Trashy

Today being Mother's Day, I went to lunch with one of my sisters, my mother and my 95-year-old grandmother (I feel the need to announce her age, to prepare for when she starts getting on the news as the oldest person living; I'm convinced she's going to be that person one day). Anyway, the conversation ranged all over the place, but at one point, my sister reminded us of a girl we went to high school with, a girl whom she and my mother referred to as "trashy."

This got me thinking about how the term 'trashy' is gendered. The term can have several meanings. When paired with race and used as 'white trash,' people are usually referring to poor and uneducated white people (a problem in itself, since the implication is that white people who haven't reached a certain education level or income level are inferior to other white people, who are clearly 'not trash'; however, the racist/classist implications of this term will have to wait for another day). When referring to people in general, trashy can mean anything from poor and uneducated to simply uncouth, crude, tactless or tasteless.

But what about when applied specifically to females? When a woman is called trashy, the implication is clear: slutty. The particular girl my mother and sister were referring to is one who started having sex fairly early (early high school, I think) and who dated mostly black guys (she is white). I know that my sister and mother have the feeling that she has somehow 'lost her way' and not 'fulfilled her potential.' But my question is this: If she hasn't been as successful as she could have, or if she hasn't fulfilled all the things her parents expected of her, why do we automatically assume that this is because of her sexual behavior? Sure, it's possible that her sexual history is something she regrets, but it's just as possible that it's not. It's possible that she is very happy with her place in life.

It makes me sad to hear two women, one who identifies as feminist and one who says she wants to be a feminist, still stuck in thinking of women in the virgin/whore dichotomy. The "danger" of women's sexuality has been so brainwashed into us that even forward thinking, progressive women (and men) still get caught thinking of sexually confident and active women as deviant, inferior and trashy. In the same way that anti-feminists love to point out that feminism makes women unhappy, many people love to point out that free sexual behavior makes sexually active women unhappy. It doesn't matter if it's true, as long as it makes us feel better to point fingers at someone else.

** I found this blog post today on SlutWalks and the word 'slut;' I thought it was an appropriate addition to this post.