The Skirt Made Me Do It

Today's Rape Culture in America:

http://thenextfamily.com/2011/09/feature-article-by-lauren-jankowski/

"It was her fault, she was asking for it."

"Did you see her outfit, looks like she stepped right off the corner?"

"She is asking for it, her dress is so tight I can see her heart beating."

Cary Edington, an employee of the Sexual Assault Crisis Intervention (SACI) defines society's rape culture as, "Rape culture is the ways in which media, social, and other interactions explicitly or implicitly allow, condone, encourage, or excuse rape, often by matching sex and violence and/or placing blame on or creating (possible) victims."

Today people point blame on the victim of the sexual assault due to potential nonverbal consent, such as a tight skirt or being blackout drunk at a party. 

As an act to fight back to this rape culture, activists all over the country have been participating in the act of SlutWalks. 

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/pa-slut-walk_photo_1929662.htm

Edington defined a Slutwalk as, "A slut walk is a form of raising awareness about victim-blaming behaviors, the most prevalent one being 'slut-shaming' or assuming that a person raped is a slut, rather than an innocent victim/survivor.  The main focus of these walks is to either take back the word 'slut' as a choice that is up to individual women and should not be censored by society or to deride the common dismissal of rape victims as 'sluts.'"

http://hannamade.wordpress.com

Such protests are trying to reduce "the fear of sexual assault/harassment to show that their clothing, 'flirting', talking, walking, or simply being is not an excuse for violence upon their person," Edington said.

Central Michigan Organization of Women Leader's (OWLs) has been putting on annual Slutwalks at CMU with their first one in 2013, said by OWLs Vice President, Danielle Cywka. 

They will continue to support women, through Slutwalks and other events, as their organization's "values lie in always empowering and encouraging women to grow as both women and leaders," said said by Cywka. 

Many organizations and individuals, such as SACI, OWLs, Cywka, and Edington, are trying to put an end to the fact that #TheSkirtMadeMeDoIt.