Opinion: Slut shaming in schools needs to stop

While school dress codes are nothing new, school faculty who enforce this practice with humiliating, unnecessary or public punishments may be sending the wrong message to students by encouraging the objectification of young women. Slut shaming is an issue going around schools which ties to bullying and rape culture.

In an article from the LA Times titled “The Problem with Slut Shaming,” 16-year-old-student Mary James Salazar was kept out of class most days in October during the LA heat waves for wearing a red spaghetti-strap dress. A counselor told Salazar she wasn’t allowed to go back to class unless she covered up. Salazar’s dress was considered too revealing and distracting. She refused to change her clothes, as she thought the counselor was being sexist. A few weeks later after the incident, she and a friend created an anti-slut shaming rally. At the rally, Salazer and her friend started a petition to protest sexist dress codes at school.

Many female students suffer from slut shaming not only from school faculty but from their fellow classmates as well. According to Oxford Dictionaries , slut shaming is “the act of criticizing a woman for her real or presumed sexual activity, or behaving in ways that someone thinks are associated with her real or presumed sexual activity.” Those assumptions are made based on what they wear, what they look like or rumors about them. It influences the way people think about girls’ responsibility to prevent their own sexual assault. In a nationally representative 2011 survey from the American Assn. of University Women found that slut shaming is one of the most common forms of sexual harassment that students in middle and high school face.

Slut shaming is consider some type of bullying. It can affect the student’s ability to succeed in school. Depression, suicidal thoughts, self-hatred, sexual fear and sexual recklessness can be some of the effects. Students who suffer from slut shaming are less likely to succeed in school. They don’t want to go to school and get in trouble in school or have problems with sleeping/studying.

Slut Shaming leads to rape culture as well. Rape culture is blaming the victim rather than the rapist for the assault, and saying the victim did something to provoke the attack. Rape culture involves sympathizing with the rapist. Rape culture is when the victims are blamed for what they are wearing, hence “asking for it”, being out alone in the night, or being flirtatious. The Steubenville High School rape case is a case where slut shaming and rape culture are involved. A young girl went to a party and was gang raped by several of her classmates, while one of them recorded it. The girl was drunk and far past the point of consent. The girl’s rapists were respected athletes because of this stigma of the case, the girl was slut shamed.

Many girls and women suffer from slut shaming. Just because a girl or woman looks a certain way or is dressed a certain way doesn’t mean she should be judged and put down. It is a very serious issue because of this students are bullied and raped.