Round table: Did Slut Walk change opinions?

Women dressed in provocative outfits took to the streets of Seattle this weekend in the second annual Slut Walk. While the march drew a lot of attention, Ross and Burbank Show host Luke Burbank questions just how much of an impact it really makes. He asked Seattle’s Morning News host Linda Thomas, who attended the event, to sit in to review.

“I’m wondering a little about the efficacy of these sorts of things,” says Burbank. “It feels to me you have a bunch of people who are pretty like-minded who put on some zany outfits and made some signs went down to Occidental Park, marched around, and went home.”

While Burbank says he definitely supports the underlying premise as he understands it, “that women should not be harassed, catcalled, made to feel unsafe, touched in any way, based on how they want to dress,” he points out that women taking a stand against objectifying women put themselves in an unusual position.

Demonstrators turned out in provocative dress for the Slut Walk in Seattle. (97.3 KIRO FM/Linda Thomas)

“I do think it’s interesting that in attempting to make a point of how we are not to be objectified as women, there were a lot of bikini and lingerie clad women showing up in a lot of photographs that a lot of guys were ogling.”

Producer Andrew Walsh says he doesn’t think these are outfits the march participants would typically wear and that the point was just to gain attention for the message.

“If you just dress up like a schoolmarm and you quietly have a little conversation in a tea room downtown, obviously it’s not going to get these headlines,” says Walsh.

While the march did seem to succeed on that front, Burbank says he isn’t sure if the whole outing really did much to change opinions.

Thomas says, as a person in attendance speaking to participants, she thinks the event definitely had an impact. She recalls speaking to a 16-year-old girl who went to the even with her sister. Thomas says the girl had never been politically active before. Read Linda’s blog.

“I think the way it may change opinions is, it’s going to affect that 16-year-old. She’s going to be more active in her school. She’s going to be more aware of women’s rights, at least this is what I’m hoping from talking to her,” says Thomas. “I think it does have an effect on that very small level. In terms of changing the world, nope, no march is going to do that.”

By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor