Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation by Tanenbaum - Essay Example

 Furthermore, these boys use slut bashing to compensate for their insecurity or shame of sexual desires. To curb the problem, parents should openly educate their children about their sexuality and teachers should be keen to punish and stop slut bashing in learning institutions.

Indeed, slut bashing is a reality in modern society. Tanenbaum (1999), through the story of Julie, insinuates that even with a single sexually deviant action, a girl is at equal risk of being labeled as a slut as other girls with deviant sexual behaviors. However, I believe that being branded a slut takes more than just a single action. Of course, people would be quick to single out a girl as a slut based on her behavior of such a girl, but it takes constant repetition of such behavior for such a girl to be labeled as a slut. For such one-time actions, they only face a short-lived form of discrimination as society looks for more evidence. It would be the subsequent series of evidence that would qualify such a girl for slut bashing from their counterparts from the opposite sex. One-time actions are easy to fade away than repeated actions. This inability to easily get away with such actions refers back to the argument by Tanenbaum (1999) that being labeled a slut could take a long to erase. Therefore, only long-term repeated actions would cause someone to be a victim of slut bashing, unlike the one-time action as argued in the reading.

With slut bashing being a widespread concept in learning institutions, I have witnessed my close friend experience discrimination. It was while in high school that we became friends with Jane (not her real name). She was known to dress skimpily and was always confident about her sexuality. She loved being around boys more than being around girls because she believed that boys were fewer gossipers than girls, as she hated gossiping. Combining her love for being around boys and skimpy dressing, my friend was considered by many of our peers as being a slut, though deep inside I knew she was morally upright. While my friend was being discriminated against for being a slut, the boys with whom she spent her time were not in any way discriminated against, but in fact, seen as heroes. This differential treatment is was Tanenbaum (1999) refers to as slut bashing. Jane, unlike the boys in the school, was not allowed to freely express her sexuality but the boys got away with such expression.