Unfiltered: ‘Before you slut-shame a woman, think about your mother.’

Three years ago, Amber Rose opened her first SlutWalk event with a speech that began, “The first time I ever got slut-shamed I was 14 years old.”. With more than 2,500 attendance in Los Angeles, Rose spoke about how she’s continuously faced shame for her former career as a stripper, her high-profile relationships, and her prominent sexuality. During her speech, she touched on a cruel prank classmates played on her in high school; the comments her ex Kanye West made about her, such as when he said in an interview that he “had to take 30 showers” after being with her, and the hateful messages she received online following her divorce from Wiz Khalifa. After crying onstage, she said, “I decided to have this SlutWalk for women who have been through s***. And even though I’m out here crying, I want to be the strong person that you guys can look up to.”

A successful model and entrepreneur, Rose heads a foundation that has hosted a free SlutWalk every year since 2015. She describes the event as “a lot of crying and laughing and being happy and being sad and meeting people that understand your life because they’ve been through the same thing. It’s just a very emotional day.” Last year, Rose’s SlutWalk drew a crowd of more than 20,000, and featured appearances by rapper 21 Savage and singer Kehlani. More celebrities and activists are expected to attend this year’s SlutWalk on October 6th at Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles.

The original SlutWalk was created in 2011 by Canadian demonstrators following an incident in which a Toronto police officer told a crowd of women that if they wanted to avoid sexual assault, “they shouldn’t dress like sluts.” The Canada event inspired people in countries such as Israel, India and Australia to hold their own slut walks to draw attention to slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and gender inequality. “It’s very frustrating when I talk about the derogatory labels like ‘slut,’ ‘ho,’ ‘whore’,” explains Rose. “I always get the argument of, ‘Well, this is what it says in the dictionary.’ But the definition in the dictionary is always, ‘A woman that,’ and it’s very frustrating because it never applies to a man. … He can do the same exact thing a woman does, but he’s cool for it and everyone praises him for it.”

“It made me realize that it really doesn’t matter what your sexual background is or what you’ve done,” she says. “It’s really just derogatory words that people use against you to put you down because they’re uncomfortable with you.”

With over 27 million followers across multiple social media platforms, Rose has become a prominent face of modern feminism after combating negativity for her relationship with West and a high-profile divorce from Khalifa. About the latter, she recalls, “I was like, ‘I’m not the only person that’s going through this in the world.’ I have a platform and I can actually help other women get through this. Because I feel like I’m strong enough to take those punches. And I did.”

Rose says she believes one of the keys to the feminist movement is engaging with men, not ignoring them. “You have to bring [men] in, and you have to talk to them,” she explains. “Their entire life, all they knew was to victim-blame and slut-shame women. That’s what they’ve been taught constantly. And especially if you’re an older man … it gets be a bit worse, because they’re just stuck in their ways. But we have to bring men aside and be like, ‘Look, this is what it is. I need you to understand it from this point of view.’” Oftentimes, Rose says, she hears the phrase, “It’s locker-room talk,” or “Boys are going to be boys.” She believes that’s no excuse: “I will never say that to my son, ‘Ah, boys are going to be boys.’ It’s like, no — you’re human beings. Have some f***ing compassion and do the right thing as a man, as a person.”

For Rose, the next crucial step in bringing change is turning to the younger generation. “I just feel like now is the time to educate and talk more to our boys and kind of stop this whole hyper-masculine energy that most men have nowadays,” she says. “The next generation — we need to make them better.” Rose is beginning to do just that with her 5-year-old son, Sebastian.

But as a mother, however, she finds embracing her feminist views and sexuality has resulted in more criticism than ever — something she sees as incredibly hypocritical. “I think it’s so funny when they’re like, ‘You’re a mom, put clothes on.’ ‘You’re a mom, what are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘Do you understand that someone had to c** inside of me in order for me to have a baby?’”

She touches on the subject at length when she gives speeches at colleges nationwide, hoping to point out such hypocrisy to the men in the audience. “I always tell the guys, ‘Before you slut-shame a woman, think about your mother. Think about the act it took in order to have you. You understand what I’m saying?’”

“I don’t think it’s my responsibility to speak on these issues,” she continues. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s responsibility to do anything but take care of their families and do what they have to do. This, for me, is a passion. This is my everyday life. … This is something I live every single day, so I don’t feel like it’s a responsibility. I feel like I’m living this with other women, and we need to help each other.”