#5-"Young, Attractive, White Women"

                If a woman chooses to dress provocatively does that mean it’s her fault if she gets sexually assaulted?  According to Toronto police officer, Constable Michael Sanguinetti during his Crime Prevention Forum, it is.  Sanguinetti’s quote “I’ve been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized,” outraged many women, including 3000 women who chose to protest, this started the SlutWalk. 

                When I first read this article and his quote I was appalled.  How could someone who is obviously in the eyes of his department, qualified to get give talks about Crime Prevention, so unintelligent.  At the beginning of the quote he states “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this…”, Yes Constable, you were told not to say this because you just made yourself look like an idiot, apparently someone was trying to save you some embarrassment.   According to Wikipedia in 2010 there were 84767 recorded rapes.  Of course this chart doesn’t indicate whether or not the females were dressed in provocative clothing or not, but common sense would tell you they were not.   Rosemary Connors, the elderly woman living alone, the child walking home from school and Trisha Meili, jogger at the park are all examples of people that have been sexually assaulted and were dressed in “appropriate” clothing.

                When the media, The Toronto Star, first revealed it was depicted by a photo of “young, attractive white women” which is addressed by Joanna Chiu’s article SlutWalk:  Does The Media Make the Message?   Joanna Chiu believes this photo was a “the typical underrepresentation of people of color and the overrepresentation of young, attractive white women in the mainstream media.”  I agree with her.  I feel the media, like Sanguinetti, wanted to put all the protesters in a general group of young, attractive white women so it appealed to more viewers.  Ads in magazines, TV commercials and billboards usually have a certain look when trying to have sex appeal, for example look at Playboy magazine.

                So to answer my above question, No the clothing a woman wears does not give a criminal permission to assault her.  It is unintelligent comments like that made by individuals in the public eye, such as police officers, that give the public a bad opinion of them.  The good cops live in the shadow of a man who clearly has no respect for women and their rights.  A bank gives out money freely to the customers coming in, the tellers are handing it to customers, and we can see the money on the counter and in the drawers.  Does that mean because I see the money and want it, I can take it?  NO.  Would the police who investigated the crime say “I’ve been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, banks should avoid advertising and showing their money in order not to be victimized.”?