Culture from legal defense to battle cry: how 'Slutwalks' became a global movement by Meredith Melnick | @meredithcm | May 10, 2011 | + Tweet Reuters / Mark Blinch Calling a woman a "slut" is not uncommon. Women are labeled as such for sleeping with a man, for flirting or simply dressing provocatively. People call women sluts, women call other women sluts, and sometimes women even call themselves sluts. This use of language harms — the potential was made clear after a student security presentation at the law school of York University in Toronto in January. At the session, members of York’s security team and the Toronto Police Service handed out community safety tips, including Constable Michael Sanguinetti's suggestion that female students could avoid sexual assaults by not dressing like sluts (more on TIME.com: "Legal Sex Work in Canada: Is It Getting Easier, Safer?"). Immediately afterward, the law school students and faculty demanded an apology from the Toronto Police. Although the officer who made the comments apologized and was reprimanded (but remained on duty), his comment sparked a protest movement that has since gone global. In April, thousands of women participated in the first "Slutwalk" in Toronto, demonstrating against the idea that rape victims should somehow be held accountable for their attacks, and reclaiming the term "slut." “Taking responsibility for our sexual lives should not mean that we open ourselves up to an expectation of violence, whether we're engaging in sex for pleasure or work," wrote the organizers of the movement on the Slutwalk Toronto website. "No one should have to enjoy sex with the threat of sexual assault equated to it.” (More on TIME.com: "No Sex Before Marriage, Please, We’re British: 'Virginity Tests' and Immigration in the 1970s.") Since the first walk in Toronto in April, 20 additional marches have been held in cities across Canada and the U.S., with others planned in further cities in the U.S. and in the U.K. and Australia, after the movement gained momentum largely online via Facebook and Twitter. It seems obvious that women who are raped should not be blamed for being victims. But the idea that sometimes sluts get what they "deserve" runs deep in our culture — even in the justice system, and also among journalists, school principals, and those allegedly acting as impartial witnesses. For instance, in March, an 11-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped by 18 men in an abandoned trailer in East Texas; in the New York Times report on the story, James C. McKinley Jr. felt it necessary to include descriptions of the child — who was abducted and sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man in an abandoned trailer — saying that residents noted: "She dressed older than her age, wore makeup and looked more appropriately like a woman in her 20s. She would hang around teenage boys at the playground." (More on TIME.com: "Why Abortion Opponents Should Leave Birth Control Out of the Debate.") In February, in a case in Canada where the defendant was convicted of raping a woman, Manitoba Judge Robert Dewar decided not to give the rapist jail time and said that his victim's clothing and flirtatious behavior on the night of the attack signaled that "sex was in the air," according to the Winnipeg Free Press report: Dewar called [rapist Kenneth] Rhodos a "clumsy Don Juan" who misinterpreted what the victim wanted when he forced her along a darkened highway outside Thompson in 2006. Rhodos and a friend met the 26-year-old woman and her girlfriend at a bar earlier that night under what the judge described as "inviting circumstances." Dewar explicitly pointed out that the women were wearing tube tops without bras, high heels, and heavy make-up. "They made their intentions publicly known that they wanted to party," said Dewar. The decision caused public outrage and an investigation by the Canadian Judicial Council. Dewar has since agreed to recuse himself from presiding over all future sexual crime cases. The result suggests that public calls for accountability from victim-blaming, or "slut-shaming," as Slutwalk organizers call it, can sustainably influence positive change and help alter the culture — whether in courtrooms or in the elegant halls of the Gray Lady bureaus (More on TIME.com: "What Did the Planned Parenthood Sting Really Achieve?"). The goal of Slutwalk is to "take back" the word and reduce its power. "The word 'slut' is an act of violence. Not just metaphorically. It gives people permission to rape us, and the person who draws it gets away scot-free," said Jaclyn Friedman, a feminist activist who led the most recent Slutwalk event in Boston on May 7. "It sends a message: this is fair game. Go ahead. No one will blame you." The organization's website has a list of cities with scheduled Slutwalks programmed throughout the summer.