Cognitive Behavioral Slutwalk

What am I saying here? See below.

Holly, of the Pervocracy, is one of the people I am determined to meet in real life before I die, if only for this exchange in the comments of her post on the Slutwalk(s).

Tit for Tat said...

Ok, is there any time that you should be aware that what you are wearing might potentially cause you physical harm?

May 6, 2011 6:22 PM

Holly said...

Yes. When you are wearing a live porcupine.

May 6, 2011 6:25 PM

I, quite literally, spewed iced coffee all over my ipod. (They hold up well to that sort of abuse.)

My 63-year-old mother-in-law (hereinafter "MIL") was sitting next to me when this happened, and she asked me what was so funny. I explained it to her, and she said, "You tell him, Holly!"

Now, you may be thinking "Wow, 63 and championing hot pants," but it's more than that. 10 years ago, my MIL was a waitress dying of congestive heart failure. She didn't know that last part until she was in the hospital and they were saying things like, "If you live long enough for the surgeon to get here, we'll be doing a quadruple bypass." Yeah, if you live long enough.

Today, she's a nurse with a scar that runs down her breastbone from an inch below her collarbones to the top of her abdomen. And she doesn't cover it up. She's not wearing my level of breast exposing tops, but you can pretty much always see at least an inch or two of that scar. Why? Because she's proud of it. She survived. She changed her life for the better. She succeeded. And it was all because of what led to that scar.

And people say the same thing to her about her scar that they say to "sluts" about their low cut tops and high cut skirts: Cover that up. What kind of attention are you trying to get? Don't you know what people will think?

My MIL's response is Holly's response: fuck you.

So, where does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (hereinafter "CBT") have to do with it? The essence of CBT is simple: I can't control what you do or say or feel, but I can control my reaction to it. How does that apply to the Slutwalk and it's message? Simple. You can't control what a woman wears, but you can control your reaction to it. You don't have to catcall or harass or rape a woman. She could be walking down the street naked as the day is long and you can look away.

Look, guys, the world isn't all about you and neither am I. What am I saying with the dress above? Comfort, actually. I wore that yesterday to remove wallpaper and sand and prime the bathroom walls. That dress, and the flowery one just like it, are SO comfortable. I cannot describe to you how comfortable those dresses are. Was I attracted to it by the low neckline and the opportunity to attract men*? No, actually. I bought the flowery one first. I liked the flowers and the price was right. And, it was one of those "Surprise! It's 90!" spring days you get in Pennsylvania and I wore a sweater to work because it was 45 the day before and I needed a new outfit fast. It was so comfortable, I went back and bought the black one, and I am kicking myself for not getting the blue and the pink.

So, I'm comfortable. I can control that. What I can't control is how anyone else views me. Not my problem. It's up to you to control how you react. You can view me any way you want. You want to think "SLUT!!1!eleventy" to yourself? Go ahead. I don't care. You want to spend the rest of the day imagining me bent over your desk? Have at it. Just keep it to yourself.

Here's the thing: I very rarely wear those to work. (I wear a blazer over it in the building.) When I do wear it downtown, I get catcalls aplenty. I also get catcalls when I'm wearing six layers of clothing midwinter. When I wear that dress in my home neighborhood, I don't get any catcalls. Men do occasionally tell me I look nice, but that's not creepy.

Now why is that? It obviously has nothing to do with me. It's the same body in the same dress. What is different is location. Downtown is the scene of many violent attacks, from stabbings to sexual assaults. My neighborhood? Nope. Shortly after I moved in, I forgot my keys and had to break into my house through a window. The cops were there 2 minutes after I got inside. My neighbors called them. Last summer, my husband and I heard a woman screaming. We ran outside and followed a horde of our neighbors to the source of the screams. There had to have been over 100 people at the scene. It was a teenage girl with an obvious slap mark on her cheek and her boyfriend. We do not allow that sort of thing to happen in our neighborhood. So I don't get catcalls, I get compliments.

And that's the secret, kids: it's not the woman and it's not her clothes. It's the rapists, the harrassers, the catcallers. They're the ones who need to change their behavior, and that will not happen as long as we excuse their behavior by slutshaming women. You decide what world you want to live in. You decide what world you want your daughters to live in. Downtown or my neighborhood?

*I'm a heterosexual woman. What else would I want to attract? Giraffes?