative is “power feminism,” which “believes women deserve to feel that the quali- ties of starlets and queens, of sensuality and beauty, can be theirs . . . [and which] knows that making social change does not contradict the principle that girls just want to have fun” (137–38). Wolf ’s glide from “women” to “girls” resonates with Baumgardner and Richards’s statement that “while it’s true that embracing the pink things of stereotypical girlhood isn’t a radical gesture meant to overturn the way society is structured, it can be a confident gesture” (2000, 136). Power feminism, or girlie feminism, envis- ages not women combating institutional sexism, but girls experimenting with personal choices in a perpetual state of youth and innocence.

But where is the political power in feeling the starlet or talking to friends at a dinner party? In Manifesta, while drawing on the critical challenge to normative perceptions of female sexuality by Judy Chicago in her instal- lation The Dinner Party (1979), Baumgardner and Richards proceed to encourage a depoliticized version of Chicago’s work by commenting that “a good dinner party (or a gathering of women) is just as likely to be a place to see politics at work as is a rally” (2000, 15). Third Wave feminists and postfeminists encourage “girls” to immerse themselves in the pleasures of femaleness, to find self-fulfillment and carnality, rather than to dismantle, critique, expose, or challenge systematic discrimination and violence. In Third Wave Agenda, Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake acknowledge that “despite our knowing better, despite our knowing its emptiness, the ideology of individualism is still a major motivating force in many third- wave lives” (1997, 11). The contradictions within and between these new feminisms have, nevertheless, powerfully shaped young feminists as well as popular perceptions of young women in the twenty-first century who are taught that loving “feminine trappings” does not equal being duped (Baumgardner and Richards 2004, 60). True, but it also does not equal a threat to the status quo. As the Third Wave matures, it must struggle to clarify its core feminist values so that women’s sexual pleasures are not co- opted and commodified. Focusing on two phenomena that have garnered large-scale interest from cross-sectional parties, I read SlutWalks and Sui- cideGirls as the products of the Third Wave and postfeminist era in order

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to assess the limits and tensions in these feminisms. Finally, I offer a reflec- tion on work by other feminist activists that offer more persuasive and critically engaged models of political action.

SlutWalk: Inversion Versus Altercation

Heather Jarvis and Sonya Barnett co-founded SlutWalk Toronto in April 2011 as a reaction to Toronto police constable Michael Sanguinetti’s com- ment that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be vic- timized,” a statement in which women are forced to inherit the blame of two social judgments: one, that it is socially permissible to judge, objectify, and morally categorize women based on their appearances and, two, that women, rather than the rapists, attackers, assailants, bullies, and aggres- sors, are responsible for sexual violence committed against them. These frustrations resonated globally and as a result SlutWalks were organized around the world, from Vancouver to New York City, Oxford, Rio, Kol- kata, São Paulo, Singapore, Melbourne, Mexico City, Jerusalem, and Hong Kong.2 The SlutWalk Toronto homepage declares, “SlutWalk is about expressing our unity, fighting to shed the stereotypes and myths of sexual assault and supporting a better understanding of why sexual violence hap- pens; we are here to support victims and survivors, and to put the blame where it belongs: on those who perpetrate it.”

By marching under the banner of “slut,” the protesters take the poi- son out of the word, to change social attitudes about women’s bodies and to empower women with the potential of their own sexualities. Women wrote messages on their arms, legs, chests, and faces. Others carrying plac- ards declaring: “Stop Slut Shaming,” “Don’t Tell Us How to Dress,” “This Is What a Slut Looks Like,” and “I am Not a Slut but I Like Having Con- sensual Sex.” As such, these collective voices countermanded normative gender politics that police and denigrate women’s sexuality. Only a few protesters highlighted the confluence between pervasive rhetorical beliefs and widespread sexual assault by holding signs confessing, “I Didn’t Report It. He Was My Boyfriend” and “Survivor.”

