Wednesday, as a part of Hofstra’s Day of Dialogue IX, Holly Meyer, organizer of SlutWalk NYC, spoke at an event titled “Who Are You Calling a Slut?” accompanied by two Hofstra professors. The panel brought attention to the topic of defining women’s sexuality through an attempt to inform students of the international SlutWalk movement.
The movement began in April when several female students were being sexually assaulted across the York University campus. These victimized women were told by a police officer that if they wanted to avoid being sexually assaulted, they “should stop dressing like sluts.” The officer’s words initiated an international movement of women hoping to change the way in which rape victims are treated and perceived. Since then, there have been over 80 SlutWalk movements across the globe.
SlutWalk NYC, which took place on October first in Union Square, was a march intended to end sexual violence and rape culture. Rape culture allows rape victims to be blamed for their sexual assault.
According to Meyer, prior to the SlutWalk movement, the state had not been reporting rape statistics correctly, limiting funds to rape crisis centers. Her goal in the rally is to represent “every person who has ever been sexually assaulted but never reported it.”
SlutWalk hopes to eliminate society’s notion of saying that victims “asked for it” by dressing in a way considered “slutty.” Its supporters strive to show that the way in which a woman chooses to dress does not deem her more or less deserving of sexual assault.
According to a statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 50 percent of female rape victims are below the age of eighteen, 25 percent of female victims are college students, and 30 percent are assaulted by their intimate partners or family members.
These statistics provide evidence needed to prove that a woman’s clothing has little to no correlation to her chances of being sexually assaulted. The SlutWalk NYC movement sparked this conversation at Hofstra and will to continue to do so around the world hoping to change the way in which women’s sexuality is perceived.