Feminist Studies

news and views FORUM ON SLUTWALK Spring2012 marks, a year sincethefirstofseveralSlutWalks took place in citiesaround the world. Four commentators—an organizer, an early participant, and two observ ers— offer varying perspectives on thisphenomenon. ★ * * Slut Pride: A Tribute to SlutWalk Toronto Andrea O'Reilly The SlutWalk movement began with twelve short words: "Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." These words, spoken by Constable Michael Sanguinetti from Police Division 31 on January 24,2011, at a safety forum at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, were prefaced with an admission: "You know, I think we're beating around the bush here. I've been told I'm not supposed to say this, however..." There were only ten people in attendance at the forum that day, and it took a few weeks before the story spread across the York campus to be later picked up in the Toronto media. On February 18, the Toronto Star ran a story about Feminist Studies38, no. 1 (Spring 2012). © 2012 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 245 The author, center, at the Toronto SlutWalk. news and views Slut Pride:A Tribute toSlutWalkToronto Andrea O'Reilly 246 Andrea O'Reilly Sanguinetti's comment that included an apology from the police officer. 1 only heard of the story in late February, since it ran during York's reading week when students and faculty were away from campus. A few days post-reading week, I returned to my class to find students engaging the Sanguinetti comment and the ensuing media coverage; our discussion continued well into the class lecture. I contacted my daugh ters later that day, both of whom are women's studies majors at York, and found that they too had been discussing the event with their class mates and in lectures. Within hours, it seemed, the story exploded and went viral across social media. A week later, a student in my third-year women's studies course who was a member of the group organizing a protest against Sanguinetti's comment reported that a rally and a march had been planned in response to the comment. The event was intended to protest the victim blaming and slut shaming found in police culture, as well as in our larger patriarchal culture. SlutWalk, as the event was named, took place on April 3, 2011, at Queen's Park in Toronto and was attended by between three thousand and five thousand people. I share these details of the origins of the first SlutWalk as I believe that few people fully appreciate how swiftly and spontaneously this protest unfolded. In my view, it is precisely this failure to locate the first SlutWalk in its specific context that has caused the event to be misunderstood and criti cized by so many. Ten short weeks from the comment being made to a group of ten people and six weeks after the first media reports about the comment, a feminist protest took place that was far greater in both numbers and enthusiasm than any feminist march or rally in the city of Toronto over the past two decades. As a frequent attendee at Toronto feminist protests over the past thirty years, I can attest that SlutWalk exhibited a vibrancy and an energy seldom experienced since the prochoice marches of the early- to mid-1980s. Indeed, the scope and range of the SlutWalk move ment recalls the potent response to the reproductive rights issues of the 1970s and 1980s. In the year since the first SlutWalk, there has been much reflec tion and discussion about what in this contemporary moment has made this particular issue such a rallying point for feminists from diverse social locations and also how and why the SlutWalk movement grew so Andrea O'Reilly 247 quickly and reached around the globe. What needs to be emphasized here is that the initial SlutWalk was organized by a handful of women, some of whom were York undergraduate students, with no money, little time, and no formal support from any government, university, or social agency or department, and all in a matter of six weeks. Moreover, while it was a small band of organizers who oversaw the...