SlutWalk Toronto’s official T-shirt proclaims, “My body is not an insult,” thus underscoring the movement’s support of choice to express personal sexual freedom over gendered politics of sexual violence. Many of the participants appeared to work within the postfeminist and Third Wave model insofar as they performed fierceness by reveling in female

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sexual power as end games. The poster for SlutWalk Edmonton 2011 fea- tures an alarmingly high stiletto, which not only contradicts the idea of marching but also reaffirms the co-opted notion that six-inch high heels are empowering, not physically incapacitating. A quick search of news report- age of the various Walks reveals images of women marching in bras, mesh shirts, microshorts and miniskirts, dominatrix outfits, G-strings, pasties to cover nipples, and stilettos, as well as topless.3 These performances do little to disturb social understanding of a “slut”—instead, they reify and concretize the concept of “slut” as scantily clad, sexually immoral women. Moreover, these actions ultimately displace the somber and deadly issues of rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and street harassment.

I do not want to negate or undermine the enormously important work done by SlutWalk activists and organizers who seek to resist and challenge the hateful attitudes of police forces and societies at large; however, these Walks yield three issues that shed light on this moment in feminist activ- ism: first, the problem of inversion or reclamation promoted by the Walks; second, the media and general public’s reception and perception of these protests; and third, the reaction from women of color.

T-shirts, buttons, and posters proclaiming, “This is what a slut looks like” seek to reclaim the insult “slut” through inversion, but, I argue, they leave in place the structure of subjugation. Although “queer” has been suc- cessfully reclaimed and is dominant in academia, “nigger,” “bitch,” and “slut” still trigger deep historical wounds. The slogan’s deictic “this,” the vague pronominal referent meant to allow for ambiguity and play that echoes the original feminist slogan “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like,” emphasizes, instead, the intractability of the word “slut.” Add an adjective to the noun and the word remains unkind, unredeemable, a stinging slap of judgment to reduce a woman to sexual essence. Is it possible for a woman to be a “kind slut,” an “intelligent slut,” or a “generous slut”? Do these word games shift our understanding of the word “slut” as it has been applied to women? Does merely reclaiming the word transform our understanding of sexual politics for women? To answer the insidious charge of women’s essential sexual promiscuity with the declaration “Yes, we are sexual!” is not much of a rejoinder. Like an elastic rubber band snapping back into place, the word “slut” continues to sting when the technologies of gender, the structures of patriarchy, the media, or the social collective reasserts its power against women. In essence, inversion leads not only to reaffirmation but also to normalization.

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The primary images of SlutWalk perpetuated by mainstream news media are of young women scantily dressed. Media coverage of both the 2011 and 2012 Walks zeroes in on images of women bawdily perform- ing their sexualities in a public place, rather than promoting discussions about institutionalized violence against women. The repeated portrayal of young women as out of control causes a dichotomous understanding of the imperatives of the SlutWalks. Left in the hands of photographers, edi- tors, and news agencies, publicized images of the SlutWalks reinstall the very objectification the movements are invested in challenging. Although costume control is out of the purview of organizers, and antithetical to the cause, other strategies are needed to broker a more productive dialogue with the press. Let us take advantage of the excitement and appeal of the SlutWalks and push the mainstream media to politicize issues and organi- zations working along similar lines.4 For example, alongside a “Perp Walk,” as Gail Dines suggests while participating in Steve Paikin’s 2011 round- table, we could organize a Survivor Walk and a Man Up Walk, in conjunc- tion with the organization of the same name (Paikin 2011). By doing this we might educate young men about gendered violence.

Binaries, whether along class, race, ethnic, sexual orientation, ableness, or geographic markers, marginalize and exclude. For those historically overdetermined pejoratives, the linguistic and symbolic reclamation by SlutWalks are not adequate and arguably reinforce White privilege.5 In “An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk,” published on its website, the Black Women’s Blueprint (2011) collective objects to the call to march, saying, “As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves ‘slut’ without validating the already historically entrenched ide- ology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is.” Recalling the historical wounds of slavery, they point out that the physical, sexual, and mental subjugation of Black women signifies that they do not “have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations” (2011).

