Topic: Slut-shaming female dress codes and rape culture

Purpose: Make it clear that by raising boys to view women differently is the better solution to rape culture and abuse.

Thesis Statement:   What a woman wears does not stand as the reasoning behind being inappropriately treated by a man — it’s how men are raised that does.       

INTRO – WHAT IS – THESIS

Slut. Hoe. She’s asking for it.

These are all words said either to a girl’s face or behind her back about what she’s wearing.

Even if not verbally said, these type of words stand in the mind of many people, cemented as an acceptable form of judgement about that girl’s character.

Slut-shaming is embedded into our patriarchal society so badly that it’s expanded past just men using it — a lot of women do it to each other too.

Dress codes have entered our school systems to regulate how much of a girl’s body is covered, but when you examine the same standards for boys — there really aren’t any.

Shoulders and the entire chest are told to be covered, even if you deal with naturally larger breasts and cleavage.

Shorts must be past fingertip length — doesn’t matter if you’re 5’11 with extremely long legs.

And don’t even THINK about showing your midriff — even if you live in 85 degree weather.

Girls are conditioned to feel that it is their own body that is the main problem.

There’s a dress code to shame every type of female body, and the reason behind them all is the same — “to not distract the boys”

BODY 1 – WHAT COULD BE – RESEARCH

I recently was scrolling on facebook, and coincidentally came across an article written by blogger Amanda Goodman, a former news anchor and emmy winning writer.

• Tell story of her frat house blog post –

The boys in her story didn’t touch her, not because she was or wasn’t dressed appropriately, but because they were RAISED RIGHT.

They didn’t take anything that wasn’t theirs because they knew it wasn’t theirs for taking, and that Goodman’s belly shirt was NOT an indicator elsewise.

If 15-20 frat boys were raised to know to respect a woman before making an automatic judgement based on her clothing, then I’m sure we can teach other men the same.

BODY 2 – WHAT IS – PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

In high school, my body was frequently a topic of conversation. Junior year in this one class of mine, my outfits and actual body would be consistently brought up everyday by the senior boys and the teacher — as if it were nonchalant small-talk.

Nothing directly disrespectful was ever said — we were a very close class and i still remain good friends with the teacher and many of the boys….

But I was still subjected to the same treatment and judgement everyday — like my only role in the class was to sit there and listen to how short my shirt happened to be that day.

And the ONLY reason why I was the one that had to endure this subjection was because of my physical body type.

Girls in my class who had much smaller boobs and hips than me would come in LITERALLY wearing the exact same ripped jeans and crop tops as me, yet still NEVER faced the same sexualization that I did.

Conclusion- WHAT COULD BE – PURPOSE

This is the world we live in right now, and have been living in for years, and years, and years, and years.

Now imagine a world where this didn’t exist.

Where there were no such thing as words like “slut” or “hoe”

Where assault or rape were inexistent — and now you’re probably thinking, “oh that’s impossible, there’ll always be rape in the world” or “we can’t stop every bad person from raping”

But that’s just it! Right there! That is where my point is proven — if you’re thinking that rape cannot be totally prevented because we can’t stop every bad person from doing it, then that means you know deep down that rape is the fault of the rapist, THE BAD PERSON — not the victim.

Ask yourself this,

If we cover up every woman completely, every time she goes out or goes to school or just goes wherever, will that totally prevent her from being raped at all?

No. We all know the answer is no. There are women in parts of the world forced to dress with only their eyes shown, and they still experience being sexually abused and raped by men everyday.

But if we raise our boys differently, to know not to judge a female by her clothing, and to not always look for sexual motives behind her outfits and body, could we prevent that same woman from being raped?

Or in better terms, could we prevent that boy from raping that woman?

Yes, or we’re at least much more likely to.

