SlutWalks shout defiance toward
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needs of the economy, thrown in and out of the remunerated labor force and used to drive down wages for all working people.
In periods of economic downturn, when there are not enough jobs to go around, women’s rights are threatened—similar to the rise in attacks on undocumented immigrants. During the Industrial Revolution, in the early 1800s, women were brought into the workforce when it was a necessity for the capitalist class to maintain profits—only to be shoved back into the home when their economic purpose had been served. This happened again after the Second World War. Both in and out of paid work, women are expected to shoulder the burden of unpaid domestic, labor including physical and social reproduction and rearing of the next generation of wage slaves. Ruling elites presume that when working women are preoccupied with surviving and have to struggle to address their most basic needs, they will be a weakened force and unable to unite and stand up to demand their rights.
Specific attacks against women are being waged alongside the broader anti-worker campaign of the ruling class, which has already threatened the collective bargaining rights of workers across the country this year. Despite deepening antiwar sentiment throughout the nation and epidemic levels of unemployment, legislators have focused their energy not on job creation or diminishing the war budget, but on increasing attacks on workers as they usher in record profits for themselves.
Within this caustic political climate, there has been an inspiring, if imperfect, development in recent months—the series of contagious demonstrations against rape and institutionalized victim-blaming known as “SlutWalks.”
What began as a modest initiative of five Canadian women has put people into motion on an international scale. The actions have carved out a space for women transnationally to voice their experiences with sexual assault. Indeed, several of the satellite SlutWalk websites have been transformed into blogs for women to share their stories, many for the first time. Perhaps one of the most significant outcomes has been the growing dialogue on how to create a movement that includes and represents the experience and voice of women who live at the intersection of multiple avenues of oppression.