"Good Girls": Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus

• Published in: Social psychology quarterly Vol. 77; no. 2; pp. 100 - 122
• Main Authors: Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Hamilton, Laura T., Armstrong, Elizabeth M., Seeley, J. Lotus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2014; American Sociological Association
• Subjects: Boundaries; Class; Classroom communication; Discourse; Discourse analysis; Double standards; Experiments; Females; Femininity; Gender; Gender identity; Grants; Hostility; Human sexual behavior; Identity; Internalization; Males; Men; Oppression; Participation; Psychology; Qualitative analysis; Resentment; School campuses; Sex; Sexual behavior; Sexual behaviour; Sexuality; Social Class; Social classes; Social interaction; Social privilege; Social psychology; Social stigma; Social structure; Space; Stigma; Student sororities; Women; Women students; Women's participation; Womens education; stigma; gender; sexuality; identity; college women; qualitative methods; reputation; young adulthood; class; status
• ISSN: 0190-2725; 1939-8999
• DOI: 10.1177/0190272514521220

Women's participation in slut shaming is often viewed as internalized oppression: they apply disadvantageous sexual double standards established by men. This perspective grants women little agency and neglects their simultaneous location in other social structures. In this article we synthesize insights from social psychology, gender, and culture to argue that undergraduate women use slut stigma to draw boundaries around status groups linked to social class—while also regulating sexual behavior and gender performance. High-status women employ slut discourse to assert class advantage, defining themselves as classy rather than trashy, while low-status women express class resentment—deriding rich, bitchy sluts for their exclusivity. Slut discourse enables, rather than constrains, sexual experimentation for the high-status women whose definitions prevail in the dominant social scene. This is a form of sexual privilege. In contrast, low-status women risk public shaming when they attempt to enter dominant social worlds.