I'll be at the Auckland SlutWalk, weather willing*, which is 2pm at QEII Square (bottom of Queen St), marching up Queen St. Some of the Auckland-based THMers, and friends, will be meeting outside the Muffin Break by the Queen St entrance to the Downtown Westfield at 1.45pm. More info on the Auckland SlutWalk can be found here. I have heard that Louise Nicholas may be speaking?
Other THMers may be at the Wellington SlutWalk, which is at 2pm at Waitangi Park, marching to Civic Square. Wellington Young Feminists Collective are meeting up beforehand at Te Aro Park at 1pm, and they are so onto it they even have a Facebook event for it :-) More info on the Wellington SlutWalk can be found here.
The SlutWalk concept, and how it has been realised in different parts of the world, have been imperfect imho, however I still feel that it's worthwhile, and I'll be marching tomorrow (I hope) to walk with others who unreservedly put the blame for rape where it belongs; on rapists. I look forward to a future where discussions of rape centre around the behaviour of rapists, not survivors.
There have been many many great blog posts in the build-up to SlutWalk and I think it would be totally awesome if people had the energy to add their favourites in comments, but if not that's ok too. I'm looking forward to the reports and pics after the marches.
I heartily recommend the amazing & wonderful Deborah's opinion piece on Stuff today about how SlutWalk came about and why it matters. Here's part of the end:
It's time for a change. It's time to realise that the one thing in common in all rapes is the presence of a rapist, someone who couldn't be bothered to get consent. It's time to understand that the only thing that signifies consent to sex is the participants' willing and enthusiastic consent. Not what people are wearing, not what people have had to drink, not what people have done in the past. What is required is the presence of that wonderful word "Yes!" For both women and men.
I'm SlutWalking for all these reasons. I want to reclaim the word, I want to enable women to celebrate their sexuality, I want an end to victim-blaming.DON'T READ THE COMMENTS on Stuff. I haven't, after being fore-warned.
From what I am hearing from a wide variety of women intending to attend there will be all sorts of different outfits on display. I'll be in Mummy Couture I think.
Good luck everyone, and thanks to the organisers for your hard work.
* Sadly I have a low threshold for acceptable weather tomorrow as I'll have Snuffly and Wriggly with me.
3 comments:
I read the comments, and then I decided that there was no way that I was going to respond to anything there. Besides, I had already had my say, in the article itself.
I was very pleased to get the article published.
Thank you for writing and submitting it :)
Thanks for going on the slut walk today. I have been raped 3 times and I never considered going to the police because I was afraid of the court case. It's about time the blame for rape was placed on the rapist instead of this culture of blaming and shaming the victims.
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