Recently, Generation Y website Elite Daily published an article about a woman who had “the most painful walk of shame ever.” The article mocks a woman walking through winter storm Jonas carrying her shoes and wearing just a t-shirt. Elite Daily spends a majority of the article theorizing why the woman might have left her hookup’s place — which, just for the record, we have no way of confirming.
To this, Valley has just one thing to say— seriously, Elite Daily?
As if this woman wasn’t already having a tough time, why make it worse by calling her out on the internet and poking fun at her unfortunate situation? Oh, and a round of applause for the person taking the video and laughing at her from afar instead of — we don’t know — seeing if she needs some help? The video clearly shows that the woman is looking for someone or something and jumping from foot to foot, probably to avoid getting frostbite on her feet.
Arguably the worst part about this article is that it was written by a female journalist. Why are we, as women, mocking other women instead of standing with and empowering them? Why have one night stands become something that women are supposed to be ashamed of and shamed for, especially by our own sex? You never see a man being made fun of for walking home from a hookup’s house the next morning— in fact, isn’t that called a Stride of Pride, these days? Something needs to change.
Let’s hope that 2016 is the year that women, and journalists in general, stop publishing “walk of shame” articles. Better yet, let’s hope it’s the year that people finally stop calling it a “walk of shame,” at all. Because there’s no shame in having a sex life. The real shame isn’t on the woman braving the storm — it’s on a website like Elite Daily for publishing a such a shameless article and writing it off as a journalistic piece.
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