Monday, July 18, 2011

SlutWalk Seoul 2011

(possibly from here... anybody have an ORIGINAL original source?) (from here)

A police officer in Toronto said that women should protect themselves from rape by avoiding dressing like sluts. Toronto's feminist community called bullshit on victim-blaming, an all-too-prevalent attitude in assault safety discussions, and organized a response called "SlutWalk" -- a group of women dressed like "sluts" and walked through the streets of Toronto carrying signs, to raise awareness that those attitudes are really not cool, and possibly to reclaim the word "slut."

Since then, SlutWalk has spread to other cities, and it appeared in Seoul last Saturday, July 16, 2011.

I attended in solidarity, because I strongly believe that the idea needs to be introduced, championed, and spread, that it doesn't matter what a woman wears: nothing even remotely justifies sexual assault, and focusing on what a woman should do to avoid the attack implicitly acquits men (and other would-be attackers) of their responsibility to not be rapists, which is where every discourse about sexual assault should begin and end: with better education of what rape is, and what the consequences are, until the slogan "No means no" jumps to the lips of 20-year olds as quickly as other slogans, like "don't drink and drive."

The proceedings for Slutwalk Seoul started at 2pm. I joined up near Gwanghwamun at 4 - demonstrations aren't allowed in Gwanghwamun Square proper - during a welcome pause in the intermittent downpours in Seoul that day. There were speeches, some songs, a non-verbal performance, and then a march down to Deoksugung palace, in front of which there was a dance, and then a return to Gwanghwamun.

The SlutWalk crew moved on to Hongdae, where I was a little too wet and cold to catch up with them, though I met with a few of my feminist and/or supportive friends, including The Grand Narrative (from whom I found out about SlutWalk Korea) and Popular Gusts, for some burgers and drinks afterwards.

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signs were carried, slogans were shouted.

At the event, there were almost as many cameras as demonstrators, and rain concerns may have caused the "costumes" or "slut" outfits to be less extreme than they might have been at other slutwalks; however, the crowd was enthusiastic, and people were generally OK with the different people who'd come - including males with cameras.

They ran out of the red ribbons which indicated a person didn't want to be photographed, so I can only publish pictures I took where no faces show... in that respect, the rain and face-obscuring umbrellas turned out to be a boon... and even if it hadn't rained, the point of going wasn't to take lots of pictures of women dressed like "sluts" anyway -- that'd kind of be missing part of the point of the event, that self- objectification for the male/appraising gaze is not the reason for the event, nor the reason women dress the way they do when they go out.
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Here's a link that includes a video made by the Hankyoreh.

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body-paint was used to interesting effect.


Why did I especially like this event? Two main reasons:

1. Because it was planned and promoted by Koreans for Koreans - the blog and the twitter account and the poster were all Korean only, and I think it's awesome that Korean women are speaking with their own voice.

2. Because when sexual assault comes up in Korea, even in my classes (I like bringing a lesson based on this article into my discussion classes), the discourses I've heard have overwhelmingly focused on the victim's side -- "she shouldn't wear short skirts" "she should not drink too much" "she should use the buddy system" -- what the woman did to bring her attack on -- and barely brought the attacker's side into it (things like stiffer punishments or public awareness campaigns). Overwhelmingly skewing the discourse toward the victim's responsibilities eventually results in an atmosphere of complicity and maybe even enabling, for would-be attackers, in which they figure they can get away with it, if she's drunk enough, or dressed sexy enough, because that's what they always hear when sex attacks are in the news anyway.

Blaming a rape on a short skirt is like blaming a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver for using the crosswalk. Especially in Korea, where short skirts are just about the norm.

I'm strongly of the opinion that for every time somebody says "she shouldn't dress that way" somebody should say "she has the right to dress how she likes and not be attacked for it" and "it's on the attacker's head" twice, and for every dollar spent promoting the former idea, two should be spent on the latter, and so forth. So that no sex attack ever happens again because somebody simply didn't understand, or hadn't had it impressed strongly enough upon them during that one class during high school, where the law draws the line.


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It reads something kind of like this: "Sorry my body's not beautiful. Ha ha ha. -From an unsexy slut"


SlutWalk has, predictably, been controversial in many places where it's occurred, and I'd like to touch on a few of those controversies.

