Please spread the word. Feel free to use this note or write your own. Crap like this has to stop.

This is an event on facebook.
national punch a slutt day
Location:anywher there is a slutt
Time:12:00AM Friday, April 30th

I saw that a few of my friends on facebook were attending this and was horrified. I knew I had to address it. First off, what is a slutt? Usually, this word is used in relation to the sexual double standard for males and females where males who have lots of sex are "players" and females who have lots of sex are "sluts." While this may sound like educated prattle, being called a "slut" can be incredibly hurtful. This event is incredibly sexist in that it is reinforcing sexist attitudes towards females.

Second, this event is encouraging violence.
*1 in 3 females worldwide will be raped in their lifetime.
*1 in 4 females will be raped before they turn 18.

According to the National Dating Violence Hotline,

*1 in 3 teens report knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, slapped, choked or physically hurt by his/her partner

*1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime

*1 in 5 female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. Abused girls are significantly more likely to get involved in other risky behaviors. They are 4 to 6 times more likely to get pregnant and 8 to 9 times more likely to have tried to commit suicide.

*74% of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner (spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96% were females killed by their intimate partners.

*In 2004, 1,159 females were killed by an intimate partner.

You may say I am taking this event too seriously. You may say it is meant to be a joke. It is not funny. One person wrote on the wall that 33,000 people cannot be wrong. What about the Nazis? What about Rwanda? What about the systematic murder of Native Americans in our country? What about racism? Lynching?

I work with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence every day. I have been called to the hospital to be with a 67 year old woman who had been brought in with deep gashed in her arms and bruises covering her body from the beatings she had sustained from her partner. I have also been called to the hospital to sit with a 14 year old who was gang raped while she was trying to have a fun night with people she thought were her friends. Are those two women sluts?

What if you have a friend who has been called a slut so many times she has started to believe. What if she believes that the abuse and rape from her partner is deserved because she's a "slut?" What message does attending this event send her?

Violence has to stop. It has to stop with us.