{"id":13182,"date":"2018-02-15T11:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T05:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=13182"},"modified":"2018-02-19T16:55:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T11:25:08","slug":"slut-shaming-friend-zone-two-sides-objectification-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/slut-shaming-friend-zone-two-sides-objectification-coin\/","title":{"rendered":"Slut Shaming and The Friend Zone: Two Sides of The Objectification Coin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2019Slut\u2019 attacks a woman\u2019s right to say yes. \u2018Friend\u00a0<\/em>zone\u2019 attacks a woman\u2019s right to say no. And \u2018bitch\u2019 attacks her right to call you out on it.\u201d<\/em>\u2013 Anonymous<\/p>\n

Side 1: Slut Shaming<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Growing up, I was always the girl who didn\u2019t care. Teenage boys (and some of them majors) hit on me as soon as puberty came, and after every break up I would date someone new after a while. I made friends with guys, I made friends with girls, I never cared about what I wore and whom I roamed with.<\/p>\n

No one really knew about feminism at the time, and the ideology that went around wherever I went was that if you were seen with more than one guy, you were a \u201cslut\u201d. A slut meant a desperate girl, someone who was clingy and always wanting sex. This girl would usually be shamed for her looks as well \u2013 a desperate girl would be termed unattractive to add to the humiliation factor.<\/p>\n

My first experience with slut shaming was by one of my own best friends who told me that since I was hanging out with \u201ctoo many guys\u201d it was obvious what I wanted and that people are bound to think I am a slut. She said she was warning me for my own good, for this behaviour of mine was unacceptable. That experience was not the last \u2013 I changed schools in grade XI, and was confronted by a girl I had met barely five minutes ago who asked me if I had \u201calready\u201d given a blowjob to the most popular guy in school.<\/p>\n

My experiences are not isolated ones. Neha* says\u00a0\u201cSince I have a big chest, no blouse that I wear will ever prevent my cleavage from showing. But high-school was a place where one was labeled on their looks, and I was labeled the school slut because of my breast size. People, most of them guys, would reduce me to my appearance and would ask my body measurements. They would make up stories about me if they saw me with a guy, and assumed that I was sleeping around because of my \u2018slutty\u2019 outfits.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

ANY BEHAVIOUR WHICH IS \u201cUN-LADYLIKE\u201d OR IMMODEST IS OFTEN CONSIDERED OFFENSIVE OR\u00a0OBSCENE, AND FOR WHICH WOMEN MUST BE CALLED OUT ON.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Slut shaming only needs the smallest of excuses to manifest itself.\u00a0\u201cWhen I was about 14, I shifted to a new school, and being small in figure, my kurta was tight-fitting as well. A girl came up to me and told me to stop seeking attention and to stay in my limits! Sexualising me at the age of 14 was so shocking, all I did was wear clothes that were comfortable to me.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0says Eshita*, New Delhi, recalling a childhood experience.<\/p>\n

Slut. Whore. Wannabe. Prostitute. Cheap. Bitch. Randi.<\/strong>\u00a0All of these words have been used to shame women for anything and everything that they do \u2013 be it wearing an \u2018exposing\u2019 outfit or be it hearing about someone\u2019s sexual experiences, or even seeing them roaming around with a member of the opposite sex.<\/p>\n

Slut-shaming is not an exclusive stigmatisation that women coming from urban backgrounds face. I still remember my house-help coming to work one day covered head to toe, a dupatta on her head, simply because the last time she didn\u2019t cover her face when leaving for work she was beaten up by her father for immoral behaviour.<\/p>\n

All of these experiences have some factors in common: that\u00a0women\u2019s bodies, from their faces to their legs, have been reduced to sexual objects,<\/strong>\u00a0and that often the derogatory treatment that these women have received have been unsolicited and have resulted in obnoxious policing as well.<\/p>\n

