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Title: SlutWalk may be coming to Milwaukee
Source:
www.jsonline.com
URL Source: http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/121603538.html
Published: May 11, 2011
Author: Jim Stingl
Post Date: 2011-05-11 07:17:09 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 716
Comments: 1
Event follows path to discussion about rape If you want to get people's attention, call your event SlutWalk Milwaukee. "People hear the word and say, 'You're doing what?'34;" said Michele Stander-Reimer, who is organizing the walk here. Then they're ready to have a conversation about sexual violence and how victims are still being blamed because of the way they dress, or because they drank too much or had previous sexual partners. The SlutWalk was born in Toronto in April after a police officer there told a classroom of college students that they should refrain from dressing "like sluts" in order to avoid being sexually assaulted. The officer later apologized, but he had already spawned a movement. Walks have been staged in Boston, Dallas and other cities, and more are planned across America, including Chicago on June 4. Milwaukee's version is still in the planning stage. Stander-Reimer read an article about the phenomenon and then started a Facebook page - SlutWalk Milwaukee - that has quickly attracted nearly 500 followers. The profile photo on the page is an image of a woman marching in Toronto with a sign that says, "Believe it or not, my short skirt has nothing to do with you." Some women have shown up for the walks scantily dressed, giving flash mob a new meaning. Others proudly proclaim "Slut" on their T-shirts. That's OK, Stander-Reimer said. Plenty of women dress more conservatively, but they all march under the SlutWalk banner. "We kill the meaning of the word if everybody is and nobody is. We can stop labeling women in these very suggestive ways," she said. Men are welcome at the walks, too. But a couple dudes who sound a tad too enthusiastic about sluts have written posts on the Facebook page. You're going to get some of that, and probably also push-back from people who don't fully buy into the walk's message or provocative approach, Stander-Reimer said. The date and location for the walk are yet to be determined, though it might not be until August to avoid competing with summer festivals and maximize participation. Stander-Reimer is talking with the city this week about getting a permit. Already she has received an enthusiastic response from PrideFest and from The Tool Shed, an erotic boutique on the east side. I asked Cathy Seasholes, director of the UWM Women's Resource Center, her opinion. The center supports female students and provides information about preventing sexual assault. She said the walk can be an important educational tool as long as people aren't too distracted by the one aspect of reclaiming the word slut. It can challenge people to look at their own attitudes and behaviors. "It's really a young activist movement engaging all the generations of our community and speaking out against sexual violence and the victim-blaming attitudes and the embedded cultural messages in particular with regard to male violence against women," Seasholes said. Stander-Reimer, 34, lives in Milwaukee and teaches anthropology and sociology at Alverno College, Carthage College and College of Lake County in Illinois. She said her husband, Daniel Reimer, and friends, Colleen Henley and Rita Zalewski, are helping organize the walk. This issue of blaming sexual assault victims has come up in her classes. Sluts is not just a word men use; women, too, describe each other with the negative term, she said. Sexually demonstrative males are described in more positive language. "Different women dress in different ways for different reasons," she said. "You can be an intelligent woman and a successful woman and a powerful woman - and a sexual woman. Displaying yourself as a sexual creature doesn't mean that you're asking to be sexually assaulted." The message on the walk's Facebook page is simple: "Society teaches, 'Don't get raped' rather than 'Don't rape.'34;" To change that kind of backwards thinking, marchers here will let their slut flag fly. Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or e-mail at jstingl@journalsentinel.com Comments » Editor's Note: You may comment on this story using your Facebook log-in. We are testing this new commenting system on selected articles in an effort to hold people more accountable for their comments. You may still comment on most other stories using your JSOnline user account. E-mail us at jsmetro@journalsentinel.com with your thoughts on this type of commenting.
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Toronto was the first site for a SlutWalk march to protest an officer’s comment that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." A similar march may be coming to Milwaukee.
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#1. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Some sexual assaulters disagree.
-------------------------------------"Believe it or not, my short skirt has nothing to do with you."
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
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