Slut shaming isn’t just criticism of a woman’s behavior. It’s social punishment through destroying another person‘s reputation.
And that’s because once a person gets labeled, everyone around her starts interpreting everything she does from that point forward.
They suddenly think they know her through that very label. Serena van der Woodsen’s storyline on Gossip Girl is a prime example of what I’m talking about.
Her storyline reveals the way women are negatively judged over past mistakes they’ve made, and the beliefs other people have about them based on gossip they’ve heard.
Serena was perceived as an easy girl to hook up with who had little to no self-respect on Gossip Girl. Even her high school sweetheart and eventual husband, Dan Humphrey, judged her that way.
He was probably the worst character of all, guilty of slut shaming her. I find the concept of a slut shaming so disgustingly abhorrent, and I have a lot of thoughts about it.
What that shaming actually looks like
Slut shaming comes to the surface in many different ways, starting with turning someone’s dating history into their entire identity. Just because someone has dated a long list of lovers, it doesn’t mean that represents their entire identity. Serena definitely dated a lot of guys on Gossip Girl, but she presented so much more than that. She was charismatic, free-spirited, and naturally magnetic as the it girl of Manhattan. She was well-liked by plenty of people for her outgoing nature, warm personality, vibrant energy, effortless sense of style, and beyond. She embodied glamour in a way that felt natural and down-to-earth. Yet, plenty of people, judging her on her past, only saw her as a slut.
Two examples of times guys assumed Serena would be easy enough and slutty enough to have a casual encounter with start with the pilot episode when Chuck Bass tried to hook up with her in a private hotel kitchen. Serena rejected him, but he definitely attempted to hook up with her because he thought it would be easy enough to successfully make it happen. In season three, Damien Dalgaard invited Serena to be his date to an event, even though he knew Jenny Humphrey wanted to be his date during the era when they were selling illegal substances together. Damien prioritized Serena because he was trying to get into her pants, and he assumed it would be easy enough to do so since he remembered her party girl days when they attended boarding school together. Serena‘s reputation caused guys to view her in a certain light, even though their perception of her wasn’t actually accurate.
In the real world, slut shaming looks like treating a woman’s attraction to other people or a woman’s sexuality as a character flaw, which is completely unfair. Because everyone of any gender is allowed to be attracted to who they want to be attracted to. Another example is the way women are held to impossible standards compared to the same standards men are often rewarded for. When men hook up with a long list of women, they get praised for it. But when a woman hooks up with a long list of men, she gets slut shamed. In a world where a slut shaming exists, gossip becomes more powerful than reality. Because when a girl likes, Serena already pulls in a label like that for herself, gossip becomes more interesting to follow and keep up with than whatever is really going on.
One of the biggest issues that comes along with slut shaming is that people often assume that the more beautiful, popular, or confident a woman is, it must automatically mean that she is equally promiscuous. And that’s because a lot of guys assume that if a woman is attractive and has her pic of the litter when dating men, she can sleep with whoever she wants, so they think she’s actually sleeping with just about everyone. When in reality, that’s not the case at all. But if you come through Reddit threads on the Internet, you’ll quickly pick up the truth about how beautiful women are perceived in the world. Guys often assume highly attractive women sleep around because that’s what they would do if they were able to trade bodies with a highly attractive woman. Guys project their own desires onto women, even though they aren’t inherently accurate. And while it’s true, Serena did date multiple guys during her party girl era. When she returned to Manhattan at the start of Gossip Girl, she had decided to turn over a new leaf and start living a better life she could be proud of. She chose to stop drinking, doing drugs, and partying. And she chose to only engage in committed relationships with guys she was serious about, mainly Dan Humphrey.
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