Moreover, Black women continue to bear the brunt of reductionist moral judgments that equate “blackness” with animalistic sexuality and immorality. In its letter, the Black Women’s Blueprint asks the SlutWalk movement to think about the micropolitics of sexual stigmatization and to participate in collaborations that would yield more systematic plans for combating rape culture and the ready acceptance of violence against women more globally.6 Likewise, the Crunk Feminist Collective, a cyber,

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Black, and urban community, protests the “righteous indignation” of the tone of the SlutWalks, using, ironically, its fair share of indignation. A May 23 post titled “SlutWalk v. Ho Strolls” queries “whether or not the use of the term among Black people really does constitute a reappropriation” (Crunk Feminist 2011). While too quickly dismissing the sexual violence that those beyond the Black community endure, the writer of this post nevertheless makes the important point that “white women and liberal feminist women of color who argue that ‘slut’ is a universal category of female experience, irrespective of race,” effectively ignore the brutal history and realities with which many Black women live (Crunk Feminist 2011). For Crunk Feminists and other hip-hop feminists, the sexualization of Black women is deeply connected to the history of American slavery, and reclamation of the word “slut,” “ho,” or “bitch” does not serve the inter- est of emancipation and equality. Instead, the collective points to Queen Latifah’s 1993 song “U.N.I.T.Y.,” in which Latifah, as a political alternative, eschews all forms of physical, verbal, and sexual violence against women in Black communities (Crunk Feminist2011).

But perhaps White, Black, Women of Color, and Third Wave feminists all need to be reminded that the first feminists who fought for women’s suffragette and organized Seneca Falls were also abolitionists; that the multiracial and multigender art collectives of the 1960s and 70s—from the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition to the Art Worker’s Coalition and West East Bag—combated race, class, and gender marginalization and exploitation in the art world (Moravec 2012, 24) and that sexual harass- ment lawsuits were first launched by employing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex and race discrimination in employ- ment (Baker 2007, 162). These reminders should inspire us to fulfill the mandate of coalition and intersectional politics advanced by Third Wave feminism. The necessity for coalition building and intersectional politics remains as true today as it was for abolitionist feminists and reproductive rights and sexual harassment advocates.7

SuicideGirls: The Business of Porn

Feminism has a long history of recuperating sexual pleasure and experi- mentation through critical practices that nurture the political implications of sexual acts and sexual transgression. Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Vera, Candida Royalle, and others have fought to present porn from women’s

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perspectives, expanding the parameters of desire, pleasure, beauty, agency, power, and sexual health. On the one hand, Candida Royalle and others have found production companies whose products and work practices are feminist (collaborationist approaches, fair wages, ethical treatments, and inclusive sexual attitudes). On the other hand, the new postfeminists col- lude with commodity fetish culture to encourage women to stop worry- ing about antifeminist judgment and to start loving “girl culture,” which consists of makeup, pink nail polish, high heels, and other consumer goods. Baumgardner and Richards remark that “feminine things, such as boas, hearts for Valentine’s Day, and fancy dresses aren’t political in and of themselves, but the girl wearing them can be” (2004, 64). There is little indication that this approach ruptures normative sexuality and identity for women or that it is a sustainable politics nurtured in the corporate world.8 In fact, an organization like SuicideGirls reveals how easily “girl power” can be neutralized and commodified.

Begun in 2001 as a woman-friendly, “indie” community of sexually empowered women (never mind that the models are referred to as “girls”), SuicideGirls sells access to nude images of “alternative” beauty on its web- site, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr pages; the company also organizes traveling burlesque shows, sells video demonstrations (“How to Roll a Joint” and so forth) that are collected in a DVD called SuicideGirls’ Guide to Living, and schedules their models for guest appearances on radio and reality television shows. Co-founders Melissa Mooney (“Missy Suicide”) and Sean Suhl (“Spooky Suicide”) employ the language of sexual libera- tion on their website to describe the organization as “a vibrant, sex positive community of women (and men) . . . founded on the belief that creativity, personality and intelligence are not incompatible with sexy, compelling entertainment.”

