Emmeline Pankhurst must be revolving in her grave. No means no: Glasgow's first ever slut walk made its way through the town centre streets in a bid to raise awareness about commonly held attitudes towards rape and sexual assault. Emmeline Pankhurst, born Goulden, suffragette and founder of the Women's Social and Political Union must be revolving in her grave. Cue a tsunami of ludicrously over-the-top protests that this officer had effectively blamed women for their own rapes.
Such an inflation of well-meaning, if incautious, advice into a thought-crime against half the human race triggered an international explosion of self-indulgent and absurd posturing. Dozens of Slut Walks have now taken place, of which the weekend marches around Britain were but the latest example. These narcissistic stunts are yet another frivolous distraction by those who take advantage of the unprecedented freedoms won by others as they wrap themselves in the mantle of victim.
And the absurdity is deepened by their insistence that clothing — or its absence — has no effect on other people. By this logic, if a woman walked down the street naked except for a thong and a pair of stilettos, this should be assumed to have no effect whatever upon men. Of course, sexual assaults take place against women who are dressed perfectly conventionally. But it is wrong to say that therefore there is no such thing as provocative dressing. Indeed, the reaction of men leering at these silly girls as they paraded their exposed flesh demonstrated all too predictably the supreme fatuousness of their assertions.
Clothing, like all social conventions, carries meaning. Modest and immodest dress tells us that the wearers have very different attitudes towards sexuality. Of course, no one dresses in order to be raped. But a girl who barely covers her behind with a pelmet skirt and exposes acres of cleavage is sending out a signal that she wants to be leered at or fantasised about. Wearing revealing clothing signals that she regards her body as a kind of advertising hoarding for her sexuality.
It demonstrates that her sexuality is not a private matter, and most certainly is not restricted to a loving relationship — nor indeed to any kind of relationship. To disclaim any connection between such signalling and opportunistic sexual responses by men is simply ridiculous. And to claim that stating this obvious connection is to hold that women deserve to be raped is a startling denial of reality, logic and common sense. Of course, any man who sexually assaults a woman is to blame for his own behaviour.
