Feminists have always fought for their rights. Aletta Jacobs as a pioneer and the Dolle Mina’s as icons. They tried to draw attention to their ideals with banners and signs, but they became world news when they drew attention to the abortion issue, partially naked. Feminist women around the world are now also taking action with their bodies. Naked women attract attention. Women worldwide are fighting against exploitation, denunciation, rape and murder. Signs and banners no longer attract attention, but bare breasts or completely naked women even more so. FEMEN is a Ukrainian feminist protest organization famous worldwide for its bare-breasted demonstrations and has now grown into an international movement with headquarters in France and Germany.
Dolle Mina takes action with a bare torso for the legalization of abortion
Dolle Mina was a feminist group in the 1970s that stood up for the rights of women in
the Netherlands. The women called themselves Dolle Mina’s and took action in striking ways. They went further than banners and signs with slogans.
Some actions by the Dolle Mina’s that caused a stir
- Invading a gynecology conference in Utrecht. Objective: to draw attention to the legalization of abortion. The women had exposed their bellies at the station with the text: ,Boss in your own belly,. The action with the bared bellies became world news.
- Invading the posh Neyenrode training institute. A male stronghold that denied women access. Goal: right of access to higher education for women. Once again a sensational action, because there were cameras present that recorded everything.
- They also drew attention to the public urination rights for women. they wanted public women’s toilets in the city.
- Dolle Mina will return in 2013. Again for pee rights. Purpose: toilets in trains. Not only for women, but also for men, the elderly and the disabled.
The actions for legalization of abortion became an icon for feminism in the last century. For the first time, women used a naked part of their body as a means of action. The Dolle Minas were never in danger. They had the protection of the group. Moreover, in the Western world people were not so likely to run life-threatening risks, even though there was great aversion and indignation in many sections of the population.
Feminism in today’s world: protest with nudity…high risk
Feminism in contemporary times has activists who run much more risks than the Dolle Mina’s. They also throw their naked bodies into battle as a weapon against oppression, exploitation, denunciation, rape, torture and murder. But it does so in much stricter and intolerant cultures. Often at the risk of their own lives, especially in the Islamic world, where women have little or no rights. The use of their naked body is indeed a feared weapon, especially when the world is ‘watching’.
Examples of the female body as a means of action
Gypsy Taub
Gypsy Taub grew up in communist Russia, where she learned to be ashamed of her body. She was made afraid of her own body. She couldn’t talk about feelings and sexuality. ,I was almost an adult, but no one had ever told me that you were allowed to like your own body and that sex was good. It was a kind of prison., quote from Gypsy Taub.
In 2002 she went to the United States. In San Francisco she joined a group of nude recreationalists who regularly met at the Jane Warner Plaza. A way for Taub to develop himself. No one had any problems with the nude recreationalists and the police tolerated this group. Until the San Francisco city council banned nudity in 2012 (!).
Time for action, Taub thought. Together with supporters, she went to city hall where the municipal council would explain the ban. She undressed in protest . The city council was completely overwhelmed and had no blankets at hand to cover her naked body. This promotion was viewed five hundred thousand times on YouTube within two days. The city council changed its mind and nude recreation became legal in San Francisco.
Taub was not just concerned about running naked, but about her opinion about it. She said a ban would be a way to silence San Francisco’s liberal minds. So it felt like a step back to the Dark Ages and.
Another quote from Gypsy Taub: ,In all dictatorships there is a ban on everything that has to do with physicality. That is not without reason. A free body ensures a free mind. Criminalizing nudity is the precursor to suppressing freedom of expression.,
Femen
Femen is a Ukrainian feminist protest organization that initially wanted to try to enter parliament and initiate changes there. But Femen thought parliament was corrupt and these women did not want to participate. They decided to let go of their political ambitions and continue as an international protest organization. In the beginning with the most beautiful banner and signs, but they received no attention. The group took a more radical approach in 2008 and threw women’s bodies into the fray.
FEMEN is now famous worldwide for its bare-breasted demonstrations. The fact that it is an international movement is evident from its membership base: members from the Netherlands, Italy, United States, Germany, France , Mexico and Brazil. In addition, it has an office in France and Germany.
Some worldwide famous bare breast actions from Femen:
- Stockholm: Opposition to the arrival of Sharia law in Egypt. Together with the Egyptian activist Aliaa Magda El-Mahdy.
- Paris: actions for gay marriage. They were dressed as lesbian bridal couples in white dresses and trousers, but with bare torsos.
- Brazil: During the Brazilian Carnival, they protested against sex tourism and the sex industry with their torsos bare.
Aliaa Magda El-Mahdy (the naked blogger)
An Egyptian activist. The naked blogger, as she is also known, posted nude photos of her and her boyfriend on the internet in 2011 as a protest against a ,society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy,. In 2012, she protested naked at the Egyptian embassy in Stockholm against the dominance of conservative religious ideas in Egyptian politics. Aliaa Magda El-Mahdy attracts a lot of attention internationally with her actions, but has many feminist activists in Egypt who do not appreciate her method of action. Nudity remains a sensitive issue in the Islamic country. Even the sister of ‘the naked blogger’ doubts whether the protest with the naked body matches the experience of Egyptian women.
Ayesha Omar
Ayesha Omar is an actress, deejay and artist in Pakistan, but above all the most important female rebel in that country. She absolutely does not want to submit to the patriarchal society with extremely religious clergy who do not grant women any rights. She incurred the wrath of radical Muslims when she exhibited her paintings of semi-nude self-portraits. The Muslims demanded a ban on the exhibition.
Ayesha Omar regularly poses in fashion magazines in which she shows dresses that hide little, a direct provocation against Islamic rules. Nudity is un-Islamic. A daring action of hers was mocking the Taliban in a TV series. In it she appeared in a tight T-shirt with short sleeves (very naked in Pakistan) with an image on the back of a woman in a burqa carrying a bomb on the back of her back. Furious reactions, piles of swearing letters and curses were the result, but Ayesha Omar had conveyed the message to the extremists: the Taliban are using innocent women to carry out suicide bombings. Ayesha Omar is an example for Pakistani young women who also want to escape from the narrow-minded society.