Using terms such as “alternative beauty,” “underground culture,” and “grassroots sexuality,” the organization gained early popularity and accep- tance as women-friendly and radical (SuicideGirls 2012). In an interview about the touring burlesque show, Mooney reiterates that “our photos are really about these beautiful pictures of women and how they feel sexy about themselves” (Metz 2005). The SuicideGirls corporation posits itself in opposition to mainstream pornography and in doing so situates itself as “nonconformist and .  .  . handcrafted” real instead of the mass-cultural production of professionally produced pornography that is inorganic and generic (Paasonen 2010, 1300). The do-it-yourself mantra espoused on

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the SuicideGirls website connotes an organic truthfulness and authentic- ity to women’s sexuality (2012). As a result, Shoshana Magnet celebrates the models’ tattoos and their “disrupt[ing] traditional notions of demure female beauty and sexuality, causing them to be read as ‘unfeminine.’ .  .  . They transform the female body into a display of ‘bodily excess’ and resist the ever-present normalizing discourses which attempt to govern feminin- ity” (2007, 592).9

The many images of tattooed and nubile women, meanwhile, repro- duce the very performativity of mainstream pornography: large, sultry eyes, pouty lips, thrusting breasts, beckoning glances, sexual flush, and lush bums. The “girls” are often completely shaved or waxed; their expres- sions are ones of invitation and sexual availability; and despite their elec- tric colored hair, nipple piercings, and states of undress, their photographs are rather conventional. Under the “Punk Rock” thread, Ira from Spain sports a shaved head, and Cael, Starla, and Ridley boast interesting half mohawks; the “Geek Girls” have the added a touch of glasses and iPads for them to lick; the “Goth Girls” have black hair; and the “Costume Girls” wear modified, “sexy” superhero outfits (SuicideGirls 2012). The girls “Most Loved,” are White and slim, and they sport flowing hair (Discor- dia, Nixon, and Stigmata). The haute couture lighting renders their nudity angelic and virginal, but they lounge back and are positioned as supine and on all fours to highlight their breasts and thighs and buttocks. With some exceptions, their tattoos and piercings are more often than not inciden- tal, faintly gesturing to a punk or anti-glam aesthetic. The setting, which is meant to evoke their spunky individuality and empowerment, recedes to fuzzy backdrop because photos are cropped to bring the viewers’ eyes to the models’ breasts or buttocks at the center of the picture.

I do not claim that SuicideGirls assumes the mantle of feminism. The company in fact rejects the “feminist” label (Tomlin 2002). But it success- fully co-opts cultural codes of feminism because postfeminism and Third Wave feminism depoliticize women’s sexuality by extolling the virtues of individual self-expression through consumerism. Culturally conversant with the seductive lures of empowerment and free choice, SuicideGirls takes advantage of this depoliticization of women’s sexuality for corporate gain. The illusion of free choice is evidenced, for instance, by the rigid cor- porate guidelines that are established for photo shoots, aesthetics, image, and, importantly, ownership of the photographs. The “Model” page on the SuicideGirls website tells prospective women, “The set should start

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out clothed and end up fully nude.  .  . . Fully exposed breasts and bums are a must (no pasties or electrical tape, panties must come off ). Nudity should begin in the first half of the set, which usually starts around photo #10 in a finished set. We prefer the nudity not be explicit or overly porno- graphic (no holding, touching or spreading), and definitely no penetration is allowed” (2012).

