Winnie Wong
Writing 140 Maggie Flynn 4th October 2012

Assignment #2 Most Effective Essay: “SlutWalks and the Future of Feminism.” by Jessica Valenti

Slut. This attention-grabbing noun is used throughout the world in the continuing feminist protest that has started since May 2011: Slutwalks. It all began when Michael Sanguinetti, a Toronto police constable, made a statement on how women should not “dress like sluts” in order to be safe from being sexually assaulted at a safety forum in Osgoode Hall Law School on January 24th 2011. His words infuriated many, and Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis, Co-founders of Slutwalk Toronto, decided to take action to disaffirm the victim-blaming claim. Originally expected to be a small-scale protest, Slutwalk drew attention and became a worldwide phenomenon, which also triggered both positive and negative responses; Jessica Valenti, Gail Dines, Wendy J Murphy and Keli Goff all published articles to express their opinions. Valenti supported Slutwalk in her essay, “Slutwalks and the Future of Feminism,” whereas Dines and Murphy’s “SlutWalk is not sexual liberation” and Goff ‘s “Dear feminists, Will You Also Be Marching In N***erwalk? Because I Won’t.” opposed it. These writers are all famous feminists; Dines is a seasoned professor and author, while Valenti and Goff are new feminist bloggers who are described as “the pioneer in bringing feminist action online” and “a breath of fresh air,” respectively. Although all of these writers had clear stances, Jessica Valenti gives the most objective and convincing argument about Slutwalk, providing factual and logical evidence to support her stance throughout her essay. One major example of why Valenti's arguments are more objective than the other authors' is because Valenti does not give a biased viewpoint of Slutwalk by only writing about its strengths. She acknowledges Slutwalk's imperfections and weaknesses, and after comparing its advantages and disadvantages, she concludes that the benefits outweigh the negative effects and supports Slutwalk with further examples and factual evidence. On the contrary, Goff, Dines and Murphy write mainly about the disadvantages of Slutwalk, using false comparisons and weak examples to convince the reader of their position. In order to effectively make arguments, authors should not let bias overshadow their logic. They should elaborate on their beliefs about an issue after addressing the pros and cons of both sides.
In discussing the nature of Slutwalks, Valenti demonstrates a more sophisticated understanding of the issue, while Goff, Murphy and Dines focus mainly on the superficial aspects. For example, Dines writes, “The term slut is so deeply rooted in the patriarchal “Madonna/whore” view…trying to change its meaning is a waste of precious feminist resources,” and Goff writes, “But here’s a news flash for Barnett…you can’t “reclaim” a word defined by a predominant group…”. Goff and Dines are convinced that the main purpose of this action is to reclaim the word “slut”; they believe that all the protestors are fighting to reclaim the word “slut” as a neutral word and attempting to do so will only worsen the case. Although re-appropriating the word “slut” is, indeed, one of the purposes stated on the official website, the main focus of organizing Slutwalk is “to make a unified statement about sexual assault and victim’ rights and to demand respect for all” (SWTO). As written by Valenti in her article, organizers chose to use the controversial word “slut” because they wanted to attract attention and awareness. While other authors are subjectively criticizing the “inappropriate” word choice for the movement, Valenti first acknowledges the fact that “SlutWalks aren’t a perfect form of activism,” and then pointed out the ideology that “the point is that no matter what women wear, they have a right not to be raped. And if someone were to attack them, they have a right not to be blamed.” Valenti's objective approach gives a fairer view to the situation and makes her argument much more convincing to the reader.
All of the authors compare Slutwalk with different protests and activities at one point in their essays but instead of wandering off topic like Dines and making false comparisons like Goff, Valenti supported her stance with a logical and persuasive example. While trying to convince readers that Slutwalk is all about women protesting for sexual autonomy as Dines claimed on one hand “...will help women achieve full autonomy over their sexuality.”, she digresses into an example of women posting photos of men they find attractive online mid-article. Her purpose was to advocate reader’s negative feelings about women who participated in the movement by stating Slutwalk participants are like those who followed the “societal norms of sexual objectification”. Not only does straying off topic weaken her arguments, it also shows how biased she was on Slutwalks, thus losing objectivity.