1. Maybe SlutWalk makes sense in Canada, where it was invented, but it's not culturally appropriate for Korea.

A journalist asked me if I thought this was an appropriate kind of demonstration for Korean culture, which (by asking it of a foreigner) turned into a kind of loaded question, given that the event was planned by Koreans: I think Korean women should be free to express themselves however they want. Cultural appropriacy doesn't come into it when a. people raised in this culture made the choice to express themselves this way, b. cultures change all the time, and c. some cultures systematically suppress women's rights, and ignore women's voices.


Deoksugung gate. Note the boys dressed as sluts.
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2. Isn't this a pretty shocking and outrageous way of starting discussion about this issue?

Maybe it is... but sometimes controversy gets people talking in a way that doesn't happen when one minds their p's and q's, and sometimes something a little brash is needed to capture public attention. A hundred women walking past city hall in lingerie counts as such.

And especially in women's issues, where part of the problem is that women are programmed that being loud, and demanding their rights is unladylike, imprudent, or not "demure" the way a good filial daughter and dutiful wife should be, I'm all for women getting angry, and loud, until middle-aged, male middle-managers feel ashamed to say "well I think women's rights have come far enough in Korea because women have taken over every entry-level position in my district office, and I can't find a single man at the entry-level to promote into division manager," and until women feel empowered enough to confront them on actually believing Korea's come far enough when Korea's Gender Empowerment Measure was woefully low in the last year it was measured (61st of 109 in 2009 - shockingly low when compared to its very HIGH Human development index (26th in the world).)  (for the record, yes, Korea does better when you include women's access to quality healthcare and education here)

Sometimes a vanguard comes along with a pretty strident message, and acts as the shock troops for an important idea. After they've put the idea out there, it becomes OK to talk about it, where before people just changed the subject. Once it becomes OK to talk about it, very smart, less brazen voices (hopefully) appear to present the idea in a way that is palatable to those who feel accused and attacked by the stridency of the vanguard. Over time, idea enters the mainstream. I'm OK with that process taking place. I'm OK with there being a noisy vanguard for important ideas. I'm OK with some screeching about important ideas, especially because marginalized populations are marginalized because people don't listen to them: clearing their throat and raising their hand and saying please hasn't worked.


I liked this boy's sign.
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3. But isn't it true that women who dress that way are dressing that way because they want men to look at them? Why would a woman dress like that if she wasn't looking for sex?

Hmm. Something I've learned: despite how I like to think the world is aligned, it's not always about men.

There are any number of reasons a woman might dress up nicely/sexy (and let's not forget that what's sexy to one person may be absolutely modest to another):

1. To pick up other women
2. To impress other women
3. To make their friends jealous
4. To make their boyfriends jealous
5. To display status
6. For their own damn selves
7. To feel more confident
8. To enjoy being admired by other women
9. To enjoy being admired (and only admired) by men
10. To balance feeling bad by looking good
11. To show off those bitchin' new heels she just bought, the sixteen pounds she finally lost, the hairstyle she's been waiting to try, or the great (name accessory) she got as a gift
12. To live out a Sex And The City, or similar, fantasy she has
13. Because of a bet she won or lost
14. Because going out and flirting with boys or girls helps her forget something that's bothering her
15. Because most women dress that way at the place where she's going
16. Because she was raised to believe looks were the only important thing
17. Because she was taught that sexual attractiveness is the best way for women to gain power over men
18. Because she grew up in a culture where people judge women who don't dress up and look good as "lazy" (I've had a man say that in class)
19. To attract the attention of men, because she wants to talk to men
20. Because she likes getting free drinks when she goes out (jeez. I'd dress in a tube top and high heeled boots if it meant I drank for free every Friday night. Wouldn't you?)
21. To turn on the boyfriend/boyfriend prospect who came out with her that night
22. To advertise she's looking to make whoopie with some guy she meets that night

That's twenty-two I thought of just now, and I'm not even a woman, and only one of them invites a proposition from a stranger who was ogling her across the room.

I wasn't catching every word, but the point of the event wasn't man-hating, as far as I could tell. I had an interesting conversation with a journalist about it, and the fact is, this is a really complex issue with a lot of variables...

1. There are any number of ways women can dress and behave, for any number of reasons (see above)
2. There are any number of ways that dress and behavior can be interpreted by the (usually male) observer (though too many automatically assume reason 22, and act accordingly)
3. There are any number of ways a male can act on their interpretation of a woman's dress and behavior
4. There are any number of ways that male's behavior can be interpreted by the woman he approaches

And clearly some things are out of line from the start, but there are others - certain types of compliments, certain types of eye (or not-eye) contact, and other kinds of movement and attention, that can be easily misinterpreted, on either side, at numerous points in the interaction... and it's unfortunate that the amount of alcohol flowing increases the chance signals will be misread.

