Julie McLaughlin
The complicated crash of a feminist movement
It shouldn’t come as much of a shock that organizing a protest called SlutWalk is a difficult feat to pull off in Calgary.
The controversial movement which started in Toronto following a remark earlier this year by a police officer who said “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” The comment prompted thousands of frenzied women and men to take to the streets of cities around the globe to publicly resist the ideologies of rape culture and victim blaming.
Over the past two weeks however the Calgary rendition of the march crumbled to the ground amidst a plethora of liability issues controversy over sponsorship and name-calling. But there still might be a future for a local march if two dedicated women and their team are successful in resurrecting it.
Act I:
In late January the aforementioned Toronto cop blurted the damning quote to a York University law class. Upon hearing the careless words two women swiftly assembled thousands of fishnet-clad and sign-bearing protestors in Queen’s Park as the world gazed on with awe and vexation.
Soon after Nicole Brady a Mount Royal University (MRU) student and a sexual assault victim began organizing the local adaptation of the march. Support poured in from activists and feminists eager to challenge misogynist and discriminatory paradigms in a city that “isn’t very friendly to any kind of public expression” as Susan Harris of the MRU women’s studies department describes.
For the first couple of weeks march plans ran smoothly. The committee started to receive sponsorship offers. Various organizations actively combating sexual abuse in the city hopped aboard.
And then radio personality Gerry Forbes and the CJAY 92 crew offered up their promotional services which Brady and her group accepted after a few days of deliberation. They needed publicity and Forbes wanted an outlet to tell men that it’s not acceptable to rape women.
The story had hit its turning point.
Act II:
It turns out that a handful of SlutWalk Calgary supporters had momentous contentions with CJAY’s endorsement. For them giant billboards of near-naked women the Babe of the Day and multiple condemnatory rulings of the station by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council for explicit content negated any effort by the SlutWalk to challenge rape culture.
A Facebook group was created to oppose the sponsorship; a prohibition symbol over Forbes’s face served as the profile picture. At least 118 people joined in a week and began to engage in a discourse — both on the protest page and on the SlutWalk Calgary page — about why something had to change. Forbes later called the group members “radical feminist idiots that don’t understand the thing and haven’t done any research.”
Allison Robins the founder of the protest group was banned from the SlutWalk Calgary page. Brady assures that neither she nor her team suppressed anyone’s voice. Some comments were deleted — such as “Gerry Forbes condones the rape of women” — but all other flagging was reportedly conducted by regular Facebook users.
Robins and the group’s co-administrator Meg Martin contend that the moderation was excessive. Any criticism of CJAY involvement was deleted and queries about the sponsorship were left unanswered.
Logistical concerns were rising concurrently with the controversy fuelling the chaos. Brady and her team had the co-operation of the city (and the Calgary Police thanks to Forbes) but couldn’t privately obtain liability insurance; the team contacted numerous companies but failed to garner any response. Brady assumed that the event was deemed too risky to be covered.
The march which was scheduled for mid-June would not be able to proceed without security as any injury that occurred would land squarely — and painfully — on Brady’s lap. Before Brady left for a week-long vacation to Mexico she knew that the event would be cancelled. On June 3 the news broke in a press release. SlutWalk Calgary was officially cancelled.
Act III:
As any playwright understands some form of solution — either comedic or tragic — must be given to the tale. The quill has now been handed from Brady and her team to Robins and Martin — the two ladies who vehemently disagreed with CJAY’s participation — to compose the dénouement.
“I felt passionate enough to criticize SlutWalk and I feel obligated now to fill the void that has been left in the wake of its cancellation” Robins says.
But for now only the basics are known. It will be inclusive. The ladies realize they don’t own the movement and want many voices — condoning or critical — to be involved in the decision-making process. They forge ahead with their plans. Permits insurance and city endorsement need to be acquired for the march. Robins and Martin don’t want the momentum of the movement to fade.
Although specifics of the event are just beginning to be worked out Heather Jarvis — the co-founder of the Toronto movement — reminds Calgary to have grace for Brady Robins and Martin and to remember that: “People fuck up. They can’t know everything and won’t do everything perfectly.”
If Calgarians rally behind the rebirth of the disputed cause the SlutWalk march will go on just as it has played out in dozens of other cities. And if feminists activists and maybe the occasional radio host unite to condemn victim blaming patriarchy and rape culture then the city may become a place where the civil articulation of frustrations occurs more often and age-old traditions of bigotry are dealt fatal blows.
That would make for a stunning finale.
