“What were you wearing?”
A phrase that we probably all have heard in response to a woman coming forward about being sexually assaulted. A phrase that inadvertently encourages other women to stay silent about their assaults. A phrase that fuels the normalization, delegitimization of sexual assault--rape culture.
When the topic of sexual assault against women comes up, people show how disposable they believe women are. They believe that because a woman was not wearing “enough” clothes, that warrants her being sexually assaulted and antagonized. This way of thinking not only comes from people not valuing women but it also comes from people not understanding the dynamics and motives of sexual assault.
People think that rape is sex that someone wanted badly enough, they went to great lengths to violate someone to get it. That’s such a reductive take on what sexual assault actually is. Sexual assault is not about sex. It is not about desirability. It is about seeking for a perverse sense of power by denying one agency of their body. It is about thinking so little of someone, you think you are entitled to their body and space by any means necessary.
What a woman wears does not determine whether she will be assaulted or not. The presence of a rapist determines whether a woman will be assaulted. Women are sexually assaulted and harassed in many different types of clothing. Women in Burkas are still sexually assaulted. How do you explain that? Are they not covered from head to toe? What would’ve “provoked” someone to sexually assault them?
This is why measuring a woman by the clothes that she wears is toxic. Not only is it policing but it also perpetuates the idea that a woman is no longer worthy of respect when she is not dressed a certain way; so much so that people think it’s rational to fault her for being assaulted. Can you imagine, from the outside looking in, a world where people think it is logical for a man to sexually assault--to violate and ruin a woman’s life simply because her skirt wasn’t as long as they thought it should be? How little do we actually think of women?
This, in retrospect, also shows how little men think of themselves. Men paint themselves as so primitive when they claim a woman not being covered up enough provokes them to sexually assault her. They go as far as comparing themselves to wild animals. “When you wave meat in front of a lion, what do you expect?” Okay, but men aren’t lions. They are humans who are capable of self-control. They do not have to be these rigid, sex-driven creatures they paint themselves as.
As a Black woman, what I also find interesting is how cishet Black men can understand they should not be racially profiled, frisked, and lastly killed because they’re perceived as “thugs” for wearing hoodies and sagging their jeans but they seem to not “get” how a woman should not be sexually harassed or assaulted for wearing “skimpy” clothes that result in people perceiving her as a “hoe.”
I have said this many times before on Twitter and every time, cishet Black men have gone blue in the face trying to argue what holds to be very true. It is the same premise. Both marginalized groups--Black people and women--are made disposable under most circumstances--of course--but people also use their attire as an excuse to attack and antagonize them. Both the “hoe” and the “thug” are being mistreated because of people’s perceptions based on how they are dressed as the frowned upon demographic they are--Black and woman. Neither should be mistreated for how they are dressed.
Cishet Black men who refuse to see the correlation are only doing so because they are way too invested in their sexism to even acknowledge the very sound correlation. They only see the fault in how they are treated--not in how they treat women, specifically Black women.
For a cishet Black man to accept this comparison, they would have to unlearn that sexism packed inside of them that makes them believe a woman should expect and accept that she will be mistreated for “dressing like a hoe.” If we’re going by this logic, shouldn’t you expect to be treated as a “thug” for dressing as so? I mean, what exactly is the truth?
Calling women all kinds of “hoes” and “sluts” also contributes to rape culture. Whenever I tell people that them shaming women for being sexual contributes to rape culture, I’m always met with incredulous remarks. “How in the world does calling women ‘hoes’ help rape culture?”
Remember when I said earlier that the whole point of calling women “hoes” is about control? It is about denying a woman agency of her body. It is about fetishizing and objectifying women’s bodies but when women want to celebrate their own bodies and sexualities, it is frowned upon. Control. Now, I’m not saying calling a woman a “hoe” is the equivalent of sexually assaulting a woman. I am saying that both acts are fueled by the idea that women should not be in control of their bodies and sexualities.
Not only that, but people use sex-shaming women as a way to discredit women who have been sexually assaulted.
“She ain’t get raped. She just don’t wanna be called the hoe that she is.”
“She be giving it up to everybody. Ain’t no way she got raped this time.”
These are few of the many examples I have heard and read on Twitter from people who wish to discredit a woman as a sexual assault survivor. You know, just because a woman has said yes many times before, does not mean she can not say no this one time. “Hoes” can get raped too.
Shaming women for being sexual continues to show that it serves no purpose other than to degrade women. In the end it only helps create a culture where women are afraid to come forward for being assaulted. It helps create a culture where when a woman does come forward, instead of believing her, people resort to using her sex life as a means to discredit her. If we want to make this world safer, if we wish to eradicate our world of rape culture, we have to begin by allowing women to own their bodies--and respect that.