Thank you

INTRO – “Slut.” “Hoe.” “She’s asking for it.” All of these phrases are referencing to one thing, and it’s usually what a girl is wearing. We see short skirts and shorts and crop tops everywhere, and the girl wearing them is usually judged harshly by their lengths. But where did these judgement standards come from? Who created them? And most importantly — how did they shift into what they are today? In the 1930s and during the Great Depression, what was deemed as “appropriate” for a woman to wear was a skirt halfway down her shin and long sleeve blouses. Even at the beach, bathing suits were not worn because they were not approved of. But who decided what was approvable for women to wear and what was not? Was it women themselves? Doubtful. Men? Probable. If you look around today at women of all ages, the socially accepted clothing is extremely different. As mentioned, skirts and shorts are now worn much shorter, with common lengths being right under the butt. Crop tops and belly shirts have taken over the social scene, and cleavage has taken the spot as a girl’s everyday blouse. Since the 30s and Great Depression period, this massive shift in the amount of skin showed by women increased, as did the approval of it. Simultaneously during this shift, women’s rights were also growing increasingly from the suffrage of many activists. Did this second-wave feminism indirectly cause this shift? Or was it intentional by female activists to change these social norms that were placed on women? The concurrent timeline between the rising skirt length in America and the feminist movement is no coincidence. Major female rights monuments during the 1900s, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Feminine Mystique, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and even more, both directly and indirectly caused the breaking of clothing standards more and more each decade — subsequently leading to the short skirts we wear now.

ANALYSIS/OPINION – In today’s society, women are sexualized to extreme standards. We see in commercials, ads, songs, and on social media women being objected for their bodies and what they wear on them. “Slut-shaming” sweeps society today as a too common form of judgement. However, outfits seen today can be so revealing they’re almost bare, and to a lot of men its deemed as “hot” or attractive. It’s desired by men to see more of a woman’s body, and pressure has been built on us girls to conform to these wants of theirs.  Years ago society was the opposite, and men did not want to see any type of skin publically. What was deemed as “slutty” then was a skirt at the knees — which today would be considered “prude.” Now, totally different meanings and expectations to the words “slut” and “prude” have been created, and it was men that created them. Before the wave of second-hand feminism hit, the social hierarchy of men placed women in the kitchen and house only — and the conservativeness of their outfits were to match the seriousness of this social norm. Now in modern day, since around the 80s very short skirts and crop tops have been a staple in female fashion, and men have come to accept and accentuate them sexually. But how did we get to this point of these revealing outfits even being accepted generally in society? During the second-wave feminism, women fought to break the social standards of their dress and skirt lengths, and did so hand in hand with many different legal changes and actions. CONT. + EVALUATE

BODY PARA SPLIT – The lowest point — both figuratively in women’s rights and physically in skirt length — during the beginning of this shift started in the 1930s while the Great Depression was occurring. Many female activists today agree that at this point in history, before second-wave feminism, having no effective legal or social movements for female equality meant that there were no additional forces to raise the norms for women within both their rights and skirt lengths. In 1932, the National Recovery Act forbid more than one person per family to be working a government job, which caused a surge in unemployment for women. (National Women’s History Alliance) Being right after the Roaring 20s and flapper girl era, this drop in unemployment was the start to a physical drop in women’s clothing lengths as well. Skirt lengths came crashing back down to almost ankle lengths and sleeves were again to be worn to the wrist. The psychological depression that came with the economic one during this time burdened a mental slump onto the American people — and majorly onto American women and their suffrage. In turn, women were then pushed back into the barriers of being prim, proper housewives whose legitimate jobs were in the kitchen, because there were barely any for them out in the workforce. CONT. WITH FACTUAL EVIDENCE + CITED SOURCE, ELABORATE

BODY PARA SPLIT – The 40s and 50s finally began to mark the pre-second-wave feminism hit in the US. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established that minimum wage be upheld for all workers regardless of gender. Although this was in the 30s, its major effects hit in the 40s and were the foundation for female encouragements, such as Rosie the Riveter. Additionally in 1947, during Fay v. New York, the U.S. Supreme Court declared women as equally qualified among men to serve on juries. (National Women’s History Alliance) This simple law allowing women on juries had massive effects, because from that point on a woman’s voice could directly be heard in legal and social decisions and changes for everyone. As an indirect result of this upward change in female power, skirt lengths got shorter by a lot. Throughout the 40s, skirts hit right under or at the knee, and once the 50s came around, a new type of voluminous, outgoing, flirty, and certainly shorter skirt came into accepted style — the poodle skirt. CONT. WITH FACTUAL EVIDENCE + CITED SOURCE, ELABORATE