But in the end, it'd be great if responsibility for those misreadings and misunderstandings were blamed equally on the dudes thinking with their one-eyed trouser-snakes (that's penises, y'all), as on the ladies who supposedly "brought it on themselves." And until responsibility for those misreadings and misunderstandings is shared by both sides, and moreover, until it is recognized that men are capable of better than acting on every sexual urge that comes along, and thus share more responsibility, women have a reason to hold slutwalks, and whatever other demonstrations bring these issues back to the forefront, where people have to be confronted by them**, and think about them, and hear ideas they don't necessarily agree with, that might force them to change some of their ideas.

And that's the point of SlutWalk, to me.





**I'm lucky, as a man, because for me, these issues are things that I can touch on from time to time, read about at my leisure, and comment on when it suits me. It's not something that confronts me every time I dress up to go out, or get leered at in a bar; it's not something that casts a bit of suspicion and even fear on every night out, or every up-and-down I get from a stranger. I'm lucky to be able to approach the topic so academically, because I've never in my life felt like I'm three, or two, or even one decision from being raped. And the fact I haven't, and many males in these conversations haven't, means (I think) that some of us wildly misjudge what's at stake for others taking part in the conversation, because they, or someone they love, was. Because I'm not confronted by these issues every Friday night, I'm still learning about them. Somewhere stewing in me is a post, or maybe a series, about why these discussions get so fraught, and dramatic, and (frankly) ugly, when people go beyond preaching to the choir... but for now, suffice it to say I know I'm in a lucky spot, to be approaching the topic so casually. That bears on everything I write about it.



Comment moderation is on. I don't like deleting comments, but I also don't like trolls, flames, misogyny, misanthropy (that'd be man-hating) and general disrespectfulness of either the host (me), women, men, or other commenters.



And by the way: If you're about to go into the comments and say that "Yes, well, it's still true that women should be careful etc. etc."
To save you some time, I know. I never said otherwise. Everybody in the presence of strangers should use their smarts. Public awareness campaigns can help people who don't understand their choices, or who wrongly think their justifications are enough, but they won't stop pure predators. I know that, and I'm not saying parents and teachers should stop teaching would-be victims to get reckless... I AM saying that message should be a distant second to "Don't sexually assault people" in emphasis, but right now I don't think it is.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a friend (acquaintance?) who once abruptly shared that he'd had sex this week. When I said that I didn't know he had a girlfriend, he said nothing.

Later on, one of my best friends explained that this guy, along with another friend, went out drinking with a girl. When she passed out, they took her to a motel and raped her.

That was my first time meeting someone like that in Korea, or elsewhere. I kind of felt like calling the police on him, but what good would that do?

-Adeel

Anonymous said...

Hope my comment isn't inflammatory but those women protesting don't really look as revealing as the average person I've seen walking on the street when I visited Korea.

The Student's Guide To Nail Polish said...

I love this post. I love you. This (post) is awesome.

I don't actually have anything to add as you've said it all already. I'll just say that it's great that the original SlutWalk event has inspired others like it.

PS. I don't comment often, but I read all your posts.

CeilingofStars said...

Rob -

I just really, really hope you know how incredibly validating and moving it is to see someone write all of this so eloquently, especially a guy. It seems like literally any time I (or a friend, or another Tumblr girl, or whatever) mentions women's rights or rape culture, some louse has to crawl out of the woodwork and start rehashing the same old bull and being shocked that we girls don't fall to his feet in gratitude for being enlightened. Knowing that there are guys like you out there literally gives me a great deal of hope and joy.

I would REALLY (!) love to read about your opinions on why these discussions get so heated. To be honest, I have a very hard time understanding why certain guys get SO upset about these things. Like I've read people's (fairly vicious) rants against white people or people with some degree of money/education - privileges I hold - and felt annoyed or even offended, but it never even crossed my mind to step in and argue with them about it, let alone do so in a blisteringly angry manner. So I'd be really interested to know your interpretation of the situation!

Thanks again. Slutwalk Seoul looks really interesting. Wish I could have been there!

Anonymous said...

Your posts sometimes read like loud shouts of the obvious.

But why didn't you catch yourself in this misstep, "And especially in women's issues, where part of the problem is that women are programmed ...."

