SlutWalk DC

Last Saturday we went down to Washington for SlutWalk DC.  We met Morgan's mom just as we got out of the Farragut North stop, and walked to Lafayette Square.  We knew we were going in the right direction when we passed a group of people wearing "DO NOT CROSS" yellow police tape as pageant sashes, and a person in fishnets and a sign that said "I'm a teacher, not  slut".

I had painstakingly made my sign the night before with a Sharpie and a cardboard box that used to hold 10-cm tissue culture dishes.  And here I thought that all of that time spent in elementary and middle school working on art projects wouldn't be good for anything.

Here's me with my sign, in front of the White House.

My sign was one of the larger ones (especially when we got there shortly after eleven), so a lot of people wanted to photograph it.  One person even cheerfully informed me that it was already her facebook profile picture.

There were a few other signs in the same vein as mine (rape is caused by rapists, not by women's clothing).  Other popular signs included "My dress is not a yes", "Sluts say yes", "This is not consent for rape", "Don't touch this", "Consent is sexy", and "I was raped wearing these clothes; apparently I was dressed like a slut and deserved to be raped".  One person was handing out tiny protest muffins, each with a little sign that said "Stop rape now!"  One baby was wearing a t-shirt that said "My mommy is a slut".  Another little girl was in a princess costume.

We rallied in Lafayette Square until noon.  Some cops came by and hassled one of the organizers.  I thought it was a little tense for a moment there (after all, SlutWalks started off in response to a comment by a cop), but she had all of our permits in order, and they left.

In fact, when we started marching at noon, we had a police escort that had closed off one of the lanes of 15th for us to march down, and all of the cross streets so that no one got hit by cars.  As we marched, we chanted: "Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes! No means no!", "Wherever we go, however we dress, no means no! Yes means yes!", "Two, four, six, eight; it is not ok to rape!", and "Hey hey!  Ho ho!  Victim-blaming has got to go!"  Marchers tacked up "Stop victim-blaming" signs on the tour buses we walked by.  Lots of tourists took our pictures.  As we got to the Washington Monument, one elderly passerby asked, "Is this some kind of gay revolution?"; one of the marchers stopped to explain that, no, this was a march to end victim-blaming in sexual assault cases.

Between the march and the rally, we had a little downtime, so I visited the booths and got a five-minute self-defense class.  We began by learning how to say no (the key is for body language and facial expression to both be consistent with the verbal message), learned the best places to hit an attacker (the parts of the body that can never get buff, no matter how hard someone works out, and thus don't have a protective layer of muscle or fat: eyes, temple, nose, hollow of the throat, kneecaps).  The teacher was a big advocate as the nose as a target: it doesn't take that much force to break a nose, and with a broken nose, the eyes start watering in response, and then your attacker won't see you as you make your escape.  We practiced hitting a foam target: don't try to punch your attacker (unless you actually have practice throwing punches), but rather go with the heel of your palm or the side of your fist (i.e., the part of your fist that hits the table when you pound your fist on a table).  The last time I smacked the target, the instructor cheerfully informed me that "that would have broken his nose!".  (I imagine these skills are also transferable in the case of shark attack or if a black bear starts chewing on me.)

By then the skies turned an ominous black.  We listened to the first speech huddled under our umbrella and cardboard sign (which, surprisingly enough, did a pretty good job of keeping off the rain), but after the first speech we bailed and headed for shelter.

At first the guard at the National Museum of American History wouldn't let me in with my sign, but we eventually worked out an agreement wherein I could carry it in as long as it was folded up and its message was no way visible.  Not quite sure what the policy was (I doubt he would have prohibited my entry if I were wearing a t-shirt with the same message, for example), but I was glad to get out of the rain.

Here's me with my folded-up sign and Anthony Daniels' C-3PO costume from Return of the Jedi (which the Smithsonian has the audacity to call "the sixth episode"):

Fortunately, neither the folding nor the rain destroyed my sign, so I hope to use it in future SlutWalks.  I'll see you all in Baltimore on September 17.