linguaphile That sounds like a good book.
rooeyttoo I think you have to differentiate between assessing things and making judgements and assessing a person’s behavior and pronouncing judgements. We all have to make judgements but there’s a big difference between saying to yourself this person is hurtful, dangerous, stupid or whatever and avoiding them or being cautious with them to protect yourself, and judging them as inferior and not worthy of your respect. When you judge a person by their behavior you are looking at them from the outside. You aren’t seeing their history, their inner conflicts, their insecurities etc. You are only seeing their public face. You don’t know the whole story but you (not you personally) set yourself up as a judge without all the facts in the case.
While I don’t like it when people judge I can understand it. But too often I find that people judge others harshly out of a need to feel superior as in “I’m so glad I’m not like that!”!! It allows them to stroke their ego a bit and it feels good. But maybe the person they are judging has things in their past that have affected them that you don’t know about. By calling them a name and putting them down you fail to try to see the real person. You are judging them and in most cases it is not out of a need to protect yourself or others from them.
In general the person who is “different” becomes made fun of, called names and ostracized as linguaphile mentioned. To take a pop culture example, in the movie Carrie her mother is really mentally ill religious fanatic. Carrie isn’t quite “normal” as a result and her peers taunt her and play a cruel prank on her.
Judging people to decide who you like and don’t like and who to be friends with is fine. But when people make judgements on another person and act as if that person is not “worthy” of their friendship, like in a clique or sorority or fraternity, when they try to make people feel like they don’t “make the grade” or are “weird” often it leads to hurtful and sometimes disastrous consequences. That person becomes marginalized from the group. That person becomes a target for name calling. Slut is only one of the many hurtful names used. Often it doesn’t even reflect the person’s actual behavior. Girls use it against each other to damage another girl’s reputation because they don’t like her for some reason. I don’t see the purpose of this name calling. I was brought up with the motto “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Sometimes we have to voice negative or conflicting opinions. We can’t always be politically correct when we do so. But the motivation should be to discuss and come to an understanding. Not just to sling mud.
I’m sorry if I go on too long and have gotten a little sidetracked from the actual question. But I think that one of the dangers of the slut label is that girls get a message that sex is dirty and shameful. I don’t advocate promiscuity, but neither do I feel it is my place to judge another person’s choices when it has no impact on me personally. The issue of respecting yourself and demanding respect is what I focus on because I think it is the most empowering message for women concerning sexual behavior. It says, embrace your sexuality but don’t let yourself be exploited.