Hypocrites from the “right” side of the track have long pointed out the planks they perceive to be in their across-the-track neighbors’ eyes while ignoring the specks wedged in their own eyes.
Class matters
Armstrong and Hamilton's study published in the June issue of Social Psychology Quarterly found that slut-shame applies "disadvantageous sexual double standards established by men."
“By engaging in ‘slut- shaming’ — the practice of maligning women for presumed sexual activity — women at the top create
more space for their own sexual experimentation, at the cost of women at the bottom of social hierarchies,” Armstrong says in a release.
More than 50 white female undergrads who lived on the same dorm floor at a large Midwest university were studied.
Unbalanced scale
Research determined that when the young women used words like “tramp” and “slut” to describe peers, class is a factor and richer women actually have more leeway when it comes to what happens in the bedroom.
Richer co-eds were more likely to be considered as engaging in sexual “exploration” considered acceptable than their lower middle class and working-class dorm mates.
“Surprisingly, women who engaged in less sexual activity were more likely to be publicly labeled a ‘slut’ than women who engaged in more sexual activity,” Armstrong said. “This finding made little sense until we realized that college women also used the term as a way to police class boundaries. High-status women, who were from affluent families, defined themselves as classy compared to other women whom they viewed as trashy or slutty. Less affluent women — and others excluded from high-status circles — equated ‘sluttiness’ with exclusivity, materialism, and shallowness.”
Less-affluent women linked being stuck-up, snobby and exclusive to being “slutty,” but only they were actually publicly slut-shamed if rich women recognized their existence at all, Armstrong told the Huffington Post.
The richer women relied on “a complex code of conduct that wasn’t easy for outsiders to imitate.”
“You looked hot, but not slutty. You looked classy, not trashy,” Armstrong told the website. “You hooked up just the right amount, but not too much. You engaged in the ‘appropriate’ amount of sexual activity. You selected men who were hot, not men who were jerks, from the right fraternities, not the wrong fraternities.”
Poorer woman risked being slut-shamed when they attempt to fit in with richer ones and do things like attend fraternity and sorority parties.
Ancient history
The term “slut-shaming” is relatively new, but the practice Armstrong and others say is just another form of mean-girl bullying has been going on for many generations. It can and has led to victim-blaming, depression and suicides.
As Slate.com wrote:
The higher-class women defined ‘respectable femininity’ as a “polite, accommodating, demure style often performed by the white middle class,” what one woman described as “the preppy, classy, good girl.” These were women with “parent-funded credit cards” who wore “expensive MAC-brand purple eye shadow” instead of drugstore brands and — instead of working jobs — “had time to go tanning, get their hair done, do their nails, shop, and keep up with fashion trends.”
In other words, if you have the money, nice clothes and a suntan, whatever you do in the bedroom is fine.
But if you are among those who have less, all you need to do is show up and you could be labeled a tramp.
It is a classic case of the pot-calling-the-kettle-slut classism that has long pitted girl against girl and woman against woman.
It is destructive and decidedly anti-woman, no matter where the woman falls on the socioeconomic ladder.
Contact this blogger at arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com or Twitter.com/DDNSmartMouth
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