A Toronto police constable who made an off-the-cuff remark about women who "dressed like sluts" must be mortified by the global notoriety he inspired, not to mention a whole new movement, Slut Walking.He's doubtless not the only cop to have said "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised" but unfortunately for PC Michael Sanguinetti his remarks were publicised by the law school students he was addressing and a worldwide furore broke out.
Angry women held a Slut Walk in Toronto, in which they dressed like "sluts" and said they were reclaiming the word as something jokey and inoffensive rather than a term of abuse and contempt.
They also criticised Sanguinetti for suggesting yet again that if women are attacked by men it's their fault, that the way some women dress or behave is supposedly "asking for it".
Now there have been similar rallies across Canada and the US, and others are planned in cities around the world.
I'm all in favour of the protests, and the idea of cleaning up the word "slut". But a surprising number of journalists and feminists are opposed, saying the word has such universally scathing and vicious overtones that it's beyond redemption and shouldn't be used at all.
That seems rather defeatist to me. Surely if enough people decontaminate the word, then it has to lose some of its negativity, in the same way that the word "gay" has been turned into a simple description (even though some people are trying hard to turn it back into an insult).
And the implications of the word "slut" are a great focus for debate on why women are attacked and why the victims are blamed rather than the attackers. Why does having a lot of sex or dressing in skimpy clothes make you a "slut"?
And why are women referred to in such aggressive terms as sluts, slags, slappers and tarts, when men who bed every woman in town are affectionately known as womanisers, seducers, or libertines?
Michael Sanguinetti has inadvertently done a great service to feminism by sparking such a passionate argument about this toxic word.
British Justice Minister Ken Clarke has started a similar furore by referring to "serious rape" as opposed to other types of rape. Not surprisingly, there was an immediate outcry that rape is serious whatever the circumstances.
