SlutWalk, the international movement to reclaim the word "slut" through women marching in provocative clothing, came to Baltimore last weekend. The walk aims to combat the misogynist view that women who are dressed in a certain way deserve unwanted male attention (which at best is unnecessary and at worst can result in sexual attacks).
This page applauds the efforts of Hollaback Bmore! and the area men and women who set up the event. We believe that political rallies and events in Baltimore will only help to engage the populace in major cultural issues. The march was particularly timely in the wake of Teonna Marie Brown's recent sentencing. Aged 18 at the time of her crime, Brown attacked a transgender woman in a McDonalds in East Baltimore last year with an unidentified juvenile.
SlutWalk was originally intended as a response to a Toronto official telling people that women should not dress provocatively if they don't want to be assaulted, but the message of acceptance and tolerance has spread and taken on additional significance at local levels.
One need only watch the YouTube video detailing the vicious and unprovoked McDonalds attack to realize that there is no semblance of acceptance of different types of people in the incident. This is compounded by the shocking statistic that six recent shootings in the D.C. area, two of them fatal, targeted transgender individuals.
The distilled message of SlutWalk is the acceptance of all types of people as they are and the rejection that anyone should ever be discriminated against for the clothes that they wear or the sense of self they project. This page strongly believes that events like SlutWalk should come to Baltimore more often, whether it be through a large institution like Hopkins or through interested members of the community who take it upon themselves to shed light on a marginalized societal issue. When community members stand up for something they believe in they send a positve message about the feasibility of all types of social change.
This message should extend from the Baltimore community into Hopkins, so that it even reaches campus members who did not attend the event downtown. SlutWalk has set a good example in Baltimore and we encourage Hopkins students to continue to speak out until this issue is finally addressed, not only on college campuses, but around the world.
