So last week Amber Rose had her 3rd
annual SlutWalk. For those of you who don’t know about this let me explain.
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| SlutWalk 2015 |
Ok, so Amber Rose is a stripper turned model turned
business woman, published author, activist and all round bad b. She’s a lovely mother who's often pictured with her son and
always has a new project or something going on. She’s one of those ‘I can do it
all’ mums which I respect. What I like most about her (apart from the fact that
she’s stunning) is her SlutWalks. In 2014 Amber Rose had the first “Amber Rose SlutWalk Festival” in support of the movement, to bring more light to the issue and to educate others. Her SlutWalk Festivals aim to “impact and uplift, while shifting the paradigm of rape culture” and they involve both men and women. SlutWalks orginally started in 2011 in Toronto as a response
to a local police officer advise university women to not “dress like sluts” as
a way to avoid sexual assault. This led to similar marches across the world
including ones held in London, New Delhi and Sydney.
Now, as a girl and a university student the issue of
sexual assault isn’t something I can ignore especially when one in three women
experience sexual assault on campus across the UK. I know I’ve spoken about
rape culture briefly in relation to the response to Kenneka Jenkins but here’s
a different perspective: the effect of rape culture on the victim.
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| SlutWalk 2016 |
Now, thankfully I personally haven’t been a victim of
sexual assault but, on a night out a friend of mine had her drink spiked and it
was honestly the scariest experience ever. She's one of those people that can
handle her drink and at pre-drinks she hadn't had that much, maybe 3/4 shots.
When we got to the club she had two drinks and then after the second one she
starts losing her balance, falling asleep and just generally acting weird. We
sat her down and gave her some water and then she fell asleep, passed out cold.
This creepy guy kept trying to sit near her, asking if he should take her out
for some air even though we kept declining, he would still come back.
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| Amber Rose at SlutWalk 2017 |
Eventually we left and next morning she couldn't
remember anything. She was lucky, as the rest of us were basically sober and
didn’t leave her alone. But, the worst bit was she blamed herself. Blamed
herself for putting her drink down, for not being careful when in reality she
had done nothing wrong. This self-blame was down to society's response if
something horrible had happened to her, if her friends weren't there to look
after her and that's a problem.
The victim blaming side of rape culture is what leads
to many survivors not reporting assaults and therefore lots of rapists not
being punished.
Date rape drugs aren’t new and as a former bartender I
know nightclubs try to stop people's drinks being spiked. From pouring drinks
away if they're left unattended, to not serving people that are too drunk to
reporting guys that are being aggressive or have been spotted spiking a drink.
While these types of policies are good they show that attacks are sort of
expected and that's a real issue.
The possibility of ending a night out as being a
victim of sexual assault should be extremely rare and not the norm. Now, I’m
not saying let’s ignore the fact that predators are out there. But victim
blaming needs to stop. The fact that a police officer felt it was in any way
shape or form appropriate to ‘advice’ a group of young women by slut-shaming
them is completely unacceptable. But sadly this is not exclusive to Canada or
the police.
As a society we need to stop educating women on how
not to be raped and men on how to not be rapists. Because, fundamentally a
woman doesn’t choose or decide to be raped, that’s the whole point there isn’t
a choice.
Rape is a physical, mental and emotional attack. Attacks
are always the predators fault and not the survivors.
End Of Story.
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