Looking at it now, Amber Rose’s SlutWalk was a pioneering effort. She was ahead of the curve – when we were focusing on whether celebrity women would or could identify as feminists (how quaint), Amber was out here, organizing a SlutWalk to start a conversation about consent, rape culture, victim blaming, slut-shaming and women’s ownership of their own bodies and their own sexuality. It’s worth mentioning that Amber didn’t actually invent the SlutWalk – it was started in Toronto in 2011, when a police officer told women to “stop dressing like sluts if they wanted to avoid sexual assault.” Amber’s 2018 SlutWalk happens in LA on October 6th, and it’s become a pretty big event with celebrity women taking part every year. Amber chatted with Harper’s Bazaar ahead of this year’s SlutWalk.
Her message to men: “It doesn’t matter what we have on, it’s still not an excuse to come and touch me inappropriately or assume I want to f*ck you—because I don’t.”
On why SlutWalk is more important than ever, especially in light of the conversation surrounding Brett Kavanaugh: “Well, we’re not taking any sh-t anymore. We’re speaking up and we’re not scared just because these men are in higher positions or they have more money or they intimidate us. We have a voice and we all realize now that’s why SlutWalk is so important—to bring an awareness of actually what’s happening in this world. It’s the equality issues that we deal with, but also the fact that, we can band together as women and stand up for each other and realize that we do have a voice that can make a change.”
On the biggest achievements SlutWalk has made thus far: “A lot of men are learning exactly what consent is. My SlutWalk is really inclusive, so we don’t leave anyone out. The LGBTQ community, non-binary, transgender, women, men, all walks of life, it doesn’t matter where you come from. We’re just spreading awareness and I think that whether being sexually assaulted or slut shamed, women in general, we’re just not taking it anymore.”
On why Amber still claps back at comments from people who judge her for having “too many men”: “I have only been with four guys! Or 12 or 17… I just think it’s funny because nobody knows my sexual history. You can assume that if I’m out with a guy or if I’m in a picture with a guy that we’ve had sex? That’s cool, but you don’t know. You just assume. And for you to assume, you just slut-shamed me on top of assumption, which has no merit. I don’t even care. I literally laugh it off, I swear to God. All the time.”
On why she helps empower the women around her: “A lot of things pertaining to SlutWalk happened to me. I didn’t know how to articulate what was going on and why I was feeling this way. It was because I was sexually assaulted, I had been raped, and I was slut-shamed. I was victim blamed, as well. I didn’t really have words to those things that were happening to me until I started looking online and seeing things and realizing I wasn’t alone, and that I now have a platform where I can help other women who are recovering and healing.”
What’s particularly important and notable to me is that Amber, a black woman, is preaching inclusivity to an audience who may not see her as anything beyond a caricature. You know what I’m saying? Like, if Reese Witherspoon or Gwyneth Paltrow had taken it upon themselves to create an inclusive SlutWalk with this exact same messaging, they probably would have gotten the cover of Time Magazine and an hour-long Today Show special. But because Amber is who she is, some people are still looking down their noses at her. But Amber has been ahead of this curve and she’s been having these conversations for years. I wish women across the board would give her more respect.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
This is pretty much her whole “career” But she does look pretty hot with the long hair
Oh, I think she’s so much more striking with the buzzcut!
I agree about the buzz cut! Her face is just so gorgeous, and her head perfectly shaped for that kind of cut; the hair just makes her look super generic. Still beautiful, but it distracts from the face!
I honestly don’t think that most people know Amber is a black woman.
IDK, I guess because I have similar features–it was very obvious to me that she is a black/biracial woman. She doesn’t look white.
I think she’s pretty obviously black/biracial, and she’s never made an effort to hide that fact. But, I can see how the gen. pop. maybe isn’t given a wide range of WoC to see and identify as WoC — so often on stories about lighter skinned WoC celebs, people are like “I couldn’t tell!” Which to me reads as people only identifying really obvious, stereotypical phenotypes as being indicators of race or ethnicity. I remember when Megan Markle was getting the “I couldn’t even tell!” treatment around the wedding.
