This approach is interested in the perception of women by women is related to slut-shaming more so than the sexual practices itself. Armstrong connects a study done by Pascoe (2007) to slut-shaming. Pascoe’s study analyzed the word “fag” in adolescent boys and how it is used. He ultimately found that “fag” is used to make sure adolescent boys and their peers playing into the roles society tells them to. Armstrong takes this discursive approach and applies it to slut-shaming, which she believes regulates girl’s public roles. Interesting enough, their public roles are influenced by privatized slut-shaming where girls can be ignorant of their labeling. The discursive approach delves deeper into race and class and how inequality plays a role in slutpshaming. Armstrong believes that “the polite accommodating, demure style often performed by the white middle class” is privileged and makes these high-status women interested in maintaining their position by controlling the slut-shaming discourse. Like the social psychology stigma approach, the discursive approach alone does not answer why women slut-shame each …show more content…
Armstrong (and her associates) teamed up with two authors and three students to create a research team of 9. The two authors were: an assistant professor in her late thirties and a graduate student in her early twenties. The three students were: an undergraduate from a working-class family, an undergraduate in a sorority, and a male graduate student. The research team occupied a room on a “party dorm” hall floor. Armstrong found the demographics of the hall floor to be homogeneous, with all being white and all but two identifying as heterosexual. There was a good mixture of upper-middle or upper-class (54%) and working, lower-middle, or middle-class families (46%). Wanting to minimizing the effects of social desirability, Armstrong wanted the research team to keep a poker face in the interviews and allow the women to speak on their