Table of Contents
To the readers of Feministing.com, for inspiring me every day.
INTRODUCTION
WHEN I WA S IN HIGH SCHOOL, I had a reputationa bad one. (You know, a slutty one.) I wasnt quite sure how I became seen as the promiscuous girl in school, since I was definitely not getting any more action than my girlfriends. It felt like the reputationwhich I really didnt find out about until well into my senior yearhad materialized out of nowhere. And I was confused.
Maybe it was because I went to a kind of dorky math and science magnet school where anyone who even talked about sex was labeled sexually active? Perhaps it was because I had so many guy friends that I hung around with? Or maybe it was because I was a little more, ahem, developed than the other gals? I wasnt quite sure.
Looking back, I realize that it could have been any of those things, or nothing. Most likely, it was because I had a bit of a potty mouth (shocking, I know), told dirty jokes, and was a louder, more opinionated girl than some of my peers. I know better now, and realize that labeling girls sluts is a pretty common silencing tactic. After all, theres no better way to silence a woman than to call her a whore!
But that was the first sexist double standard I became acutely aware ofone that affected my life and, maybe more important, really pissed me off. I was upset not only that people thought things about me that werent true, but that the double standard existed in the first place. So fucking what if I had slept with every guy in my grade? Why would that make me a bad person? It just seemed so illogical to me, yet it was so accepted. While I didnt consider myself a feminist until college, when I took my first womens studies class, I think it was this sense of just simple unfairness that really got me started down my feminist path.
Because everyday sexism is something that we can all relate to. If youre a feminist or not, a Democrat or Republican, there are certain things that all women recognizeand are pissed off about!
After I wrote my first book, Full Frontal Feminism, it was difficult to know what to write next. I got such amazing responses from young women who read the bookwomen from thirteen to sixty!I didnt want to let them down with my next one.
One email I got was from a sixteen-year-old Middle Eastern woman living in Michigan who was happy to read something from another young feminist. Another teen, a fourteen-year-old from Mozambique, was pleased that she finally had something that she could use to get across to my somewhat closed-minded friends for years. The notes that affected me the most, though, were the ones that inspired action. A twenty-one-year-old African American woman from California sent me a message through MySpace about how she faces racism and sexism at work every day: I thought ideas and feelings like the ones your book and blog have shown me only existed in my hometown of Oakland and S.F. I now want to start a young feminist movement in my community.
I was so touched that these women would take the time to write me, and that the book made an impact on their lives.... It was very overwhelming and it still feels like a huge responsibility (one Im flattered to have!).
And while the notes I got from women came from all different parts of the world, and came from women all across the spectrum in terms of class, race, sexuality, and politics, the one thing they all had in common was that they talked about how sexism affected their everyday lives. Whether it was through sexual harassment or workplace racism or just the struggles they had in school or at home taking care of their kidsit was the day-to-day injustices that women talked about.
So I figured, why not go back to basics? Go back to that place when I hadnt even started to think about feminism yetbut where it was still impossible not to think about and notice day-to-day unfairness and injustice. No matter how anyone feels about feminism, there are certain inequalities and double standards that are impossible to ignore or argue with.
Im hoping this book will be a fun (but informative!) handbook on those everyday inequities women still face. Because from the boardroom to the bedroom, women are still getting the short end of the stick. Whether its the sexual double standard that led to me (and so many other women) being labeled a slut, or the work double standard that calls women bitches for being good at their job, we still have a long way to go.
This book is for any feministor non-feminist!who is sick of people saying that everything is fine and dandy.This is a book that youll be able to whip out, whether at school, a bar, or the office, to show the skeptics that sexism is still alive and wellbut that there are women out there doing something about it! Think of it as a quick reference guide to everyday sexism. Only funnier.
I hope this book inspires action. I hope that youll carry it around and use it to battle the sexists in your lives. But most of all, I hope that you leave this book not feeling downtrodden about how pervasive sexism is, but instead energized to do something about it!
That said, I just want to say thanks to all the feminists out thereespecially you new feminists!for doing the hard work, every day, of telling the truth about sexism. I know its not always easy, but its changing lives. You all are inspiring.
HES A STUD, SHES A SLUT
IF YOU HAVE A VAGINA, chances are someone has called you a slut at least once in your life. Theres just no getting around it.
I remember the first time I heard the word slutI was in my fifth-grade science class. A certain little girl (terror) named Eleena had been making my life miserable all year in a way that only mean little girls can. She had turned all of my girlfriends against me, spread rumors and the like. She walked up to me at my desk and said, You called me a slut. I had absolutely no idea what the word meant. I just sat there, silently. She repeated herself: You called me a slut, but youre the slut. I dont remember how long after that I found out exactly what slut meant, but I knew it had to be terrible and I knew I didnt want to be it.
Naturally, Id be called a slut many times over later in lifenot unlike most girls. I was called a slut when my boobs grew faster than others. I was called a slut when I had a boyfriend (even though we werent having sex). I was called a slut when I didnt have a boyfriend and kissed a random boy at a party. I was called a slut when I had the nerve to talk about sex. I was called a slut when I wore a bikini on a weekend trip with high school friends. It seems the word slut can be applied to any activity that doesnt include knitting, praying, or sitting perfectly still lest any sudden movements be deemed whorish.
Despite the ubiquity of slut, where you wont hear it is in relation to men. Men cant be sluts. Sure, someone will occasionally call a guy a dog, but men simply arent judged like women are when it comes to sexuality. (And if they are, theyre judged in a positive way!) Men who have a lot of sexual partners are studs, Casanovas, pimps, and players. Never sluts. In fact, when I just did a Google search for male sluts, the first result I got was