These directions are designed to maintain the organization’s corporate aesthetics of glamour, youthfulness, tastefulness, and authenticity. More- over, the corporation uses vague, legal language that stipulates their direct ownership of all photos submitted to their company. SuicideGirls’ “FAQ” page states, “Your application does not expire—you can complete your application whenever you are ready. If you are not interested in being a SuicideGirl, you do not have to complete the application process. We will keep your information on file if you should change your mind, but we will not contact you for anything” (2012). “Your application does not expire” translates, in other words, to “Your pictures remain in our ownership and may be legally displayed on our website.” The practical implication of this clause, which has affected a number of women who left the organization, is that women’s pictures were sold to other netporn sites (Dotinga 2005; Unpink 2005). While they stipulate that the ownership of the photos not accepted by SuicideGirls belongs to the photographer, every photogra- pher signs a release form that negates the photographer’s claims to his or her photographs (SuicideGirls 2012).

In a Wired article, Dia, a former SuicideGirl, expresses disappointment after leaving the organization and unsuccessfully lobbying to have her photos removed from the website (Dotinga 2005). She was also frustrated at the treatment models endured under the male-controlled management. Indeed, though it publicized itself as a women-run operation, SuicideGirls is actually owned by Sean Suhl; strategically, it is Melissa Mooney who fronts for the organization during interviews where she answers questions about exploitation and models’ dissatisfaction and complaints. The issue is not that Suhl owns the corporation; rather it is the fact that he has been accused by former models of verbally abusing, threatening, and denigrat- ing his “girls” (Dotinga 2005). Mooney denies this, remarking, “Some girls that were let go are making personal attacks. The allegations are really overblown” (Metz 2005).

The denial of exploitation and continuing emphasis on positive, empowered, grassroots porn perpetuates the myth that the employees of

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SuicideGirls are sexually liberated women, unfettered by the strictures of social codes, conservative sexual mores, and feminist problems. In truth, they are young women working at minimum-wage jobs (Ashleyrae, Cha- nel, Casper) or students (Arete, Leilani, Cadence). As Mooney admits, these young women are green and unworldly: “The girls mostly work in coffee shops and record stores, and a lot had never left their home towns before this [burlesque] tour” (Metz 2005). Hence, although these young women choose SuicideGirls for the promise to find a woman-centered community, and some for the possibility of fame, they find themselves in a situation in which they are exploited by a company that turns their pleasure against them. SuicideGirls reveals the limits of Wolf ’s proposition “Good pleasures make good politics” (1993, 149). Pleasure divorced from politics or at the expense of one group’s political fight, I argue, does not yield equality, social transformation, or political advancement. The tenets of feminist porn as espoused by the editors and writers of the newly pub- lished Feminist Porn Book promote, however, a cogent alternative theory and practice of politicized desire. Tristan Taormino, Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and Mireille Miller-Young attest to the erotic and positive power of porn. Compiling essays from porn practitioners, academ- ics, and porn producers, the editors attempt to consider the core values motivating feminist porn and to delineate the elements that distinguish feminist porn from mainstream porn, its power to critique and transform normative gender and sexual relations. They assert, “feminist porn creates alternative images and develops its own aesthetics and iconography to expand sexual norms and discourses” (Taormino et al. 2013, 10). Feminist porn also promotes fair labor practices and encourages collaboration to produce “resistance, intervention, and change” in sexual representations. Moreover, companies such as Wicked, Adam and Eve Productions, and Good Releasing collaborate with the Feminist Porn Awards, established by the sex toy shop Good for Her in 2006. These awards promote and cel- ebrate “active desire and consent, real orgasms, and women taking control of their own fantasies” in writing, directing, producing, and performances by women, couples, lesbians, and transgender people in porn (12). Joining the forces of University College at Toronto, the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, and Good for Her, the first academic Feminist Porn Awards Conference was held on April 6, 2013, signaling the possibil- ity of thinking, theorizing, doing, imagining, and politicizing pleasure in conjunction with feminism.