On the other hand, Goff states, “Me walking through the streets of New York with a group of black Americans to protest any of the nonsense that comes out of David Duke, Don Imus or the like by proclaiming the protest a “N***erwalk” doesn’t do anything to make the world better at all” She compared Slutwalks to N***erwalk in both the title and body of her essay, while this certainly grabbed the attention of readers, the nature of Slutwalk and N-walk is totally different. The word “Slut” is a more sexually related, whereas the “N-word” is more racially related; one can choose how to dress, however, one cannot choose one’s own race. Logically, these two does not relate and cannot be equated, thereby making it a faulty comparison. The same problem occurred when she made another comparison later in the paragraph, “Fair or not, the images from SlutWalk send the message that…young women will always fall back on taking off their clothes to get attention, even when It comes to making a serious political statement. The same women who probably ridicule the Kardashian sisters essentially employed the same tactics.” She is comparing Slutwalks participants, who are fighting for a cause, to the Kardashian sisters, who makes money out of what they do. Firstly, she is equating people of different nature and intention together, and secondly, not every young woman who participated dressed like “sluts”. Besides, Goff gives the sense of demeaning Slutwalks participants, which causes some aversion to the readers. Although Goff is trying to be persuasive through the use of sarcasm, failing to give logical ideas lowers her objectivity, and alienating a particular audience greatly weakens her essay.
In a great contrast to these other authors, Valenti compares Slutwalks with the protest against President George W. Bush’s anti-woman and anti-choices policies in 2004. By raising a feminist event of the past with similar nature, the lack of “momentum” after the events ended reflects the success of Slutwalks, which increasingly more countries participate in. She also states how Slutwalk is a revolutionary protest in which participants are no longer being led or organized by established parties like the National Organization for Women. Young women now have the initiative to organize themselves and get more other women involved, also. This signifies a turning point of feminist activities and ignites the future of the protests. Instead of plainly and superficially describing how great Slutwalks' participants are, as Goff, Dines and Murphy do, Valenti bring attention to the actual difference and the improvements made by Slutwalk participants.
In providing data and facts to support her position, Valenti’s essay provided readers with the most relevant facts; the other two authors tend to evade the facts, lowering their credibility. As quoted from the official Slutwalk Toronto website, “you don’t have to wear your sexual proclivities on your sleeve, we just ask that you come. Any gender-identification, any age. Singles, couples, parents, sisters, brothers, children, friends." Slutwalk is a protest that welcomes people of different genders, ages, races, education level and backgrounds, not just women. However, “watching a bunch of adults parading around in their underwear in broad daylight in the name of allegedly making a serious political statement” (Goff) and “Watching the fishnet- and bikini-clad SlutWalk protestors strut around Union Square Park” (Goff) and also “The organizers… promoting slutishness in general” (Dines) portrayed Slutwalk as some kind of “lingerie parade”, where a group of young women protest fiercely with revealing clothes. But the fact is, there are a considerable number of participants: men and women, who wore normal clothes- T-shirt, jeans, and clothes that aren’t suggestive at all (Dunkan). Valenti addressed this in her essay, “Yes, some protesters have worn lingerie, but others have worn jeans and T-shirts. Organizers encourage marchers to wear whatever they want.” But the authors of the other two essays did not mention anything about people in normal clothes at all; they purposely do so in order to exaggerate how “inappropriate” Slutwalks is, and make readers agree to that. Valenti addressed both sides of the issue while the authors of the other two essays only presented one-sided arguments. Just from her inclusion of all the facts, Valenti clearly has the most objective argument.
Valenti has particularly strong counterarguments in a sense that she often uses direct quotes to support her points; while Dines and Murphy often rephrases quotes they use, in which “putting their own words in the protestors’ mouths” could happen. “The organizers claim that celebrating the word “slut”, and promoting sluttishness in general, will help women achieve full autonomy over their sexuality.” (Dines) This is not exactly what the organizers said; altering a few words of their sentences can twist the whole meaning, and it severely lowers the objectivity of the essay. On the other hand, Valenti raises different counter arguments such as the issue of reclaiming the word “slut” and the women’s responsibility of protecting themselves by dressing in the so called “appropriate” ways. As mentioned above, Valenti rebuts it by quoting what the organizers said and clarifying that Slutwalk is not mainly about reclaiming the word and it is the right of the women to dress what they like and to be protected; instead of blaming the women, society should point the finger at the rapists. These rebuttals and clarifications echo the Valenti's stance, and the use of direct quotes gives the reader the opportunity to process her ideas among the factual examples she provides.
In demonstrating her deep understanding of Slutwalk, the way she presents her ideas, and her comparison of Slutwalk with other protests, Valenti presents a more convincing and objective argument than that of Goff and Dines on the issue of Slutwalk. Unlike the subjective nature of Goff’s and Dines’ essays, Valenti’s gives readers a more comprehensive picture of Slutwalk and feminist activities. In every civilized community, today, people have the freedom to judge what they like or dislike. Some readers may even disagree with all the points raised by the three writers, but what really matters is what readers can realize after reading the essays. After reading Goff’s and Dines’ essays, if the reader believes their arguments are not valid, they can choose to not acquire any new knowledge from the texts. As for Valenti’s essay, even if they disagree with the points, they can at least learn some thing from the facts presented in the essay, such as the size of Slutwalks, the history of feminist actions and the nature of different protests. These objective facts can inspire readers and guide them to new and original thoughts, which is often a channel through which a community can be improved.