Video on slut-shaming asks students to question stereotypes

Janeal Downs

Staff Writer

A group of 12 students and alumni gathered to watch a short video about misogyny and “slut-shaming” in the Student Common’s Forum Room on Thursday.

Students from a gender, sexuality and women’s studies course taught by Archana Pathak, Ph.D. presented the video titled “Misogyny: Conversations about language, sexuality, and privilege.”

“[Slut-shaming] is the segregation of a person based off on their sexual or perceived sexual activities,” senior English major Maya White-Lurie, a student who helped create the video. “By sexual, those are things that actually occur clearly but perceived are things things like clothing, rumors, all those kind of things.”

White-Lurie said women are more likely to experience slut-shaming because of expectations within society in regards to chastity. She said she was a victim of slut-shaming when she was in high school.

“It was painful for me to watch people who I felt had respect for me and cared for me as a person instantly turn to treat me terribly because of things I had done in private, that were none of their business anyway or things that hadn’t even occurred but had been rumored to occur,” White-Lurie said.

For the video, White-Lurie helped craft questions, interviewed people and assisted with the production and editing of the video. Other members of the project include Chelsea Richardson, Courtney Redmond and Craig Zirpolo.

Zirpolo said his group members had all experienced slut-shaming. “It not only felt pertinent enough that it needed to be addressed, but it was something that because they were familiar with, they could help guide me through it,” he said.

Each group member selected about five people to answer four questions about “slut-shaming” for the video, Zirpolo said.

“I think it’s a form of, especially in sexual assault, a form of victim blaming,” said coordinator of sexual assault and domestic violence services Tammi Slovinsky in her interview for the video. “If somebody dresses a certain way, people still have that stereotype that if you wear a short skirt, then that has something to do with you being raped.”

Slovinsky was one of about 15 people interviewed in the video. Others spoke about what slut-shaming meant to them, if they were ever affected, and even how they felt about the term.

“The word slut has such a negative connotation, but I’ve seen arguments for taking those words back and embracing them to take away the negative power,” Slovinsky said in the video. “So I guess in my opinion I’m okay with ‘slut-shaming’ because I think the purpose is taking that word back and showing it for what it is.”

At one point in the film, a woman being interviewed was asked if she had ever been called a slut. When she responded “no,” her husband jokingly began calling her one, according to a script on the bottom of the screen. Zirpolo said he and his group members struggled with this section of the video because they were unsure about keeping it in the film.

“I actually kind of liked in some strange way the husband saying that to the wife,” said VCU alum Greyson Goodenow. “I thought it was an interesting dynamic to see wife and husband talking about it. I think it was a good call to have it in there.”

Goodenow said he thought the film was done well and showed multiple viewpoints about the usage of the word “slut” and “slut-shaming.”

“I thought it was interesting listening to different respective to the word slut, how it’s possible to reclaim it; I found that fascinating,” Goodenow said.