User:Concernedresident/sandbox

Examples of shaming in popular media

Slut shaming

It's not below the knees, but it's okay because he doesn't have a vagina up there

Slut shaming is the practice of criticising women perceived to be far too expressive of their sexuality. Among social groups that expect women to be publicly chaste and modest, behaviour contrary to this draws insults, such as "slut" and "whore" - even from other women. By contrast, it's remarkably rare for men of the same social group to be criticised for similar actions. Efforts to complicate or deny access to birth control methods and abortion have been criticised as examples of slut shaming, as they're painted as being something to which only a slut should wish to have reasonably unfettered access. Some have gone so far as to claim that women would habitually become pregnant, and pop down to their local clinic for an abortion at a frequency of occurrence more commonly seen in trips to the cinema.

A particularly disturbing manifestation of this phenomena is in blaming women for encouraging rape. Although there's no strong evidence that dressing "immodestly" is a strong contributor to being a rape victim, without excusing the rapist from blame for their crime, it's not uncommon to hear people commenting that the behaviour or dress of the victim was an important enough factor to warrant mentioning. Even though there may indeed be a connection, it's by no means conclusive, and it's odd that sexual assault against women is one of the crimes where victims are more likely to receive part of the blame for the crime.