A guy walks into a bar. He spots a wildly attractive girl across the way, walks up to her, and offers to buy her a drink. She agrees, and the two spend the next few hours talking and dancing the night away. She goes back to his place and the two have sex. In the morning, she slips on his sweatpants over her mini skirt, wears his sandals which are 6 sizes too big for her feet, and carries her high heels all the way home. During the notorious “Walk of Shame,” she hears passersbys mutter words like “slut” and “whore” under their breath. He exits his room and gets a high five from his male roommates who shout “nicely done player.”
In today’s society where more women than ever before are CEO’s of fortune 500 companies, medical and law school graduates, breadwinners for their families, and presidential candidates, why is finding sexual gender equality still an issue? College students across the country use derogatory and constraining terms to refer to women who frequently engage in sexual activity, while putting men who do the same thing on a pedestal. For all you braniacs out there, there is an evolutionary story behind this injustice. Women are created to bare and rear children by finding one partner to help them do so. Men are created to spread their seed to as many partners as possible in order to get their genes out into the world. But now that humans have evolved enough to have video-chat on Facebook, I think it’s about time Charles Darwin leave the premarital sexual picture.
Why does a double standard that is clearly outdated and sexist continually persist on our college campus? According to University of Michigan senior Dave*, “men are the conquerors and feel like they have to live up to the dominant stereotype. Guys look at hooking up with a lot of girls as an accomplishment, it’s all about the numbers, and it is seen as a sign of manliness. But girls who bring a lot of different guys home are not thought as highly of.” Dave continues to explain that, “girls can be assertive vocally, but physically guys are usually bigger, stronger, and need to portray their dominance.” Senior, Jordan describes how, “guys think its cool when their friends have multiple sexual relations with different girls. But when girls freely and easily give their body away it becomes less attractive to men. ” Julie, a junior argues that, “guys call girls sluts in order to control them, because boys want to have the ultimate power and by saying that a girls a slut its just another way they can feel dominant.” Despite women’s societal progress towards equality in recent decades, man’s inherent tendency to be in control and prove their masculinity seems to be perpetuating this archaic, sexual inequity on campus.
Rather than accepting this double standard as the status quo, you can take a stand and stop perpetuating the slut/stud nonsense starting with yourself. “I don’t want to live my life based on the expectations that other people set for me,” says Rachel, a junior, “I know that by reframing my own mindset and ignoring people’s biases I can change the entire situation on an individual level.” By ignoring terms like “slut”, “whore”, and all the falls in between, you are taking the first step towards making this double standard an issue of the past. If people hold negative perceptions of you based on what you choose to do when the lights go down, that is their problem alone. Julie, a senior explains that, “I don’t care what people think, and I can do what I want sexually and if people are going to call me a slut they are just jealous.” Your sex life is your business, no one else’s. With confidence, maturity, and independence, brushing aside people’s uncalled for judgments can become second nature. “I try and think of my sexuality as something for myself, not something I do to tell my friends about or need other people’s approval for,” says Rachel. After realizing that your sexuality is yours, and yours alone, you can expand this insight by stopping yourself from judging and labeling others based on their hook up history.
So ladies, if you want to hook up with hot guys on the dance floor of Ricks, or wait until marriage to explore your sexuality-go right ahead. If you want your sexual liberation free from judgment, name-calling, and societal degradation, then the double standard is going to have to go. Take the first steps to ridding our campus of this outdated, sexist problem by stopping yourself and your friends from using the terms. Next time you or someone you know finds herself taking the infamous Walk of Shame, stop before judging. By simply taking one small step and saying to yourself “it’s my (or her) prerogative”, you are taking one giant leap for womankind.
*Names have been changed.