“Speaking to Steele, however, raised uncomfortable questions. At one point, she referred to SlutWalk as the “next global feminist movement,” and said that there hadn’t been anything like it “in the last 20 years.” She also said that “I don’t think the media would be paying attention to us if we were called, you know, ‘March To End Sexual Violence.’”
It’s precisely this—the implication that SlutWalk is not only a feminist protest but the feminist protest; the uncomfortable feeling that despite the long-term work of many feminist anti-rape activists, and a New York feminist community which organized a huge rally against the acquittal of the NYPD “rape cops” and multiple protests against the handling of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case this summer alone, feminism itself is now being effectively rebranded and subsumed into the media-friendly presence of SlutWalk—that many people find problematic. There is concern that SlutWalk promotes itself to the exclusion of other feminist protests and communities; that it has pitched itself so eagerly as the “next” feminist movement, and maybe the first real feminist movement in decades, that it has inadvertently devalued the movements that exist.
To steer away from the idea that SlutWalk represented the only sizable feminist protest since 1991, I asked Steele whether SlutWalk wasn’t comparable to Take Back the Night, an international feminist protest against rape that began in 1975, and has been a presence on American college campuses for the past three and a half decades.”
“I’m only twenty-six,” she said. “I can’t speak about stuff that I can’t remember. But since ‘Take Back the Night,’ I can’t remember something like this.”
WHAT I REALLY MEANT:
So for the record, I realized during the interview that I had no business saying the line I did about 20 years and asked to have it taken out, since I had gotten caught up and said something that I couldn’t vouch for. However, I would just like to state that I called myself a feminist before Slutwalk, and in no way think it is the only face of feminism. I do, however, have no recollection of anything inciting as much global activism as Slutwalk, which, again, in no way negates the work of any feminists, WITHOUT WHOM I COULD NOT CALL MYSELF A FEMINIST, prior to Slutwalk. I do however believe that victim blaming and rape culture are uniting feminists worldwide in a way I have never seen before.
That is all. Excuse me while I go feel like a huge asshole for the rest of the evening and attempt to drown this feeling in whiskey.