So why do people slut-shame?\u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s a lot about groups. In-groups and out-groups. The very term \u2018slut\u2019, is an \u2018otherising\u2019 word. In the larger context of India, one might argue that slut-shaming occurs as a reaction to a response towards a perceived violation of cultural propriety.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0says\u00a0Sudeep Pagedar, whose recent spoken word poetry\u00a0\u201cThe Privileges Of A Penis<\/strong><\/a>\u201d<\/em>\u00a0states that he slut-shamed women as a younger man, when he didn\u2019t know any better and simply wanted to be \u201cone of the men\u201d. bell hooks in her famous\u00a0Understanding Patriarchy<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0explores how patriarchal structures teach men to \u2018put women in their place\u2019. Masculinity becomes suffocating and\u00a0toxic<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0when men are conditioned to believe they are entitled, as a superior gender, to assert their dominance over others, especially women.<\/p>\n

Fearing being left out or being unaccepted, men and young boys to do what their friends are doing, and join in the bandwagon of slut-shaming. It seems harmless at first, but results in violent behaviour towards female peers.\u00a0Amongst young children it can lead to bullying as well, as was Eshita\u2019s case when she was ostracised simply for being different.<\/p>\n

Another reason for slut-shaming could be simply that any behaviour which is \u201cun-ladylike\u201d or immodest is often considered offensive and obscene, and for which women must be called out on. This\u00a0is how the pressure of conforming to conventionally accepted standards of femininity\u00a0comes about.<\/p>\n

\u201cIF A MAN DOES IT, HE\u2019S A STUD BUT IF A WOMAN DOES IT, SHE\u2019S A SLUT.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arnav Sharma, Gurgaon, says\u00a0\u201cI did indulge in slut-shaming when I was younger, I\u2019m not proud of it. The reasons that we did it were mainly because we used to think that girls doing anything more than what they \u2018should\u2019 do were ill-mannered and indecent. We were also prudish about seeing women\u2019s bodies, and so we commented on it without questioning why.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And\u00a0why do women slut-shame<\/strong>, then? A\u00a0paper<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by Roy Baumeister and Jean Twenge exploring why, tells us that\u00a0internalised misogyny<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0makes us want to tear our female peers down, for other women are perceived as competition. The same internalisation also causes us to shame other women because of the taboo around women\u2019s bodies, which are sexualized time and again.<\/p>\n

The larger problem it all ties down to is that there are unequal standards for men and women across the world. Everyone has come across the age old\u00a0\u201cIf a man does it, he\u2019s a stud but if a woman does it, she\u2019s a slut.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and sadly it is still quite true. It is also a suppression of women\u2019s sexualities, any expression even mildly indicative of the same warrants shaming and derogation. Slut-shaming can also blow up into worse instances: crimes against women have the same roots of female suppression.<\/p>\n

Harassment in the form of catcalling and eve-teasing are forms of\u00a0slut-shaming. They only reinforce objectification of women, because the perpetrators know that their targets aren\u2019t going to positively respond to their threats. That knowledge is an exercise of the dominative power that men hold over\u00a0women\u2019s sexuality<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the same way, it is also this kind of continuing mentality that makes us\u00a0victim blame<\/strong><\/a>and ask questions like\u00a0\u201cWhat was she wearing?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and say things like\u00a0\u201cShe was dressed like she wanted it\u201d<\/em>\u00a0when women complain of rape and molestation.\u00a0Slut-shaming is sexual violence in its most basic and elementary form.<\/strong>\u00a0We often don\u2019t realise that we are policing someone\u2019s body and sexuality \u2013 to change this,\u00a0we need to actively stop stigmatising\u00a0women who exercise their free choice.<\/p>\n

Side 2: The Friend Zone<\/strong><\/h4>\n

What is the friend zone? It\u2019s when you tell someone that you like them but they say they\u2019d rather be friends. Except that now the friend zone has been reduced to a blame-game of objectification where women are constantly targeted for not accepting a man\u2019s good behaviour and being with him in \u2018return\u2019. It is\u00a0an expectation of sexual gratification as a reward for being \u201cnice\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0However, if this sexual\/romantic gratification is denied, then the same person turns hostile and resentful to the other for not appreciating their behaviour.<\/p>\n

