Teekah Alyssa (editor) - This is what a feminist slut looks like : perspectives on the slutwalk movement

This Is What a Feminist
Slut Looks Like

This Is What a Feminist
Slut Looks Like

Perspectives on the SlutWalk Movement

edited by

Alyssa Teekah, Erika Jane Scholz, May Friedman, and Andrea OReilly

DEMETER PRESS

Copyright 2015 Demeter Press

Individual copyright to their work is retained by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the the financial assistance of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

This is what a feminist slut looks like : perspectives on the slutwalk movement / edited by Alyssa Teekah, Erika Jane Scholz, May Friedman and Andrea OReilly.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-926452-15-9 (paperback)

1. Feminism. 2. Feminists. I. OReilly, Andrea, 1961, author, editor II. Friedman, May, 1975, author, editor III. Teekah, Alyssa, 1988, author, editor IV. Scholz, Erika Jane, 1983 author, editor

HQ1155.T55 2015 305.42 C2015-901677-0

For all those who have been shamed and blamed,
and in solidarity with all those who take action
against sexual violence.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedicated to my parents, the original authors of the book on supporting your child. They are my best friends and my fiercest fans, from marching on that April day to creating Facebook accounts just to comment and debate people on the Slutwalk Facebook group.

To my adopted sister Raisa with whom Ive shared many ups and downs through our sometimes paralleled, sometimes diverging, sometimes weaving paths on the journey of feminist and personal understanding.

To Tara Atluri, one of the fiercest women I have had the pleasure of learning from, who helped me to see the fiery, passionate dimensions of political engagement, the insistence on valuing your work and your capability, and what it means to own your intersectionality.

To Andrea and May, our mentors in this process. Few people get the opportunity to work through incredible and life-changing experiences in a process that affords them the opportunity to grow and reflect. The journey to creating this collection made that possibleand along the way, I was able to be in the presence of two masters (or mistresses). Thank you!

Alyssa Teekah

A big thank you to everyone who has participated in the rich, intense and often overwhelming discussion about SlutWalkregardless of the outcome, the conversation makes our feminist spaces richer. Many thanks to Alyssa, Erika, and Andrea for their amazing work and their shared passion for this project. And my thanks to Dan and the kids for ensuring that slut is a word that keeps us talking in the playground, around the dinner table and in our day-to-day lives.

May Friedman

This is dedicated to my grandmother, the fiercest woman I have ever known. Thank you for showing me the importance of never giving up on others and most importantly, myself. Je taime. To my partner, Mike (and Sammy), who has supported me throughout all of the chaos and was the very person to push me into the advocate life. I love you.

My deepest thanks to the staff and the entire TRCC/MW AR family and community of survivors and allies. Your endless commitment, passion, and determination towards ending sexual violence and seeking justice for all survivors is unsurpassed and are power of examples of the importance of fighting the good fight.

Finally, much love and respect to my colleague and homegirl, Alyssa Teekah. I would not have survived the last five years without you by my side. I am your biggest fan. And my eternal gratitude to Andrea and May, it has been an honour to have had this opportunity to collaborate with two of wisest, committed and loving women I have ever met. Thank you for continuously pushing the limits and letting our voices be heard.

Erika Jane Scholz

As always, a HUGE thank you to the fabulous women at Demeter Press who made possible the publication of this book; particular thanks to Katherine Barret, Nicole Doro, Tracey Carlyle, and Angie Deveau. And thank you to my co-editors who always kept the faith, and to our contributors who believed in the importance of this collection. I attended the first SlutWalk with several women from MIRCI s Mother Outlaws group: thank you to Linn, Renee, Christina and Kim for being the feisty feminists you are and for sharing that splendid day with me. Thank you to my two fabulous feminist daughters Casey and Clementine who I marched with that day and who give me such hope for our feminist future. Finally, the international SlutWalk movement and this book would never have happened had it not been for the courageous women who organized the first SlutWalk march. Thank you Heather Jarvis, Colleen Westendorf, Raisa Bhuiyan, Jeanette Janzen, Laura McLean, Sonya J. F. Barnett, Alyssa Teekah, and Erika Jane Scholz.

Andrea OReilly

Introduction

MAY FRIEDMAN, ANDREA OREILLY, ALYSSA TEEKAH

AND ERIKA JANE SCHOLZ

W HEN WE BEGAN WORK on this book, we were inundated with responses: the submissions were overwhelming and we received query after query about the collection. In the midst of all the positive reinforcement, we received an isolated, hateful, misogynist email, an email that was disturbing enough we chose to file a police report in the event of any further escalation. Thus, the following surreal conversation between one of the books editors and a member of the Toronto Police Services took place:

Editor: Thank you for coming so quickly. The situation is that Im working on a book and all of the editors have received this nasty email. The book is about SlutWalk, which is a

Toronto Police Officer (dryly): Im familiar with SlutWalk, thanks.

He was familiar with SlutWalk. The awkwardness of the Toronto Police, catalyst for the international SlutWalk movement, being called upon to serve and protect the editors of this volume, was lost on neither party. Notably, the officer required no description, no prompting to jog his memory of this contemporary protest movement. SlutWalk, initially conceived as a gathering of a several hundred pissed-off feminists taking to the streets in Toronto, Canada, has instead spawned a global movement. We are all familiar with SlutWalk: whether we love it or hate it, joined in proudly or emphatically took a passwe are all familiar with SlutWalk.

This book was created to consider the impact of an emergent global feminist movement. The book is not a ceaseless celebration of SlutWalkthough its relevant to note that two of the editors were among the organizers of the inaugural Toronto event, the other two were proudly in attendance, and that weve had varying degrees of ambivalence about SlutWalk in the aftermathnor is it a ceaseless critique. Rather, this collection aims to understand how a modest political action hit such a nerve that it morphed into an international feminist protest movement. We want to understand what went rightand what went wrong. We aim to explore the growing pains that come from such explosive progression, and to unpack some of the cogent critiques that SlutWalk engendered. By exploring SlutWalk as a case study for robust, albeit controversial, feminist engagement, we aim to take lessons away about maintaining and building a multifaceted feminist consciousness across space, place, age, and other critical diversities.