The Latest on Slut-Shaming + Bodily Autonomy

"I haven't been to the gym in so long. I didn't know that women just dress like whores now."

Many people are angry about this joke by Shane Gillis. In addition to feminist critic Jessica Valenti, Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy and comedian Phoebe Robinson have publicly criticized him, and there's a lot of chatter on social media about how disgusting this joke is at any time, but especially now when people are thinking about the way Jane Doe has been, and continues to be, mistreated.

But listen, a male comedian joking about women's bodies is just everyday misogyny. I'm sorry to say that if we stopped to call out every disgusting thing that is said to dehumanize women, we'd never get anything done. The thing that really bothers me is the audience response.

When I watch the clip, I hear enthusiastic laughter. This was not nervous laughter that went along with the thought, "Oh my god, did he really say that?" No, it was laughter of delight, agreement, and approval. The laughter signaled, "So true!" 

In that laughter, I hear reverberation of the Cornell fraternity brother "joking" to his friends that Jane Doe was "free pussy."

I hear an echo of the laughter that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford described in her 2018 Senate testimony about the night she said a teenage Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court Justice, assaulted her. She told the Judiciary Committee, "Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between [Brett Kavanaugh and his friend], and their having fun at my expense."

The joke is stupid and forgettable. The laughter, however, protects predators and keeps us in our place.