The term is now used in popular language for men \u201cstriking out\u201d with women, and it demonises platonic relationships as sad leftovers of interactions with women who couldn\u2019t be \u201cscored\u201d\u00a0for sexual or romantic relationships. The friend zone implies\u00a0that men are merely using being \u201cnice\u201d as a facade to gain sexual gratification from women. This\u00a0disrespects and reduces\u00a0men\u2019s qualities of being kind and respectful as mere tools to be used to get ahead with women.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said no to a hosteller once in school, so he wrote FUCK ANYSHA on the football ground,\u201d<\/em>says Anysha Choudhary recounting her experience of\u00a0misogyny surrounding\u00a0\u201cfriend zoning\u201d. Isha Kala, who goes to Hindu College, Delhi University says\u00a0\u201cIn my college, they use the term \u2018<\/em>kaatna\u2018 for friend zoning. People would make statements like, \u201c<\/em>Arey, Isha toh iska bhi kaat rai hai\u201d (Isha has friend zoned this guy also)\u00a0whenever they would see me hanging out with anyone of the opposite sex. If a girl was friendly with a guy, people would assume she was interested in him but if the girl made it clear that she wasn\u2019t, they\u2019d call her out as someone who regularly friend zoned guys and say, \u201c<\/em>Yeh toh kaat deti hai\u201c<\/em>\u00a0(This one is a friend zoner)\u201d.<\/p>\n

THE FRIEND ZONE DEMONISES PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS AS SAD LEFTOVERS OF INTERACTIONS WITH WOMEN WHO COULDN\u2019T BE \u201cSCORED\u201d\u00a0FOR SEXUAL OR ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These experiences highlight how popular discourse now penalises women for \u201cusing\u201d men and targets them as misandrists because they reject\u00a0romantic advances. When a woman shows disinterest in a man, she is said to have \u201cfriend zoned\u201d him. The friend zone perpetuates the idea that someone deserves respect only if they give you a relationship in exchange, and that is\u00a0problematic because it ignores that people inherently deserve to be respected<\/strong>, regardless of romantic inclinations.<\/p>\n

Often, the concept of \u201cunrequited love\u201d could be confused with the friend zone \u2013 except that unrequited love being one-sided does not blame the other person for their feelings, while the friend zone holds the other person accountable for \u2018leading them on\u2019. Narratives around the friend zone are also laced with the \u201cnice guys finish last\u201d notion, and that women don\u2019t appreciate men being nice and put them all in a category of men to not consider being with.<\/p>\n

Taylor Callobre\u2019s\u00a0The \u201cGood Guy\u201d Myth<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0delves into the same questions and answers. She talks about how\u00a0her company and body are not a reward for the good behaviour<\/strong>shown to her, and how her friendship cannot be reduced to a consolation prize because a different kind of relationship couldn\u2019t be. The idea is simple: I deserve to be treated well by virtue of being a human and being nice to me does not entitle you to my body.<\/p>\n

The concept of friend zone also fails to consider consent and choice, and reduces relationships to a simple formula: the nicer you are, the more sex you must get. But the reality of relationships is that it is (well, hopefully) a two way street, where both partners must be able to want the same things in order to carry on with it. When we go around saying a woman is friend zoning guys,\u00a0we mischaracterise the rejectee as a \u201cvictim\u201d, when the real issue is that a woman\u2019s choice over whom to be with is not respected<\/strong>. Her agency over her body is under attack when all that she is doing is simply expressing her wishes.<\/p>\n

Sudeep Padegar analyses the friend zone as a defence-mechanism or a pacification of the offended sense of entitlement.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a BAD thing to be \u2018only friends\u2019 with a girl you like. It\u2019s not about choice or preference. It\u2019s about self-defence, protecting said ego. Friendship demands empathy and equitably supporting one another. When it is turned into a \u2018zone\u2019, these qualities seem non-desirable and threatening. It\u2019s a phantom, but one that is made real by the collective conviction of millions.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n