BODY PARA FULL – The next pin mark within this paradigm shift is the biggest one, and is the actual turning point in flipping the ideologies of the paradigm shift. Women now demanded their voices be heard, and revolted against social norms that controlled their bodies by using them as their literal protesting weapon. The “burn the bra” movement, hippies, protests, flower power, classic rock — these all stood as the tipping point in American activism history that we all know and love as the Swinging 60s. Second-wave feminism hit like lightning during this time, and the analysis of this fuel within female equality all points to support the claim that a longer list of women’s rights meant less length of their skirts. Before the 1960s, younger girls were expected to dress like their mothers — conservative and classic. However, the 60s became the time period for the youth themselves. Delinquency became a common act, and the idea of challenging society’s social norms of being obedient and classy young women inspired the literal creation of mini skirts by a woman named Mary Quant. CONT. WITH FACTUAL EVIDENCE + CITED SOURCE, ELABORATE

CONCLUSION – Living as a young woman in the 21st century, I experience firsthand the dressing standards put onto a woman. I wear my fair share of skirts, shorts, and crop tops and shirts of different lengths, and I was given the ability and freedom to wear all of them in public from the suffraging of the feminists before me. Once the paradigm shift finally overturned in the 60s and 70s, we went on to witness through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s the extreme differences in clothing appropriateness among women. Since the shift, we’ve had the disco era of the 80s, grunge era of the 90s, and almost two decades into the 2000s full of the shortest skirts and shirts you could think of. Although we’ve come so much farther in accepting what women wear — all credited to the activists and action taken in the 60s — we still have started to experience again the sexualizations men place on our items of clothing. Women may have broken the boundaries and “slut-shaming” of the original idolizations before the paradigm shift, but men are the ones that continue to put the meaning behind the word “slut” to begin with. However as a nation, we have all undeniably felt the ground breaking recently to make way for this upcoming third-wave feminism hit in America. We have entered a mirror stage of the 60s — both fashion and socially wise — with the purpose to bring down the remade social norms that have been sexually placed on what us women wear. CONT. WITH FINAL EXAMPLE AND SUMMATION 

A paradigm shift is a major change in values or beliefs of a society/group of individuals. The original beliefs these groups of people held at the time were so confidently believed in,  however something in society had to cause such a major change in these values.

what was it?

An example of a large paradigm shift is the change over time from the early 19th century to now regarding what was considered inappropriate for a girl to wear. Back then, a skirt shorter than just above your knees was looked at as promiscuous. Now, however, it’s considered “prude” or conservative. What caused this change of opinion among our entire population? The feminist movement started during the 19th century, so the new push of empowerment made by women at the time could have certainly had an impact. The sexualization of women has also majorly increased since the 19th century, so shorter skirts may have become more acceptable to wear because — living in a patriarchal society — men made them okay.

Another example of a paradigm shift is accepting gay people/gay marriage. During the same time period as knee length skirts being considered too short, gay acceptance and marriage was also unheard of. Now, however, if you don’t support gay rights you are majorly looked down upon in society. I think part of this shift was just the fact that overtime, as more and more people came out as gay, it encouraged others too as well. This eventual growing group of openly gay people then encouraged everyone else in society to accept that being attracted to the same sex did not change the fact that these people were still human.

I’m not sure yet which out of these 2 shifts I’ll definitely end up doing, however I’m pretty sure that either will be interesting for me to research further into.

The smiley face
-Start with debriefing about eyes closed and privacy-

By a show of hands, how many of you have ever experienced genuine happiness?

• Pause

By a show of hands, how many of you have experienced genuine sadness or depression?

• Pause

Now how many of you would say you are actually a genuinely happy person?

• Pause

Now how many of you, when you have been sad, have ever felt obligated to hide or cover it up from others and pretend you are still happy?

• Pause
• -Have them raise heads + open eyes-

The civic artifact that i chose was the smiley face, and I started with these questions to get a basic understanding of this specific audience’s personal experience with representing your emotions – or your own “smiley face”.

Who invented the smiley face?

Where did it come from?

Who or what made it into the universal symbol that it is today?

There is only one answer to all 3 of those questions.

Us — we did.

Humans drew up this image of a feeling we have felt as an entire race since the start of our existence, and held it as the standard and expected status that you as a person are to supposed be in daily.

The smiley face symbol — whether it be in a facebook status, instagram caption, or handwritten in a letter — is just one sister sign to many different symbols that are supposed to represent our emotions

Take emojis for example, as of 2018 there are 2,823 different emojis — hundreds of those being ones that represent different human emotions

And do you know which is emoji is the very first one on the keyboard?