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At the same time, there is also a need for an angrier, more stringent version of Third Wave feminism, one that draws on connecting personal action and how it “impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or disrupts the status quo” (Riot Grrrl 1993). Riot grrrl was a movement predominately com- prised of young feminist zine writers and musicians unified to denounce misogyny, violence against women, and call out the jealousies and com- petitiveness inherent in girl culture. Riot grrrl bands formed, disbanded, and reengaged fluidly in an organic rhythm. Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear, the two most prominent riot grrrl bands, were composed of female and male musicians (True 2009). The bands fought against conformity to con- sumerist demands, the negation of their “real and valid anger,” and a forced “internalization of sexism.” Instead, they internationalized their existence with do-it-yourself zines that resist sexist attitudes toward desire. Hence, they followed in a long tradition of art activism, particularly the radical art collectives Guerilla Girls, Dyke Action Machine (DAM), and Toxic Titties. With agitprop activism, “public service announcements” (created in ways similar to what we now refer to as memes), genre parody, post- ers, e-zines, bumper stickers, political buttons, art performance protests, and pamphleteering, these organizations undermine, destabilize, agitate, and challenge women’s marginalization within and beyond the art world. Their work presents a plurality of oppositional consciousness that speaks to women’s anger, creativity, and demands for social and political justice. They resist capitalism, commodification, and marginalization while con- tinually working to deform and reform tactics that resist co-option.

In an interview with Raizada, DAM notes that it strategizes its actions in order to escape “the endless cool-hunt of the advertising industry” (Raizada 2007, 49). They are deliberately inclusive and plural, finding affiliations and connections across identity and issue stratifications. They are also partly of the Third Wave, in their temporal location, their individu- alistic embodiments, and their cultural affiliations and reactions. But they advocate a feminist politics that stresses the sharp resistance and challenge to oppressive ideologies.

In examining the SlutWalk movement and the SuicideGirls against a collocation of feminist practices and theories, I seek to highlight the potential consequences of (versions of ) postfeminism and Third Wave feminism as they are picked up and refracted by mainstream culture. Tak- ing stock of feminist goals and strategies is especially critical in this “inter- mezzo” period of feminist activism that teeters, according to Amanda

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Lotz, between Third Wave and postfeminist ideals, “between the over- whelming structural impediments to gender justice that existed before the activist efforts of second wave feminism yet a world in which complete equity has not been achieved” (2007, 72). Feminism has undergone sev- eral intermezzos, periods that allow us to rethink core beliefs and push forward with clearer convictions and stronger alliances. In light of this, let us imagine discursive and political engagements that reach beyond inver- sion or subversion of preexisting terms. Let us not think simply in terms of Black Sluts or Latina Sluts or White Sluts, but proliferate and create com- bative categories that visualize women in jarring ways: Judge Sluts, CEO Sluts, Veiled Sluts, Librarian Sluts, Survivor Sluts, Transgendered/Trans- vestite Sluts, Social Worker Sluts, Grandmother Sluts, Virgin Sluts, Doc- tor Sluts, Queer Sluts, Science Sluts, Police Sluts, Book Sluts, Power Sluts, Activist Sluts, and even Nun Sluts. Let us make society uncomfortable by highlighting the erasure of women’s productive and diverse roles. Let us force the question, What do you excuse by engaging this heinous word? What crimes have you committed under the shadows of this slur? Let us reassess feminist goals and tenets in order to enrich our understanding of women’s roles in society. And finally, let us refuse the depoliticization of feminism and, instead, find new coalitions for creating social justice and transformation.

Tram Nguyen’s research brokers connections between ethics, modernist literature, and feminist philosophy. Her articles have been published in the Comparatist, Samuel Beckett Today/Ajourd’hui, and other scholarly journals. She is currently producing a monograph on aesthetic confluences between Gertrude Stein and Samuel Beckett.

Notes

1. Bolotin begins her article with an anecdote about a brief conversation with a male colleague who wanted a date and instead managed to convince her that she was not a feminist, because she and her generation have surpassed the need for feminism.

