Let us start with the title. Does it piss you off? Are you indignant? If I use strong words today, it's because I feel very strongly about this.
In honor of "Shine a Light on Slavery Day," I'm going to do my part to shine a light on the role that you are playing. In fact, I know very few (if any) Christian women who have not played a role in the culture of slavery that is prevalent in the world today.
Christian women dehumanize women they view as "sluts" or "skanks,"
It breaks my heart that Christian women, who should be using a community of love to bring all lost and lonely women into the fold, dehumanize other women. I know this is true because I did it myself. We Christian women oftentimes pride ourselves on modesty. We made all these rules for ourselves - rules about leggings and dress length and camis. We work hard to follow them, and then we are disgusted when we see women who do not conform to the dress code that we have created. And something happens in that moment, we feel morally superior. This feeling inside of our hearts is bad enough, but sometimes we even vocalize or express these by calling her immodest, ostracizing her, or giving her a look of disgust.
Do you know why you are offended when you see a phrase like "christian sluts"? Because "slut," as well as "skank, whore, etc." are degrading. If you wouldn't want someone to describe you that way, how dare you use it (if only in your mind) to describe any other girl out there?
Dehumanizing leads to objectification.
Starting to view women this way, as if they are less because they dress or act a certain way, leads to objectification. This is why we ask what a woman was wearing or how she was behaving before she got raped. Because, in our culture, "not being raped" is not an inherent human right. It has to be earned by your conformity to society's standards of modesty and how a "respectable" woman should act. The woman becomes an object, and "I'm sorry, but how could you not expect a man to play with such a shiny toy once you put it out there?"
For more about this, see educator Laci Green -
Objectification is the excuse for slavery.
If a person is an object, I can sell it, no problem. These women are bought and sold like cattle, with absolutely no regard to them aside from how much money they can make the men around them. Remember the 3/5ths compromise? That's when America decided that African Americans would count as a little more than half a person. The population of slaves in our world today are invisible to us, with no rights. They get offered a job in another country, and then they disappear forever. And when we see them on the streets, propisitioning men, we despise them and look at them like they're less than human.
And so it goes full circle.
They're enslaved because of how we think of them, and we judge them because they're enslaved.
The process starts with you. Change the way you think about women, think about people. Respect all human beings and their right to freedom. Or will you look the other way, because you were fortunate to be born in a part of the world where this is a rare problem for you? Though the U.S. may not have a high rate of human trafficking (though trust me, it happens), our attitudes still increase trafficking around the world. The first step in ending rape culture is respecting all humans' right to freedom (and to not be raped). And to do so, we must abolish words like "slut."
So next time you see a woman who doesn't fit your idea of how a women should dress and act, try being her friend, instead of signing away her humanity in your own mind.
Next time you think, "those shorts are too short," or "oh my gosh, she is showing way too much boob," maybe you can take a minute to pray for her. Don't pray that she changes her clothes. And don't assume that she doesn't have Jesus either. Don't even pray that she will respect herself more; you have no idea how she feels about herself. Pray for her right not to be objectified or dehumanized by anyone.
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