I haven’t been blogging for almost a month. Not that there isn’t anything to blog about, but rather I am keeping my comments to myself. Even though I have a really insignificant readership, I do not want to dignify certain events with “free” publicity – such as Slutwalk in Singapore. But now that it’s over, I am free to talk about it.

First of all, I was quite amuse that it is written at the end of the Slutwalk ‘About Page’ (screenshot here) that they “demand respect”. The organisers of SlutWalk should get it into their head that respect can only be earned. People might observe the proper decorum before a person in a position of power to avoid trouble but that is not respect. For e.g. During our National Service, we still have to salute an officer because of his rank even when we scoff at his personal character. Outside the army, we generally do not shout at our Cabinet Ministers when they are doing their rounds at the hawker center or market even when we might dislike certain government policies. Maintaining proper decorum has nothing to do with respect to the other person. It is simply self respect. Perhaps, what Slutwalk meant is that men should maintain proper decorum in the face of women who dressed in a certain way?

Anyway, I wondered what this Slutwalk is all about when I first heard about it. So I asked my best friend Google and discovered that it is a protest march “against explaining or excusing rape by referring to any aspect of a woman’s appearance” which originated in Toronto, Canada. The reason was because an unfortunate police constable by the name of Michael Sanguinetti suggested to a class of university students there that for a woman to remain safe, she should avoid “dressing like sluts”.

I felt sorry for the poor constable. From the way I see it, he was merely pointing out that every person have the responsibility of crime prevention. He even suggested that the best way to prevent being a victim of sexual predation is not to dress in a certain manner. Would it have been better if he said the following?

“While it might be true that not all men gets sexually aroused by every sexily dressed woman, it is one of the main ways most men gets sexually aroused. There is simply the risk of attracting the attention of sexual predators when dressed in a certain way. You can ignore this advice at your own risk.”

Bah, what a mouthful! I wouldn’t be surprised if the constable is accused of trying to make his job easier if he said that!

Interestingly, the Ministry of Law planned to repeal Section 157(d) of the Evidence Act even before Slutwalk. That must have energised and inspired the organisers of Slutwalk. After all, even the government is agreeing with that and saying that a woman’s sexual history should not be examined during a rape trial. It certainly goes some way to “raise awareness against victim-blaming and slut-shaming” as well. Even so, no one asked how is Slutwalk going to prevent more women from coming to harm from sexual predators. Sure, it maybe helpful to the victims by not accusing them of having brought misfortune upon themselves, but is Slutwalk teaching women how to protect themselves at all? It would appear to me that it had completely ignored the risks of behaving or dressing in a certain way. That is utterly irresponsible. Are the organisers of Slutwalk even aware of the undesirable impression that they now appeared to be nothing more than just a bunch of people who simply refused to act responsibly, even to themselves?

Then again, no one likes to be told about responsibilities. I suspect if Slutwalk supporters could have put it any other way, opposing Slutwalk would be equal to committing rape. However, even though Slutwalk can subject most people to agree that a victim of sexual predation is not at fault, great help it does in changing the impression of people of women who dressed anyway she likes! After all, ignoring the risks and dressing irresponsibly has absolutely nothing to do with morality. It is equal to acting foolishly – much like the fool who walks through a dark and deserted back alley counting the number of thousand-dollar notes in his wallet. (And no, even smart people can act foolishly. I am not calling women who dressed irresponsibly a fool. But why do I care anyway? They can spawn a IrresponsibleWalk or FoolWalk for all I cared. It’s cheap comedy.)

And by the way, what’s with all that nose rings?

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【Addendum 08-Dec-2011】As I have always said, there are some people who believed very much in the freedom of expression – just their own. First of all, someone without a sense of humor called me “a shame to all men” for posting the picture above even though he / she grudgingly admitted I had a right to criticise. That’s not mentioning I had female friends who looked at it and shared a chuckle or two. Next, someone complained to Facebook and had this picture removed after I uploaded it to one of my albums. And finally, I had someone accusing me of having “anti-female rights and pro-rape attitudes” and attempting to put up a comment with an address to a company purported to be my employer. The intention is probably to pressure my employer into terminating my employment. What the f@$% ?!

The ‘tolerance’ of these few people are an eye opener. I wouldn’t be surprised that these are the very same people screaming loudly about inclusiveness and so-called tolerance. Figures why there are no takers! After all, they aren’t even living what they ‘preached’. I wouldn’t bother going down to Hong Lim Park to throw rotten eggs and tomatoes (or even to boo / heckle those there), and yet these people have the gall to come to here and even gone so far with an attempt to threaten my livelihood. For those who know me very well in person, I have always been a strong proponent of castrating rapists and child molesters, and in fact I personally would prefer to extend capital punishment to those who rape their own daughters or sisters. On top of that, I believe in universal suffrage, equal employment, educational and health care rights for women. I am simply not for the methods used by the likes of Slutwalk (and in extension, AWARE) to promote the kind of “female rights” they believed in. So, try “try harder” for those who want to stick that “pro-rape” and “anti-female rights” label on me. Frankly, none of you know me, and to label and persecute me over this one article is similar to calling a woman a slut over how she dressed. Somewhere, I recalled Slutwalk calling that an act of violence. How ironic!