Slutwalk, a feminist rally scheduled to take place in Melbourne tomorrow, 28 May, is a mass response to victim-blaming in cases of sexual violence. The movement originated in Toronto, sparked by a police officer's comment that 'Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimised'.
It has spread globally, engaging a generation of women and men that older feminists forever lament have shirked their political responsibilities; who have enjoyed the privilege and forgotten the rage.
Guy Rundle's now infamous article published in Crikey last week pointed out that Slutwalk is indebted to the Reclaim the Night movement feminist anti-rape movement , which dates back to 1976.
Although Reclaim the Night marches operate differently in various locations, they are, for the most part, women-only rallies that articulate the right for women to move freely in their communities without fearing, or enduring, harassment or sexual assault. Radical feminists captured the movement in 1978 to also articulate and oppose the gender-based violence inherent in the sex industry.
As such, Reclaim the Night marches tend to embody some of the characteristics of radical feminism: 'separatism' — the political segregation of women — and 'women dressing for women', the rejection of historically 'feminine' clothing and behaviour.
Slutwalk, as Rundle states, is in a sense a 'rebranding' of Reclaim the Night. Where Slutwalk differs is that it attempts to transform the language of oppression into a language of autonomy, men are welcome to participate, and participants are free to dress provocatively or not, as a public declaration of their right to safety regardless of their attire.
But his differentiation of the two movements fundamentally misunderstands the cultural distinctions between generations of feminists, branding it a war. 'Slutwalk uses feminist themes as a cover for young women to wage war against older women,' he writes, thus dismissing the political import of Slutwalk. Where he observes power in the form and solidarity of Reclaim the Night, he slights Slutwalk as spectacle.
The movements are necessarily different. Older feminisms have failed to engage younger generations due simply to our different historical experiences of gender. The 'separatism' of earlier feminisms, although grounded in convincing rhetoric, have little currency for women feminists whose only relationships with men are respectful and loving. Women's experiences of gender cannot be universalised.
This is not to say that women in the developed world do not experience political, material, sexual, cultural and legal inequity — Britain's conviction rate of reported rapes is below 7 per cent — but that redefining women's movements is essential for ensuring that women have the space to articulate their own experience of gender.
Women and feminists of my generation are products of a conflicted culture that older feminists may appreciate. Our position is from inside a culture where, for many of us, feminism has been naturalised, but where the sex industry has also been mainstreamed. The emergence of Proud queer identities has also shaped our understanding of sexuality. These are powerful differentiating factors between the Slutwalk movement and earlier movements such as Reclaim the Night.
The way the sex industry has altered sexuality in the public and private spheres is perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of Slutwalk, and puts Slutwalk under a cautious scrutiny that Reclaim the Night is not subject to. Detractors argue that Slutwalk supporters are mistaking their sexual subjugation for liberation. They appeal to the horrors of the sex industry, conflating bodily integrity with subjugation to violent and degrading sexual constructions.
That assumption entirely misses the point. Slutwalk is one attempt to repossess what the sex industry has consumed. Degrading constructions of female sexuality are only legitimised by male violence, which are in turn legitimised by victim-blaming and shaming.
Another point of difference between older and younger feminists is that older feminists were responding to an environment hostile to them in every way. My generation, although some deny being feminists, have been cultured in a more feminist (albeit not feminist enough) environment, and as such do not require a rejection of old modes of femininity per se to secure whatever political or material goals they aspire to.
But I think the most interesting differentiating factor between Slutwalk and Reclaim the Night is Slutwalk's symbolic references to the Pride movement. This is what makes Slutwalk a uniquely contemporary 'spectacle' with political import.
Pride rallies, the Sydney Mardi Gras being a famous example, combine sexual politics and celebration of diversity, inclusion, safety and autonomy. They are framed in a carnival atmosphere, and have successfully transformed historically imposed shame into pride.
Slutwalk, using the theatricality and parody that Rundle dismisses, performs an inversion of the Madonna/Whore binaries that harm all women, and as well employ a fierce solidarity that Rundle seems to think us incapable of.
Ellena Savage is a Melbourne writer and the immediate past editor of the Melbourne University student magazine, Farrago.