The smiley face.

There are so many different emotions, so many representations — why is happiness the one that is always thought of first and foremost?

In the questions i asked, you all voted that you have experienced true sadness or depression at one point — we all have.

You also all admitted that at the same time, you’ve been guilty at some point in covering up your sadness with a facade of happiness — again, we all have.

But why do we do this?

What about the smiley face symbol makes us feel so obligated to use it as a constant mask in front of everyone else who are probably doing or feeling the same thing as you anyway?

The answer to these questions is the civicness within the smiley face itself.

I could go on about individual examples of how it uses logos, pathos, and ethos — but i won’t.

Because the smiley face represents all three of those combined, working at once to create its civic duty in our everyday lives.

When we’re genuinely feeling happy, the smiley face remains as our first and main appeal to express it.

Being the epitome of emotional expressions, it stands as the trademark — both factually and reputably — for the emotion of happiness, which is where its logic and credibility come into play with its emotional meaning.

The smiley face appeals to everyone and their own feelings, their own logic, and their own reputation.

It’s appeals are what make it so universal, so obvious in what it means, and so regular in our everyday lives that its civic role in the world has been solidified.

The smiley face has become not so much a feeling anymore for a lot of people — but a norm.

It’s the norm to use the smiley face as this mask that people think is real all the time — because expressing moments of sadness has become misconstrued as moments of weakness or martyring.

It’s the norm when someone asks “how are you?” for you to automatically respond with “i’m good” because letting them know the truth about your bad day is considered impolite or so off-guard that it’s weird.

The outer stamp of a smile has and will always be used to express when we really are truly happy.

However, if you look deeper, you can peel back its mask of obligation being used on so many people, and see the true emotions of that person.

All because we as a human race care about what people think, and not how we feel.

THESE/INTRO – For centuries, a smile has been used as a cover up to every human being’s sadness. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”, written in 1896, proves that for centuries humans have felt the civic obligation to hide away our pain with a facade, or “mask”, of happiness. The mask that Dunbar is referring to in his poem is an additional civic artifact that furthers the explanation behind his poem — a smile. Although we are given a real date and background for the writing of Dunbar’s poem, we must still wonder — when did using the smile as a mask begin? For what reason did humans start to wear such a facade in the first place? Who created the idea that we must wear such a mask of fake well-being?

BODY PARA 1(THE TIMING, LOGOS) –  The timestamp of this poem, written in 1896, gives insight to how even over a hundred years ago, there was still a social norm of pretending you are happy even when you are really not. The ideology that in society we must never show our moments of weakness to others or in public was proved factual in Dunbar’s poem, however the topic of when humans started doing cannot be found on the surface. (GO FURTHER INTO WHEN THE CIVIC DUTY OF “THE MASK” REALLY STARTED)

• (Notes from research
• reaction to the racial climate of the late nineteenth century. He talks about hypocrisy, deception, and the fact that black Americans often resorted to seeming content with their social circumstances.)

BODY PARA 2(THE REASONING, PATHOS) – Emotions are apart of every person’s life, and a necessary part of achieving a healthy well-being is appealing to and accepting your own emotions as a human being. Mental health has been a sensitive and swept-under-the-rug subject in America since the country’s day of birth. There has always been a stigma that as people in society we must keep a grin on our face and continue to work hard and live the American dream. However, for every human being in this country, there are days where we do not feel our happiest and wish we could express it — but the over-looming civic duty of keeping that beautiful American smile on our face interrupts instead. Specifically within Dunbar’s poem, the civic obligation of hiding all your sadness, fears, and doubts into the mask of a smile was most prominent for African Americans. (GO FURTHER INTO WHY CIVIC DUTY OF MASK STARTED)

• (Notes from research
  • By indicating in the second stanza that the world would be “overwise” in sympathetically enumerating the miseries of black people, Dunbar recognizes that individuals risk their psychological equilibrium in immersing themselves too long or too deeply in the catastrophes of others. In short, they know too much for their own good. And when that unwanted knowledge brings guilt, real or assumed, for the almost irremediable ills of victimized millions, the wisdom of sympathetic involvement diminishes. Although Dunbar questions the prudence of such commitment, he sees the trap that white bigots have set for themselves: they continue dreaming. Let them dream, concludes the poet, knowing that dreamers have only two destinies: they either die in their sleep or they wake up)

