WARNING: May contain vicars. Image: dichohecho
After a miserable summer it seemed a drop in temperature would hardly be noticeable. A question of zipping the coat that hasn't come off since late August a little higher. As it turns out over the weekend I, for one, was freezing. Trudging home at 4am on Saturday night (morning? Morning) in a parka and scarf I was still chilly but I suppose my 'function over fashion' look wasn't going to attract any young men cruising for chicks to slut drop. Although this could also be because I live somewhere where the One Way system is so impossible to navigate everybody just gets the bus.
'What's slut dropping?' I hear you cry. 'Did your parka simply make you too bulky to hold up from any height to drop you from?' No, and shame on me for implying my dress had anything do to with whether or not I was perceived as a slut. Slut dropping is infuriating on many levels. It turns out young male students have a dream of running an incredibly inefficient taxi service. They drive around, presumably sober, searching for lone drunk women students (sorry, my sense of humour left me for a moment there, I mean sluts) walking home. The male students pull up, offer her a lift and then drive as fast and as far as they can in the opposite direction of the given address. Then, preferably in the middle of nowhere, THEY DROP THE SLUT! HAHAHAHAHA! Those cheeky chappies.
'What's slut dropping?' I hear you cry. 'Did your parka simply make you too bulky to hold up from any height to drop you from?' No, and shame on me for implying my dress had anything do to with whether or not I was perceived as a slut. Slut dropping is infuriating on many levels. It turns out young male students have a dream of running an incredibly inefficient taxi service. They drive around, presumably sober, searching for lone drunk women students (sorry, my sense of humour left me for a moment there, I mean sluts) walking home. The male students pull up, offer her a lift and then drive as fast and as far as they can in the opposite direction of the given address. Then, preferably in the middle of nowhere, THEY DROP THE SLUT! HAHAHAHAHA! Those cheeky chappies.
It's possible that slut dropping is rather like the 'Rainbow Parties' Ariel Levy wrote about in Female Chauvinist Pigs which had young people pulling confused faces and denying any knowledge of such things. Perhaps the slut drop is an isolated incident, an idea and not epidemic among the fresher population. The Everyday Sexism Project has only received one report of this. However the report included a young man's account of a slut drop victim of his taking 8 hours to get home.
The slut drop, whether a regular occurrence that, like all forms of abuse relies on shame silencing any women involved, or a one time event has highlighted a shift in student life. It's certainly drawn attention to how women students are treated - they shouldn't have got so drunk, they shouldn't have dressed like that, they shouldn't have accepted a lift from someone they hardly knew.
If you live in a university city then over September and October the streets are awash with posters advertising club nights of increasingly sexist themes. It's been going for some time, if I had to date it I would guess it started around 2003, when you could be forgiven for thinking it was obligatory for lyrics to feature the words 'pimp' and 'ho'. 'Gosh I wish I could in some way emulate the world of recently recovered gun shot victim 50 Cent' thought, apparently, everyone. And so the baton was passed from Middle England to club land and Tarts and Vicars parties became Pimps and Hos nights. 9 years later we are wondering if this is rather encouraging sexist attitudes.
In spite of the Christmas decorations in the shops, it's actually coming up to Halloween. There are plenty of traditions surrounding Halloween but it used to hold great importance in the student/teen calendar. Because time was, as Cady Heron in Mean Girls* put it: “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
No more. In the Fresher's calendar this is every night, that's the joy of Rappers and Slappers, they never go out of season. Come Halloween you just have to add 'dead' to the dress up rules. Dead sexy.
Of course, of course women freshers dressing in skimpy clothing is not the problem. The regard people/male freshers hold them in for acquiescing to the Pimps and Hos theme is. Not only does it perpetuate the notion hos (or prostitutes) do not have the right to consent but it also implies that to be Sexy is to Do As I Say. Or what the club poster says.
Student days are not intended for exploring new ways to humiliate women. Student days should be dedicated to exploring (not exploring the other side of a new town where you have been, hilariously, dropped off) new ideas, new aspects to your belief system and new meanings to the familiar. With that in mind I have come up with some new meanings to Fresher's club nights:
Slut Dropping – Dropping any term or attitude we deem to be slut shaming.
Tarts and Vicars – We bake vicars into tarts. Or we can just eat tarts, with vicars. Sugar fuelled theological debates ensue.
Rappers and Slappers – we rhyme together and slap the best beats on a record. Take charts by storm.
Pimps and Hoes – We all garden in flamboyant wear, creating compost and beauty while communing with nature.
*I make no apologies, that film is effing seminal.
Squeamish Kate
The slut drop, whether a regular occurrence that, like all forms of abuse relies on shame silencing any women involved, or a one time event has highlighted a shift in student life. It's certainly drawn attention to how women students are treated - they shouldn't have got so drunk, they shouldn't have dressed like that, they shouldn't have accepted a lift from someone they hardly knew.
If you live in a university city then over September and October the streets are awash with posters advertising club nights of increasingly sexist themes. It's been going for some time, if I had to date it I would guess it started around 2003, when you could be forgiven for thinking it was obligatory for lyrics to feature the words 'pimp' and 'ho'. 'Gosh I wish I could in some way emulate the world of recently recovered gun shot victim 50 Cent' thought, apparently, everyone. And so the baton was passed from Middle England to club land and Tarts and Vicars parties became Pimps and Hos nights. 9 years later we are wondering if this is rather encouraging sexist attitudes.
In spite of the Christmas decorations in the shops, it's actually coming up to Halloween. There are plenty of traditions surrounding Halloween but it used to hold great importance in the student/teen calendar. Because time was, as Cady Heron in Mean Girls* put it: “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
No more. In the Fresher's calendar this is every night, that's the joy of Rappers and Slappers, they never go out of season. Come Halloween you just have to add 'dead' to the dress up rules. Dead sexy.
Of course, of course women freshers dressing in skimpy clothing is not the problem. The regard people/male freshers hold them in for acquiescing to the Pimps and Hos theme is. Not only does it perpetuate the notion hos (or prostitutes) do not have the right to consent but it also implies that to be Sexy is to Do As I Say. Or what the club poster says.
Student days are not intended for exploring new ways to humiliate women. Student days should be dedicated to exploring (not exploring the other side of a new town where you have been, hilariously, dropped off) new ideas, new aspects to your belief system and new meanings to the familiar. With that in mind I have come up with some new meanings to Fresher's club nights:
Slut Dropping – Dropping any term or attitude we deem to be slut shaming.
Tarts and Vicars – We bake vicars into tarts. Or we can just eat tarts, with vicars. Sugar fuelled theological debates ensue.
Rappers and Slappers – we rhyme together and slap the best beats on a record. Take charts by storm.
Pimps and Hoes – We all garden in flamboyant wear, creating compost and beauty while communing with nature.
*I make no apologies, that film is effing seminal.
Squeamish Kate
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