Meaning, I guess, women have had no participatory role in shift-shaping their status and autonomy, save being the victims of evil (sic middle aged) men.

Do you really mean to suggest that women are so easily programmed?

Roboseyo said...

Not only women, sweetheart, and not all women either, despite the best efforts of those who would find the world a more comfortable, less threatening place if all women blushed, demurred in ladylike fashion, and apologized for having rights.

The Grand Narrative said...

Not to dispute your point that it was by and for Koreans Rob, and/or that that's anything but great, but to be technically accurate at least one poster and several tweets and so on were in English.

I mention that just because I don't want anyone to get the impression that expats weren't welcome, which isn't quite true!

Anonymous said...

Just to add to your thoughts on why women may dress like sluts:

Dressing like a slut is pretty subjective. If you're going to try to expressly avoid dressing like a slut, you have to imagine every possible reaction to any given outfit and avoid sexy like the plague. A perfectly modest skirt for a Korean would get some pretty extreme reactions in a Canadian city. Staying within professional lines for both North American and Korean dress codes means covering from collarbones to knees, with at least t-shirt length sleeves - not an easy look to shop for, depending on body type.

Even if you never dress to show off your assets, the SlutWalk message is a valuable one. If it's acceptable for men to behave like pigs towards women they judge to be slutty, some men will find any possible excuse to dismiss a woman as a whore in order to justify shitty behaviour, eg "She wouldn't be walking around with great big breasts like those (despite being entirely covered by a loose t-shirt) if she didn't want to be groped by strangers on the bus!" The more it is reinforced that women don't have to cater to strangers' expectations because our bodies are somehow not our own property, the better women's lives will be.

KirstB said...

The ** note at the end is an important disclaimer. People have utterly useless conversations on controversial topics because one or both parties don't recognize the other's context.
A great resource I've recently come across is a book called Courageous Conversations on race. The authors call one of their tools the 'courageous compass'. Basically on controversial topics, race, class, gender, we all go to different places. www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/doc/courage_compass.pdf
Two people talking about rape might completely misunderstand each other because one might respond in an intellectual/logical way while the other responds in an emotional way. It's awesome book, http://www.amazon.com/Courageous-Conversations-About-Race-Achieving/dp/0761988777

Anonymous said...

Robo,

Interesting post. And as obvious as it might seem to some, it's worth saying for those who still focus too much on the victim's clothing or actions.

This whole issue raises some questions in my mind. I'd like to put a few out there and I'd like to know what you and other commenters think about them.

1. Rape culture.

It's really difficult for me to get my head around this. Adeel's comment disturbed me as it seemed the men involved really felt no guilt and were quite open about what they did.

Is there really a section of the male population that accepts rape as normal?

2. Types of rape.

I'm sure it's not something most people really want to get into (and I'm not suggesting bringing it up when talking with victims), but I think it's useful to define what it is we're discussing. It seems, even though much discussion seems to focus on sex, lust, and attraction, some of the worst kinds of rape are quite far-removed from such things.

I've heard awful reports in the news of men breaking into homes and raping old women. I suspect that this has to do with the deeply disturbed minds of men with major issues with older women. It seems to be more about violence, domination, and humiliation than sexual attraction or lust.

I remember another case where there was a public outcry over a judge's decision that as an object was used, it was not as bad as penile rape because there was no chance of pregnancy. That seems to show gross ignorance of how the victim suffered.

In yet another case, a judge dismissed (from memory) a case because the intercourse began as consensual and then the woman changed her mind part way through. I don't remember the details, but I think most people would agree that if one person asks the other to stop, it is no longer consensual.

How do you define rape? Do you believe, as I'm suggesting, that there are different types with different motivations?

3. The education of boys (and young men) in terms of their relationships with women.

This springs from the previous point. As not all rapes are committed by the mentally ill, I feel it is possible to raise young males with healthy attitudes towards women and bring them up in a non-rape (or, better yet, anti-rape) culture.

My primary concerns in this area are parenting and schooling. In many Western countries, single-parent families are becoming more common. Most of these, I believe, are headed by single mothers doing their best. But add to the absence of stable male role-models in the home to their absence in early childhood and primary education, and you get an increasing number of boys with no idea how a healthy male is supposed to behave.

