‘Get Thee to a Nunnery:’ musings on Slut! Growing up Female with A Bad Reputation by Leora Tanenbaum
Let’s face it: how many of us have been labeled ‘slut’ in the past? How many of us have called another girl ‘slut?’ How many of us have experienced both? Remember the scene in Mean Girls where Ms. Norbury proclaims, “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores”? Every girl can laugh at this because it’s true; we’ve all been called or called someone a slut or whore at some point. Ms. Norbury’s words convey a complicated idea under the surface. She is describing a mechanism in which young girls uphold a sexual double standard. It’s called ‘slut-bashing.’ Leora Tanenbaum’s book Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation explores slut-bashing and what really causes it.
I was assigned to read Slut! for a class called Sluts, Whores and Other Feminists: Sexual Justice through the Ages. Sexual justice, or the lack of, was the primary concern of the class. If you don’t know what sexual justice means, the stories in Slut! are not examples of it. Instead they are the opposite. By sharing her personal experience and the experiences of fifty other women, Tanenbaum illustrates slut-bashing and, by consequence, the sexual double standard that causes it. It has at least one story that every girl can relate to, and each one will draw compassion from your heart. Personal narratives that periodically fill the pages are moving and sometimes disturbing. Slut! proves that the slut reputation is never deserved. Then what causes it? Why do we call each other sluts and whores?
There certainly seemed to be a lot of ‘sluts’ running around my high school, but Tanenbaum suggests that most high school sluts weren’t even sexually active. Then why is the label so popular, when it shouldn’t even be applicable? Tanenbaum says that calling a woman or girl a slut is “a common way to damage [their] credibility.” Credibility according to whom exactly? What do high school girls care about most? Guys. They’re all in competition with each other at that age. But aren’t we still?
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Even as college students, we’re all friends until a guy gets in the middle and then we resort, once again, to what Tanenbaum calls ‘the insult of all insults.’ Guys don’t want girls that are labeled sluts; somehow we’ve always known that. That’s why we use it; calling another girl a slut can take her out of ‘the game.’ According to Tanenbaum, the cause of slut bashing is insecurity. I think it’s jealousy, but don’t the two go hand-in-hand?
The girls that are most commonly called sluts are the most developed, not surprisingly. These girls are the main victims of slut-bashing because they are the most threatening in the ‘game.’ Slut! illustrates that perpetrators of slut bashing use the term to degrade and effectively de-humanize other girls, all in pursuance of the opposite sex, and the effects are pretty nasty.
If you don’t consider the sexual double standard to be real, Slut! will make you a believer. The fact that the ‘slut’ reputation can only damaging to a girl is the sexual double standard. The reasoning in Tanenbaum’s words is “boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts.” Sure, we can use the terms ‘man-whore’ or ‘man-slut’ to describe guys, but do they have the same effect? Absolutely not. Guys can’t be sluts; they are congratulated while we are shamed for the same thing.
This really isn’t surprising as different behavior is expected from the genders in all facets of life. Boys like sports, girls like romantic comedies. Boys like to get dirty, girls like bubble baths. These examples are stereotypes, of course, but they’re also a description of traditional gender roles. Different behavior is expected from boys and girls especially when it comes to sex. Fathers are proud when their sons have sex; they can’t admit if their daughter does. Let me ask you this: who is supposed to make the first move? There’s more than one answer to this question, but there’s only one that’s socially acceptable. Boys are supposed to make the first move while girls should wait… unless you’re a slut. I can also be considered embarrassing to make the first move if you’re a girl. These are examples of the sexual double standard and it’s exists because we let it.
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Slut-bashing will never end as long as the sexual double standard exists. We are reluctant to admit it exists because we’ve grown up with the knowledge that we can do and be anything we want, unlike generations of women before us (thank you feminism). When it comes to the sexual double standard, Tanenbaum argues that things have not changed much since the 1950s. Being called a slut is still the most damaging label on a woman’s reputation. It causes guys, Tanenbaum says, to “treat [only] some girls with the respect that they all deserve.” So really, we can’t do anything that guys do; we are inevitably held to a different standard. So, when we call each other sluts and whores, we’re readily accepting the sexual double standard. Then, like Ms. Norbury said, it becomes okay for guys to call us sluts and whores, and thus the sexual double standard lives on, with our help. However, it’s presence is starting to be realized.
Stories of slut-bashing are more common in the news today than when Tanenbaum published Slut! in 1999. It’s evidence that people are starting to recognize the sexual double standard, which in turn allows them to recognize slut-bashing. Remember Phoebe Prince and Hope Witsell? Both are considered victims of slut-bashing.
While the stories on the news and in Slut! are harrowing, some high school sluts actually gain power from their reputation. Tanenbaum says that “having a ‘slut’ reputation sharpened [some girls] thinking, gave [them] a sense of perspective about gender roles, made [them] acutely aware of the small mindedness of the sexual double standard” (24). That is what Slut! has done for its readers, it certainly has for me. It has supplied a voice to high school sluts, successfully morphing them into victims instead of the enemy.
Slut! particularly affected me. Before, I dismissed the sexual double standard with a laugh. I even admit to calling other girls sluts in the past. Slut! will open your mind if you let it; it will shed new light on an attitude that has been conditioned into us. If we start realizing the existence of the sexual double standard then it could go away. If we ignore it, it will persist, plaguing more generations, and no one will be thanking our generation for anything. Education is the best way, according to Tanenbaum. Reading Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation is a start. It can’t help but change your perspective on the war between girls that we’ve all been a part of. Then maybe we will stop calling each other sluts and whores, we will stop being mean girls.