I am proud of many aspects of Notre Dame. I am proud to go to such a highly regarded school, to receive such a well-rounded education, to be surrounded by such fascinating peers. But I am also embarrassed because I am associated with a student body that, despite its intellect, regularly stoops to the ignorance of slut-shaming.
What is slut shaming? According to one site, slut shaming is “when a person publicly or privately [insults] a woman because she expressed her sexuality in a way that does not conform with patriarchal expectations for women.”
It’s easy to sum it up into a nice, ordered definition, but in reality, slut shaming is every time a person scoffs at you for something as superficial as your wardrobe choice. It’s the whispered “whore” as you walk past someone at a party. It’s the prolonged stares, the murmured gossip, the disdainful smirks—everything that makes you feel like you have a giant “A” plastered across your chest.
Upon interviewing ten female Notre Dame students, every single one admitted to either having been a victim of slut shaming and/or could name off a list of people they knew that had experienced it.
One of the girls recounted a time where she “walked into a party once [and] a group yelled, ‘Hey, it’s the slut.’” But, slut shaming isn’t contained within the walls of parties; girls have experienced “subtle references and indirect comments… in inappropriate situations, like football games and classes.”
College campuses in general are considered the most unprejudiced places in the world, but when students participate in the degrading harassment of slut shaming any hope of equality between men and women on campus completely vanishes.
It’s no mystery that gender inequality is still a prevalent issue in our country, considering women are regularly paid less than men in the workforce (SOTU, anyone?) and are stereotypically viewed as caretakers rather than breadwinners. College students hold the power to change this injustice, but it seems like a far-fetched concept when young women still constantly struggle to be treated with respect. If college students can’t even display the decency of the holding their tongues when tempted to bash a girl, what hope is there for our society’s future?
Another interviewee spoke of witnessing a slut shaming. She took a cab home from an off-campus party and while in the cab, she “saw one of the girls sobbing hysterically” after being humiliated at a party. For the girl’s privacy, none of the conversation or happenings of that night will be shared, but the interviewed girl eloquently summed up the problem infesting campus: “No girl, regardless of her past decisions and actions, deserves to be treated the way (the girl in the cab) was that night. I truly believe that a girl’s choices are hers alone, and no one has the right to tell her she is worthless because of those.”
The root of the problem, tangled within the messy layers of name-calling, ridicule, and disdain, is a lack of respect for an individual’s choices on campus. For a school that prides itself on being accepting, it all seems like a façade when the effects of slut shaming haunt many of its female students. One girl “feared going to certain places and changed (her) routes to class to avoid walking by certain dorms.” Another girl admitted that she considered transferring after the wave of ridicule she received for her actions, but didn’t know how to tell her parents that the reason for the transfer was to escape campus bullying.
The problem with slut shaming is the unwillingness to consider this a problem. Even though you may not agree with a person’s choices, you are in no position to voice your disapproval in such a demeaning way.
I want to be proud of Notre Dame again, but to proudly call this university home, while simultaneously knowing that this same place has turned into hell for some girls because of slut shaming is inexcusable.
Follow HCND on Twitter, like us on Facebook, Pin with us and show our Instagram some love!
Sources: 1