Slut Walk hits London streets. (video)

It started in the USA and Canada after a Toronto policeman said if women want to avoid being raped or victimised, they should not dress like sluts. The reaction was instead of telling women how to dress, the police should tell men not to rape. Now the movement has come to Europe.

Thousands of “sluts” took to the streets in London on Saturday.

Over 5,000 women took to the streets in London on Saturday in the latest Slutwalk, a movement which defends a woman’s right to dress as she pleases without the insinuation that if someone says something or gropes her, “she was asking for it”.

The notion that a woman should not dress in a certain way to avoid being raped or victimised is as absurd as it is insulting, the result of hundreds of years of macho culture and male supremacy, running along the same lines as “women are too emotionally unbalanced to form an opinion and vote” and in some countries, for instance post-Saddam Iraq, a man has the right to beat his wife “if she misbehaves”.

However, a prostitute has a name and a prostitute is a human being, with rights. She cries, she laughs, she loves her children and if the female prostitute exists, then she exists because there is a male client.

There is no chicken without the egg. However, there is a difference between a prostitute (who might or might not be performing her job willingly), who might or might not decide to dress in a provocative way, and a woman or girl who chooses to make the most of her body by using clothes which show it off, rather like the perfect seasoning on a nice meal.

It says a lot about our societies if a woman cannot dress the way she pleases without intruding eyes ogling and prying, intrusive body language (a hard and aggressive gaze following her as she walks past) or worse, a disgusting and offensive comment
(Cor! Look at those boobs! Hey! I could plug THAT! )

And if she turned round and gave him a slap on the face, not just a tap, but one of those that sent him sprawling on his backside in the mud?

To insinuate that a woman is “asking for it” if she dresses in a certain way is an admission that males are collectively a bunch of savages, are born stupid and get worse with every passing day, or are totally uncivilised and culturally inept.

There is a difference between a lewd and coarse remark and a knowing smile with a polite nod of the head showing appreciation and recognition of the effort made to be presentable and let’s be honest, pretty.