As is said in this great TED talk, more and more boys are being turned off school because they are not allowed to be boys, and they have very few male teachers. I think that this will increase the number of young men who feel a lot of frustration with and resentment towards authority and formal education. Though I know it is a controversial idea, I also believe if more boys feel like failures, don't know how to be men, and have been raised in predominantly female environments, then it is possible that there will be an increase in adult males with unhealthy attitudes towards women. This will make the fostering of healthy male culture more difficult, but more important.

My final questions are: How can we raise boys with healthy attitudes to women? And how can we foster them in men?

Anonymous said...

I like your post a lot :) There are probably people out there that can tear it apart, but I think that would be very counterproductive to the issue, so I hope that doesn’t happen.

I usually don’t comment, because I’m not very good at making myself understood in writing, but I really wanted to give more input to your question about if there is a section of male society that think rape is normal.

Yes, there are men who believe rape is the normal thing to do.

My yes is very much based on a personal experience. In high school I experienced a rape attempt. Lucky for me I still had all my tomboy reflexes from elementary school (I regularly got in fights that gave me a trip to the teacher’s office for a talk down) and I punched him in the face. It wasn’t especially hard, but it was enough to surprise him, so that I got out of the room and was abel to get to my friends. But the aftermath really baffles me still to this day. The boy went out and boasted at school that he had been able to do the deed, and that I even had started to enjoy it halfway thru because of his prowess or something! My friends who heard about the incident either thought what he had allegedly done was okay, or they wanted to beat him to a pulp for doing such a thing. I said i didn’t want the beating to happen, because I just found him ridiculous and nothing serious had happened to me, but I don’t know if it was the right decision. He did later rape a girl, and I do wonder if I could have somehow deterred him by allowing the beating to happen? I also wonder how many more girls out there he got to.…

The rape of that other girl also gave me a shocking insight to how some girls also subscribe to parts of rape culture. A friend of mine (or at least I thought so), a girl, came to me and said she didn’t believe that the other girl was raped. My “friend” was sure the girl was making it up, she had seen them earlier that evening and they had been drinking wine and flirting. The boy had also told here that the girl had wanted it. Even after I told her about my own experience with him, and that I thought it highly unlikely the girl was lying, she maintained that the girl wouldn’t be flirting and drinking, if she didn’t want sex, and if he had thought she wanted it, it had been okay for him to do what he did….

I’m from Norway, a country that prides itself on its high achievement of gender equality. If I have this experience off rape culture her, how big is the problem worldwide?

Turner said...

Agreed, but you have to admit how difficult it is to change someone's perception on these issues. One Texas politician (to his downfall) infamously said: "If a woman is being raped, the best thing she can do is just lie back and enjoy herself." .... really? That kind of ignorance, or just hate towards women infuriates me.

Anyway, congrats on raising awareness, and hope I see you around Seoul sometime.

Gomushin Girl said...

Well, Schplook, you started out ok ...

Yes, there are men who have stupid, screwed up ideas about consent and when they have it (or if they need it). Lots of them, or we wouldn't have the ridiculously high rape or sexual assault statistics that we do.

Types of rape . . . Short answer: Yes, and there's some decent research in the field. That said, it doesn't match at all what you're trying to define, and the majority of rapes still appear to be ways to assert dominance rather than sexual need or mental disturbance. Your old lady scenario isn't because some guy is mentally fixated on old women - he's doing it because they're easy targets to dominate.


Most activists agree that there is a very strong need to educate men about rape. We need to stop telling women fairy tales about how they can dress, behave, etc. to avoid rape, and start telling men not to rape. There's lots of activism already going on, including advocating new models of consent and sexual relations that will hopefully get people to only have sex with other people who really want to have sex with them.

But then you have to go off the deep end with your bit about single mothers and "boys not being allowed to be boys" (for the record, boys at my school were allowed to be boys pretty much without consequence - including sexually harrassing female classmates.) Maybe, instead of saying that boys are x (active! unable to sit still! not like those passive, quiet girls who can easily sit through class and do well because that's what girls are like), and thus we're destroying them by expecting them to do the exact same thing we've been expecting of them for generations, we should be socializing boys differently? Which could contribute to eliminating attitudes that rape is ok?

The other problem here is that you're turning this into a "what about the suffering of men!" and "women can't raise men right" arguments. Do you really mean to say that men rape in part because they had a single mother and mostly female teachers?

Anonymous said...

Gomushin Girl,

Thanks for the response.

I really recommend that you watch the TED talk that I linked in my last comment. In it, the speaker explains how education has changed and is certainly not the same as it has been 'for generations,' but is becoming a place where boys feel like outsiders and failures. But this was not my point. Nor was my point to focus on 'the suffering of men.'

