Slut shaming is about power and control, as is bullying.
The most common form of bullying is verbal and this form of bullying is most often about denigrating the victim in some way. Studies have shown that 95% of all verbal and cyber bullying is about 6 things (intelligence, ethnicity, race, sex, gender, and social inclusion or exclusion).
The thing about verbal bullying and yes, slut shaming is a form of bullying, is that it is done to gain power. By denigrating a victim you dehumanize them. You make them not worthy of thought, attention or basic human dignity. We dehumanize people through denigration.
Slut shaming and/or denigration of any type deflects criticism about the bully’s aggressive behavior away from them and onto their victim. It is a way to ignore the impact on the victim and it makes further abuse of the victim more likely. In short, it is a way to justify bad behavior.
The reason this is so egregious when it happens to rape victims is because they haven’t just been bullied. They are victims of a violent crime! Slut shaming victimizes them further and makes it that much more difficult to get justice for the crime that was committed against them.
We rarely do this to people who are victims of other sorts of crimes – like, when I had my purse stolen in Italy; people rallied around me and supported me. Complete strangers helped me. That helped a lot. But rape victims, we denigrate and dehumanize. It’s not ok and it’s a form of bullying designed to keep women, in particular, in subservient roles.
We have to remember, bullying is about power. Slut shaming is about power. It is about keeping power over women as sexual objects with no right to control their bodies.
And yes, this sounds like feminism but I’m actually a Humanist! So it’s Humanism I’m expressing. Men are raped too and face similar shaming when they come forward.
If we want to end bullying. If we want to end the rape culture that is an extension and particularly aggressive form of bullying violence, that yes, does happen to men too (see this article about a workplace bullying situation that involve an assault on a man using a glow stick – http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-wheaton-bully-20130816,0,1355638.story). We have to stop tolerating the denigration and dehumanizing of our fellow human beings.
The denigration and name calling is the first form of bullying. It is the entry way into bullying. It is what makes all the other forms of bullying possible. You want to stop bullying? Stop the slut shaming.