Slut Walk Will March To End Rape Culture Again This Saturday

By Gwendolyn Purdom in News on Aug 18, 2016 8:58PM

Conversations confronting rape culture are getting louder, but when convicted perpetrators of sexual assault like Brock Turner, or more recently Austin Wilkerson, make headlines for their lenient sentencing, many say there's still a long way to go. More than 1,600 people will march to protest that deeply-engrained system of slut-shaming and victim-blaming Saturday when this year's Slut Walk steps off from The Bean in Millennium Park at noon.

"We'll march, protest, chant, laugh, sing, speak out and listen to one another as we talk about the realities of living inside rape culture and build a community to fight it!," organizers wrote about the event on Facebook. Slut Walk formed in 2011 in response to a police officer telling a group of college students that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized," according to Slut Walk Chicago's Facebook page, and Slut Walks, as well as other activist groups like GRLCVLT, have popped up around the world to protest that mindset in the years since.

"Most of us can’t be in the courtroom, fighting sexist policies and rulings, but what everyone can do is show up demonstrate and speak their truth against rape culture in a show of collective force,” Daney Villa, a Chicago Slut Walk organizer, said in a press release about the event.

Merchandise and literature, like the group's magazines, T-shirts and buttons will be available for a donation at the event, and organizers stress that sexism, body shaming, heterosexism, racism and fat-ism will not be tolerated.

“This is an event where we take back public space, an event where survivors push
back against the slut shaming and victim blaming that society uses against them,”
Red Shulte, another organizer, said in the release. “Over 1,000 people have RSVP’d to say, ‘These are our bodies and this is our city. Slut Walk is where we take a stand against rape culture and state violence.’”