Feminazis seem to think that women should be able to do whatever they want — get slobbering drunk, dress like a whore, anything — without any consequences; unfortunately, here in the real world, things don’t work like that. One woman figured that out after claiming that a strange man ‘slut-shamed’ her — and thanked him.
Sitting at a table in a courtyard in North Sydney, at first I thought the guy who tapped me on the shoulder was going to ask me for directions. I didn’t expect the sentence he actually uttered.
‘You better go,’ he said, ‘All the local drug dealers are perving on you.’
As I looked stunned he continued talking. ‘It’s time you moved on,’ he said, ‘This is a bad area and they’re all staring at you.’ Then he delivered the winning punchline, ‘What do you expect when you’re wearing such tight pants?’ It would have been funny if he had been joking.
… I had a choice as to how to respond to this comment. I could deliver a scathing one-liner (‘What do you wear to the gym? Oh, wait, clearly you’ve never stepped foot into one’). Alternatively, I could stand by my fashion statement (‘I like wearing tight pants. They make me feel sexy. Is it any of your business?’).
Instead, as I hastily gathered my possessions from the table, I did something, which will probably infuriate many women – I thanked him and I meant it. I don’t think any man has a right to tell a woman how she should express herself – either stylishly or sexually – but in that moment I had to admit the stranger might have a point.
In the past year the term ‘slut shaming’ had been given a lot of air time. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, slut-shaming is ‘the act of criticising a woman for her real or presumed sexual activity.’
… In my situation, the stranger’s comments could fall into the category of ‘concern trolling’. This phrase, coined by slut shaming activists, describes a derogatory comment thinly this is disguised as concern for a woman’s safety. Another example would be, ‘Look at that poor girl in the low cut top – she must have really low self-esteem.’
But, did the stranger have a point – even though he phrased it ineloquently. Look at the evidence; I was in an area of the city with a reputation for muggings, I was sitting with my iPad on the table and my unzipped backpack on the ground at my feet with my wallet on show.
For the past 30 minutes, I had been talking loudly on the phone to a girlfriend about why a guy she’d met on Tinder hadn’t stayed the night after having sex with her. I was sitting in a high-risk area and I wasn’t exactly going under the radar. Although that guy shouldn’t have told me to leave the area, he was correct when he said I was putting myself in harm’s way.
… When I told my fiancé about the stranger’s comments he had an interesting male perspective. ‘How do you know he was a slut shamer and not a good Samaritan?’ he reflected, ‘Perhaps he comes from a conservative family and was really trying to do you a favour.’
When I told a female friend she didn’t share my fiancé’s opinion. She wasn’t just angry at the stranger – she was even angrier at me. ‘How could you let him bully you?’ she asked, ‘Why didn’t you stand up to him?’ She even suggested that I go back there in my most skimpy outfit and stage a ‘sit in’ as a protest.
… Whilst I support the slut shaming protests, I also don’t think logic should not go out of the window. In my case, the stranger’s comments forced me to re-evaluate my own safety and realise that I do need to be more wary in certain situations.
If I visit the same area of the city again, I will probably dress slightly more conservatively; I will also think twice about flaunting my iPad and leaving my bag unattended. I don’t think that makes me a victim. In fact, I feel empowered because I’m taking steps to improve my safety.
Think about it this way: nobody has a right to steal my money, but I’m still always going to cover my PIN number at an ATM and not flash around wads of currency.
At the crux of the slut shaming campaign is a woman’s right to choose – and that includes my right to dress more prudishly to protect myself. So, to my slut shamer I thank you – even though your warning was badly worded!
Apparently his warning wasn’t badly worded, if it caused this airheaded woman to wake up and smell the coffee. And he was right — while sure, women can dress and behave however they want to, that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly a good idea to make dumb decisions, and flaunting your body and your money in a bad area of town is never going to be anything but completely stupid.