Way to go, Amber!! Keep fighting the good fight! Thanks for this post, Kaiser! It was a much-needed breath of fresh air on this deplorable day.
This website featuring her feminist commentary is why I’m such a fan of Amber Rose. She has a vibrant celebrity presence but her activism is the main reason I like her so much.
I don’t know if Ottawa has a slutwalk but if it does, im there this year – I’m so done with the crap we have to deal with from dudes and society
I really like her. She’s endured literally every kind of degradation, and just keeps speaking out and being an advocate. She’s very brave!
Yes. She IS a bad bitch who I have so much respect for. She’s so brave for doing this because this is just not how women are ‘supposed’ to deal with the different forms of misogynistic abuse and manipulation we’re all exposed to under sex-negative, victim-blaming patriarchy. #SlutWalkForever
Snaps for Amber!
‘You can assume that if I’m out with a guy or if I’m in a picture with a guy that we’ve had sex? That’s cool, but you don’t know. You just assume. And for you to assume, you just slut-shamed me on top of assumption, which has no merit.’
My mother literally did that. One of the many times she was screaming at me as a teen she said ‘you’ll meet girls your age who have more male friends than female friends and they’ll try to say it’s just because they get along with guys better than girls but that’s not true. They hang out with so many guys because THEY’RE SLUTS!’ even as a teen I knew in that moment she was thinking of a particular girl she herself went to school with as a teen who got attention from guys she was jealous of so she assumed the girl was a slut to make herself feel less threatened about the attention another girl was getting. And what a sexist assumption, that guys only want to be around women if they’re sleeping with them. Yes there are guys like that but again, not all of them. For years after moving out of her house I had horrible experiences with female roommates so I finally tried male roommates and mentioned it to her and she screamed over the phone, ‘YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU LIVED WITH MEN!’ I said, ‘i’m telling you now. what’s wrong?’ I was 24 at the time. and she just kept screaming, ‘YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU LIVED WITH MEN!’ and then hung up on me. Such an archaic way of thinking. I remember telling her years later I was disappointed when a guy who I thought was a friend asked me out and I let him know I didn’t think of him like that but I hoped we could still be friends and he treated me like shit after that. Her response was, ‘well, why else would he want to be around you?’ seriously? That’s all women have that guys would want to be around them for? Part of these crappy messages are generational things but part of this was just flat out sexism and slut shaming.
I’m sorry you had to deal with that nonsense. Just more evidence that under patriarchy, it can sometimes be a good thing when young women don’t blindly listen to their elders. Also, this was kind of funny: “One of the many times she was screaming at me as a teen she said ‘you’ll meet girls your age who have more male friends than female friends and they’ll try to say it’s just because they get along with guys better than girls but that’s not true. They hang out with so many guys because THEY’RE SLUTS!’ even as a teen I knew in that moment she was thinking of a particular girl she herself went to school with as a teen who got attention from guys she was jealous of so she assumed the girl was a slut to make herself feel less threatened about the attention another girl was getting.” It’s funny because while complaining about it, your mother seems to have been the type of girl some of those other girls may have actually been thinking about when they said they get along with guys better in the first place, LOL. She needed to look at some of her own anti-woman attitudes first, and BE a Girl Friend if meaningful friendship with girls was really what she was concerned about, rather than paranoia about what kind of male attention other girls/ women might be attracting.
sorry but she is NOT a black woman. her parents are NOT black. black culture put her on the map & she grew up poor, but she is NOT a black woman. I am a black woman, she actually benefits from colorism and texturism in black community. if a dark skin kinky haired woman did this she would be dragged worse than Monique when she asked us to boycott Netflix.
That’s exactly what I said! She calls herself a mixed woman, shes mostly white. It’s ridiculous but you still have have White & non black women calling her black cause apparently everyone can be black, especially a black women, ugh… but only a select few can be white…
All I can say is she has a beautiful smile.
I agree with the previous comment. Her smile can light up the room 🙂