My point was that an increased awareness of how rapists are made (excluding the mentally ill) would be beneficial. I suggested that a failure to do so would result in the creation of more rapists.

Isn't the whole point of this discussion to focus on the education of men not to be rapists? How can we do that without looking very hard at how boys are educated, how they develop relationships with girls and women, and how their attitudes and culture are formed?

J. Goard said...

Great post, Rob. I have about the same feelings about the event, and would have been there but for being on the other end of the country and sick...

My only real disagreement, which I'm not sure is with anything you've said yourself, is with the facetiously blunt ("Don't commit a violent crime!") approach to addressing potential rapists, as represented by the first image of your post. What I think men badly need to hear is something very different.

Basically, I think that a large majority of rape cases consist of a man and woman already engaged consensually in some interaction along the continuum from flirting to the most extreme sexual acts, wherein the man at some point wants to go further than the woman, and doesn't respect her wishes because he's so focused on his own desire and goal. At that moment, and the moments leading up to it, such guys are surely not thinking, "I want to become a violent criminal, like those thugs in prisons." No, what happens is some combination of not noticing what they need to notice and/or not caring about what they need to care about. The way to reduce such rape, therefore, is to cultivate greater empathy and self-control, including an awareness of consequences that is gonna kick in at the right time.

I'm very much in favor of doing this, and as a friend, teacher and such I think I basically do do it, but I don't think it's by any means easy. This is also why, without excusing individual rapists at all, I simply can't feel like a libertine about clubbing, wild partying and immoderate drinking. Many, many men who would never dream that they could be violent criminals end up assaulting women in a moment of selfishness and shortsightedness.

"Criminals are criminal!" is a pretty bad message. "YOU could easily become a criminal if you don't learn to prioritize self-awareness and empathy over some of your strongest urges" is a good message. But it's just a start, after all. Now, how to take (very diverse) pre-teen boys, and thoroughly accomplish that? Sadly, I really don't know.

Roboseyo said...

J. Goard, awesome comment.

Everybody else, too, thanks for your input, and Schplook, thanks for your interesting question.

Beyond retraining those who think rape is a normal thing to do, like -Adeel's friend and Anonymous from Norway's attacker, I really like J Goard's point, about people not noticing what they need to notice and not caring about what they need to care about.

I think part of the ugly cocktail that leads to that is an overemphasis on male sexual prowess as a validation of one's manliness... redefining masculinity is a big task, but I'm interested in whether studies or experiments have been made in challenging that aspect of the concept of manliness -- given that it's taught at the back of the school bus and in the locker room, top-down educational policies or social programs might have trouble touching it, because their reach affects the classroom, not the locker room. Any responses?

CedarBough said...

awesome post. you know i have mad respect for your very real feminism. You do a better job promoting women's rights than I do. Also i LOVE the list of why women would dress sexy-- I think I have to share it on FB, if you don't mind. I'll definitely credit you. And we should be friends on FB anyway--

Roboseyo said...

share away. the blog's under creative commons copyright, so you can do whatever you want with the text, as long as you include credit and a link

Anonymous said...

1. The point (of the SlutWalks) is that a word like "slut" is utterly, absolutely, meaningless. It can be applied to any women, in any situation. Reclaiming the word is, imo, impossible because it is so loaded, but that's a different debate. The point is that women shouldn't have to look at themselves in the mirror and say, "If I'm raped in this outfit, will I be blamed for it?" and that phrases such as "dress like a slut" are ABSOLUTELY. MEANINGLESS. Because what is a slut? A woman you don't like? A woman that has the audacity to like sex, and actively look for it? Do you (blogger and commenters) get the point?

2. (It's great to see that Korean women got on board with this as well. I've read very little about feminism in South Korea, which I'd really like to do.)

3. Various commenters might want to read up on male privilege and rape culture. The two are kind of related.

4. Sorry, my thoughts are so disorganised. I'll echo the above comment that it is great to so a man make a post like this - so informed, I mean.

5. I like that guy's sign as well. The military thing in Korea - and it's connection to Being a Man/masculinity is another South Korean issue I'd like to read more about.

chiam said...

Rob,

I didn't watch this because I don't really care about the issue, but I thought you might like to watch it.

http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=109156&ts=2011-05-06%2020:00:00.0

Be cool.

Dustin cole said...

Hey. Too bad I missed it but thanks for the very detailed account of the event. Well done.