I can never understand why people are so eager to confine others into little glass boxes, especially when it comes to women. I guess small-minded people find it easier to understand others if they can drop them into certain categories. One of the most common categories for women is the “Slut” box. I can basically guarantee that every girl over the age of thirteen has been called one of the above slurs. “Slut” is the ultimate form of verbal ‘shut-downs’ when it comes to women. There’s not a whole lot a woman can say when someone labels her a ‘slut’. As Rachel Hills in Cosmopolitan magazine says, it’s a way of silencing women. And it’s about time women started standing up to “slut”, instead shrinking away.

I can still clearly remember the first time I was labelled. I was thirteen, at high school and walking back to my circle of friends after visiting the canteen. As I walked past a group of boys, I heard one of them fling the slur at me. I had a split second where I contemplated what to do about the situation: I could keep walking and just let it go, or tell this arrogant, immature, little boy where to shove it. Being the fiesty little bitch I am, I was never going to take it lying down. I turned around and put him in his place. When I walked away, all of his mates were snickering about the fact he’d just been chewed out by a girl and that, even better, he was absolutely speechless.

Now a lot of women don’t have the confidence to take on their abusers. This needs to change. It isn’t about having confidence, it’s about female human rights. No one — male or female, old or young, black or white — has any right to degrade or abuse you. Frankly, it is absolutely no one else’s business how many people you have slept with, how frequently you have 24-hour flings, or who you choose to have sex with. But these days, “slut” is a lot more than just a name for a promiscuous woman.

In 2006, Sheikh al-Hilaly, a muslim cleric, stated that adultery and sexual abuse towards women was “90 per cent the women’s responsibility”. According to him, because women wear make up, wears short clothes, or even greets a man in a flirty manner, they were asking to be raped. It’s scary how many men and women seem to agree with this. No matter what you’re wearing, no matter how drunk you are, no matter who or how many people you’ve hooked up with, there is no reason for you to be called a slut or for you to be taken advantage of.

On the 3rd of April, 2011, SlutWalk happened in Toronto, Canada. What incited this was  a Toronto police officer was caught calling women at risk of sexual assault “sluts”. SlutWalk was a march organised in protest of this. 3,000 - 4,000 women walked producing an array of colourful signs, featuring “It’s my hot body, I’ll do what I want!” and “SLUTS SAY YES”. What this march really proved is that women do have the power to take control over “slut” back. It worked for gay and lesbians with the word “queer”, which is no longer seen as a serious insult, so why can’t women do it with “slut”?

It’s time we took a page out of the book of Olive Penderghast from Easy A. When everyone started slandering her as a “slut” and a “whore”, she decided that instead of just lying down and accepting it, she’d claim it. Don’t shy away or let yourself be shut down when someone pulls out the s-word. As soon as women decide that “slut” isn’t going to be the silencing slur that it’s become, the stigma will disappear. Just because you wear a short dress, have a bit of a flirt with boys, or decide to engage in a one night tryst, doesn’t mean you were asking to be sexually assaulted. It doesn’t make you a dirty and overtly promiscuous woman. You have every right to do anything you want with your body, because, guess what? It’s YOUR body! So next time someone decides to try and silence you with the s-word, speak up. Claim it, love it, revel in it. Silence them instead. Let’s take “slut” back.