Treating someone well cannot be a ticket for someone to get a sexual benefit out of another. This is the same mentality of\u00a0male entitlement<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that a woman\u00a0owes<\/em>\u00a0a man something because he is being nice to her.<\/p>\n

Two Sides \u2013 Same Coin<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The friend zone is as much about sexual objectification as slut-shaming is.\u00a0<\/strong>Both concepts view women as sexual objects\u00a0that need to be bragged about as conquests if \u201cwon\u201d, or shamed as sluts, prudes, or friend zoners, if denied. We need to work towards changing the stigma around rejection as a bad thing, and instead inculcate the idea that rejection cannot warrant bad behaviour from the person facing it.<\/p>\n

WHEN WOMEN TURN MEN DOWN, THE BACKLASH RECEIVED IS EXTREMELY DISPROPORTIONATE AND VICIOUS.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the idea of winning someone over becomes glorified, the outcomes of rejection can be horrific, and often\u00a0escalates into violence and misogyny. This\u00a0resentment on being rejected<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0led to a 32-year old man throwing acid at\u00a0Lakshmi<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>when she turned down his marriage proposals. Many other women have been victims of\u00a0acid attacks<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for the same reasons. When women turn men down, the backlash received is extremely disproportionate and vicious.<\/p>\n

The idea of women owing men a relationship for being nice to them is one of the\u00a0primary reasons for gender-based violence against\u00a0women. Women have been murdered and\/or assaulted because the perpetrator couldn\u2019t deal with the rejection he faced. Whether you take the case of\u00a0Kulwinder Kaur<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0who was shot because she refused to dance with her murderer, or whether you take the case of\u00a0Caroline Nosal<\/a><\/strong>, whose murderer stated that he \u201cwanted more\u201d from her, it all points to the same factors \u2013 that societal notions around relationships teach men that facing rejection is absolutely unacceptable and humiliating, that they are entitled to get what they want, and anything against their wishes is a serious blow to their masculinity, rather than being a matter of chance to be moved on from. When patriarchal notions teach men that they must assert their masculinity and power over women, agency is taken away from women, and the male ego is revered unnecessarily.<\/p>\n

SLUT-SHAMING IS A DISTURBING CONCEPT, MUCH LIKE THE FRIEND ZONE, BECAUSE BOTH OF THEM REDUCE WOMEN\u00a0TO OBJECTS MEANT FOR SEXUAL ENJOYMENT ON SOMEONE ELSE\u2019S TERMS.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Slut-shaming is a disturbing concept, much like the friend zone because in the end both of them reduce women\u00a0to objects meant for sexual enjoyment on someone else\u2019s terms. The\u00a0normalisation of both the ideas is dangerous \u2013 it only furthers stigma around women\u2019s bodies and\u00a0removes consent and choice from our vocabularies<\/strong>. If we instead focused on adapting to the fact that people inherently deserve respectful treatment and that female sexuality is quite normal, it would positively bring about change in our crime rates and make more places and interactions safer and better for women all around. Slut shaming and the friend zone need to be actively discouraged from our behaviours, only then will\u00a0we start perceiving women as humans with agency and the right\u00a0to exercise free will. I\u2019m tired of exchanging the objectification coin as our social currency, aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

\n

*Names have been changed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
Tanya Manglik<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
Tanya is a law student who hopes to make the world a better place for people of all genders, sexes, and sexualities. She also has an undying love for theatre, music, and biryani.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Originally published on\u00a0Feminism in India<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and re-published here with their permission.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2019Slut\u2019 attacks a woman\u2019s right to say yes. \u2018Friend\u00a0zone\u2019 attacks a woman\u2019s right to say no. And \u2018bitch\u2019 attacks her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":13183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,1,1491],"tags":[1507,402,25,1506],"class_list":{"0":"post-13182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-roll","8":"category-categories","9":"category-friendship-and-sexuality","10":"tag-friend-zone","11":"tag-friendship","12":"tag-sexualities","13":"tag-slut-shaming"},"menu_order":810,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13182"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13187,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182\/revisions\/13187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}