2. As with any globalized activist initiative, the feminist leanings of various SlutWalks are contestable. The Facebook page for SlutWalk Mumbai, for instance, features a graphic image with the caption “Say no to Abortion,” an endorsement that seems a dramatic departure from the feminist fight for women’s control over their own bodies. Also, very recently, SlutWalk Lon- don was called out for protesting the imminent extradition of Julian Assange

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to Sweden to account for rape allegations (Ditum 2012). In the Guardian, Ditum rightly points out that “co-opting supporters in defense of an alleged rapist is a betrayal of victims of sexual violence and a manipulative abuse of the backing that women have given to the Slutwalk cause” (2012). On their Tumblrpage, SlutWalk Toronto distances itself from SlutWalk London (2012).

3. It is important to note that many walked in less-provocative clothing and bore political placards proclaiming, “A Dress Does Not Mean a Yes.” And men walked in Mumbai, Toronto, and New York with signs announcing themselves as “sluts” in sympathy with their female cohorts. Interestingly, organizers of New Delhi SlutWalk changed the movement’s name in Hindi to “Shameless Front” in order “to keep the focus on the message of protesting sexual violence” (Hannon 2011). This is especially pertinent, since the New Delhi police may block protests it deems contrary to the community’s moral, as was the case with the 2011 Bangalore SlutWalk.

4. The Crunk Feminist Collective directs readers to the Stop Street Harassment movement, which began as an online community in 2008 and was incorpo- rated in 2012. Although street harassment is a problem that many women suffer on a daily basis, the movement is also inclusive of gays and lesbians, children living in poor neighborhoods, the elderly vulnerable to random abuse, and individuals in working-class communities who are confronted with threats from gangs, drug dealers, or other aggressors. The movement is now global, with activists in Sri Lanka and Russia launching campaigns to speak to thousands of commuters about street violence (see Stop Street Harassment 2012).

5. Heather, “a white, on welfare, single mom,” responds to the Crunk Feminist post: “as a survivor of abuse (by my dad and ex). . . . I do not want to reclaim that word at all” (2011). Many others respond in like, and organizers of Slut- Walk NYC on their Facebook page ultimately abstained from participating in the 2012 Walks because of discomfort with “the privileged name” (2012). They gesture toward, but do not explain, the historical racist and classist epi- thet of “slut” while asserting “that working under the ‘SlutWalk’ moniker was too oppressive to many communities that we should be allying with” (Slut- Walk NY 2012). It is a shame that these activists did not pursue this dialogue further so as to engage the public and the media in a penetrating discussion about the historical and contemporary sexual politics.

6. SlutWalk Toronto has appealed to the police chief of Toronto for an eradica- tion of discriminatory language in police training; implementation of third- party reviews of police training; and increased outreach programs with high schools, universities, and the community, none of which has been imple- mented or addressed. A petition publicized by SlutWalk Hamilton to ask

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for police transparency and cooperation yielded 77 signatures; a similar one in Washington, DC, obtained 176. The subdued responses to calls to action after the marches speak, perhaps, to a need for new strategies of resistance.

7. One powerful tool the Third Wave generation has at its disposal for activist intervention is cyberspace. With sharp humor and political savvy, feminists have disrupted Twitter feeds with such hashtags as #safetytipsforwomen and #INeedMasculinismBecause. By using irony and pastiche to mock earnest declarations women make the case for protecting themselves from rape and reminding women that they must remain more cautious. Feminist blogs such as Guerilla Feminism, Jezebel, Feministe, and Femininja employ the ethics of diffusion and dissemination to address gender-related issues.

8. Small-scale netporn organizations are proliferating on the Internet. Erotic Red specializes in porn about women during their menstruation period; VegPorn makes alliances between food ethics and sexuality; and Good Dyke Porn eroticizes safer sex for lesbian, bisexual, queer women and transgender people.

9. However, if one were really interested in the abject and tattooed body, numerous other sites (Modus Operandi, Sarah Carter Tattoo, Meditations in Atrament) feature tattooed male and female bodies without reducing them to objects for sexual consumption.

Works Cited

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