Jump to navigation. Please chip in to support more articles like this. Support rabble. Chip in to keep stories like these coming. They are members of Project Slut, a collective of young women who set out to abolish the dress code in their high school and won, and who now have their sights set on transforming school dress codes across the entire Toronto District School Board. It is no surprise to anyone who pays close attention to the voices of young women that high schools are, generally speaking, hotbeds of rape culture and slut shaming where "rape culture" points towards a diverse collection of practices endemic to everyday life and the social world more broadly in North America that condone, facilitate, excuse, and tolerate sexual violence; and "slut shaming" is the practice of demeaning and attacking women for their presumed or actual sexual activity, or for aspects of their appearance or behaviour that are treated as somehow linked to sexual activity.
When they were Grade 10 students, Villenueva, Bethel-John, and another friend got together to form Project Slut to challenge rape culture and slut shaming in their school. They faced hostility, dismissal, and resistance. But not only did they persist in their efforts, they underwent an inspiring example of the kind of learning that comes from taking action -- learning about the systems they were facing; learning about strategy and tactics; learning based on acting, reflecting, and acting again.
In their later years in high school, their organizing focused on efforts to get their school to abolish its dress code. The code restricted the clothing choices of young women much more than those of young men, and it created institutional space in which teachers publicly shamed young women about their appearance, and thereby facilitated a broader environment of slut shaming and rape culture. Moreover, the dress code not only facilitated the policing and shaming of women, but also was used to target gender non-conforming students, young Black men, and other students as well.
And Project Slut not only challenged the dress code in their school; they defeated it. Now Villanueva and Bethel-John are attending post-secondary institutions, but they are committed to taking the campaign school board-wide in Toronto, and are ramping up to begin that fight in the fall. To learn more about Project Slut, click here. Also, check out their new video and petition for their campaign focused on the school board. Talking Radical Radio brings you grassroots voices from across Canada.
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