- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
The argument that women call each other sluts because they think those women are lowering themselves by dating men is absurd. As a woman who has, regretfully, called women "sluts" in the past, it was never out of disgust with the men they were sleeping with; more typically, it was about idiotic jealousy on my own part because they were sleeping with someone that I wanted and couldn't get. I tried to obtain moral superiority by saying to myself that this girl could only get this guy because of sex and that if she were more dignified (read: more like me), I would have a fair chance of getting him on our respective merits. This is sad and stupid, and it was entirely my own issue, but I'm willing to bet based on every female friend that I've ever had that this is the general consensus on why we pick on other women - we want to make ourselves feel better. And we want the guy - believe it or not, we don't want to live without you guys anymore than you want to live without us.
And biology, biology - would you shut up about biology?!?! The biologists can't even agree on what we're all "hard-wired" to do and think, and it's a moot point anyway. The traditional view of this argument is that men want to sleep around and women want long-term relationships; even under that scenario women have as much to lose as men by treating their partners badly. Men lose sex, but women lose the chance for long-term relationships, which we supposedly must have to fulfill our "biological" urges. If men give up certain things in order to get sex, then it only stands to reason that women give up certain things in order to have long-term relationships. Once again, let me reiterate that I do not agree with these ridiculous biological theories, but if you must use them, then at least be logical - isn't that, after all, another trait that is supposedly associated with men?
