Slutwalk San Antonio

http://www.slutwalksa.com/

For those unaware of what a "Slutwalk" is, it's to raise awareness of rape culture. How society teaches "don't be raped" instead of "don't rape". Women who have been raped are often victimized and blamed for what they were wearing, the fact that they went out alone, they lead the man on so they were asking for it, etc.

Since late last year, these walks have been happening everywhere! Be sure to google around to see if one is happening by near you!

Mariyah and I had originally planned to get an early start on the day. I had some last minute shopping to do and we had planned to have our signs say something on both sides... but in a twist, I ended up waking early and she woke up 2 hours later than planned. We headed to the mall and I bought some shorts and other things and then we headed downtown.

I can't remember the last time that I'd been downtown on a Saturday. Tourists galore! While we were eating, a lady stopped by our table and I couldn't tell if she was trying to be "smart" with us or if she was genuinely curious. She began with "What does your sign say, 'Look at me'?" and I don't really think took in what we were explaining to her. She ended with "Oh, you're half-naked to prove a point." but I think it's worth noting that I was just wearing a shirt and some shorts, not unlike the other girls that were walking around.

Read on to see some pictures I took from the walk!

The flyer said to meet at 1:30, after eating and walking around the mall we got there at about 1:40. There were a couple of speakers, some even shared their stories of why they were there! They handed out flyers with the "rules" of the walk and a chant sheet! Unfortunately, I lost mine :( There were some photographers going around taking pictures for their websites and whatnot, we had our picture taken a couple of times!

It didn't take very long for the walk to get started. They had some signs laying there for people that didn't bring one. We were allowed to take up one lane of the road and had police escorts following along, there were also people with megaphones the whole way that lead the chants.

I'd say the walk was a little over an hour and a half. It was the hottest time of the day, when we finally got into some shade it felt so nice! I wore my rocking horse shoes and ended up getting a lil' blister.

The pace of the walk was pretty fast... the chanting wasn't able to get super strong because the front of the walk had something with a megaphone, the back of the walk, not so much. It's understandable that the first year isn't going to be perfect, so it wasn't a make or break thing for me. Most of the people around me just started chants for themselves and those that were around them.

Picture from MySA.com

This lady's outfit was too cool! She wore flesh colored tights with matching top and I had to do a double take because I thought she was naked! Obviously, a bunch of other people thought the same thing because I saw them even doing triple takes!

The walk had ended where it began, at the Alamo. They had free water waiting for us, and there were already snowcone vendors galore at the plaza. We had contemplated going to the Haagen Daz across the street but it was so busy!

There was an afterparty going on down the street, but we didn't really go. We walked around the plaza for a bit, grabbed some Dippin' Dots and then left! I hadn't gotten enough sleep for the previous night so I was pretty exhausted.

We came to my house, watched a bit of TV, headed to Target for a bit of necessity shopping, and ended the night with a dinner at Jim's with our boyfriends! 

I wish the crowd turnout had been a bit bigger, but it was such a great day for the walk; there were tourists everywhere so hopefully some of them took the message to heart and posted photos/videos on their facebooks or something! I promise that San Antonio isn't this crazy on the regular!