BODY PARA 3(THE ORIGIN, ETHOS/SOME PATHOS) – The most intriguing and ambiguous question we have yet to answer is: who created the civic duty of wearing a constant mask of fake happiness in front of other people? Whose reputation and credibility can we blame for creating such a burden on people in society? The answer is us — we did this. Since the start of human existence our uncomfortableness with being vulnerable sparked the first “masks” of a fake smile to be made. There is no one answer or name we can place the guilt on, because as people of society, we as a group created the intolerance for public sadness either as the oppressor of emotions and sadness, or as the innocently oppressed in having to hide them. We did not mean to do it, nor did we choose to at a specific time. However, events in history like slavery, genocide, economic depressions, etc. furthered this emotional and mental oppression of those people who endured these travesties — furthering the epidemic of these fake smiles and masks. (GO FURTHER INTO US CREATING CIVIC DUTY)

CONCLUSION – As decent and conscious citizens of America, we do not purposely force ourselves and others into the obligation of hiding away our pain. However, we are still all guilty of it. (CONTINUE TO SUM UP PARA 3, 2,1) Dunbar’s poem is the perfect explanation of the neverending social norm of fake happiness, and the civic obligation within it. The smile symbol comes into play as a perfect connection to the explanation of this poem because it stands as the actual mask spoken about that has caused such a burden on society.

• (Notes from research
  • Dunbar is careful to show that the mask is grinning, not the black man. Although the poet’s use of the word “lies” is probably simple, it might not be. If the mask is lying to the wearer, the anguish of the black man shown in “Vagrants” is brought into play. If the mask is lying to white people, the psychology later explored by Ralph Ellison’s Dr. Bledsoe and the grandfather and the black physician in Invisible Man enters the poem. The hiding of cheeks and eyes is the concealment of those features that reveal tears and that give quality to smiles. To be blinded to these parts of a person’s countenance is to be blinded to his special humanity–which Langston Hughes considered artfully in writing his well-known poem “Minstrel Man.”)

The Smiley Face

When you have been sad, have you ever felt obligated to hide or cover it up from others and pretend you are still happy?

The answer is probably yes — and we’ve all done it before.

There are so many emotions humans feel, and so many emoticons we can use to express them. However, when we think of using things like emojis to represent how we feel, the smiley face has historically remained as the first one that comes to mind.

But the smiley face has been extremely conditioned to be not just an expression at this point, but more of a social norm. 

It’s expected as a person in society to always have a smile on your face.

Like when you’re asked “how are you?” and your answer out of obligation is usually “I’m good, thanks”…even though you’re really not.

There are so many questions to be answered about using the smiley face as this mask…like who created it? When did it become so universal in what it means?

In my civic artifact speech, I’ll dive deeper into the civic aspects of the smiley face, and why and how it became so civic to begin with.

In Kevin Carter’s photo, Starving Child and Vulture, a heart wrenching scene is portrayed to grasp the audience’s attention. Carter is attempting to turn the sadness and sympathy of the audience into guilt, because most people looking at the image don’t realize that it is their inaction towards the issue of poverty and starvation that fuels it to continue. A portrayal like this is necessary in our society today because we often forget how fortunate we are and in most cases — greedy. The prominent issue of child starvation and poverty in areas such as third world countries is more real than most people believe, and has been this real for longer than people thing. In fact, the need for this artifact has increased dramatically over time. In our society, the rich have become much richer while the poor have become much poorer, and the gap between the two is growing everyday. People like the Kardashians, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos — the list goes on and on — live the most lavish and unimaginable lives while people like the child in this photo don’t even have a home. For groups like people living in third world countries, or the lower class of America, this picture means something so important to them — the truth. We see the truth in this picture about what the world is really like outside our bubbles of safety and comfort and money in America. However, for groups like the rich people I listed before, this picture means something completely different — guilt. Although you cannot blame all of poverty and child starvation on one rich person, they definitely still look at this picture and think — assuming they have some type of compassion — that they could be doing more to help this end. The civic aspect of this artifact comes into play because again, it reminds us that we all live our everyday lives and follow the same norms we usually do without realizing how different it is for those in different areas of the world.