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| Kim: "When you're like I have nothing to wear LOL" |
Probing the blurred lines between female empowerment,
naked protests & sheer exhibitionism
Last week, as the world marked the International Women’s Day, a bizarre cycle of ‘creative’ ferment rocked social media over Kim
Kardashian’s naked selfie Instagram post, which, in a way, was surprising
since it was not the first time the reality star “broke the internet.”
Nevertheless, it got television personality, Wendy Williams wondering if Kanye West had hijacked his wife’s phone. It also prompted former CNN
presenter, Piers Morgan to offer, derisively,
to buy her clothes in response to the puckishly captioned post, “When you’re
like I have nothing to wear LOL.”
Bette Midler, who actually set the tone for the
ferment, wrote the hilarious tweet, “If Kim wants us to see a part of her we’ve
never seen, she’s gonna have to swallow the camera.”
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| Moms share nude snaps following Kim's internet offering |
And Kim, in a rather uncharacteristic reaction to the hoopla, did what some
called ‘pulling a Kanye’ (which seems to be
another way of saying ‘taking the bait’ especially if it involves engaging in a
twitter feud). She said afterwards, “I am empowered by my body. I am empowered
by my sexuality. I am empowered by feeling comfortable in my skin. I am
empowered by showing the world my flaws and not being afraid of what anyone is
going to say about me. And I hope that through this platform I have been given,
I can encourage the same empowerment for girls and women all over the world.”
She did,
in fact, ‘encourage’ some British mothers to feel empowered enough to strip for
the camera. This week, the London-based Sun Newspaper published nude photos of five new moms who stripped off to show,
according to the paper, what REAL post-pregnancy women look like naked.
But beyond
the utterly pointless controversy over Kim’s nude selfie, many now see the line
between naked protests aimed at female empowerment and the sexy stereotypes
that feminists scorn becoming steadily blurred. And the question they are
asking is, does nudity really prove the point?
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| Protesters at the Pamplona bull run |
In a Vice Media blog post, Bertie Brandes
wonders if “It’s time for women to rethink naked protests.” Analyzing the adventures
of Heather Varley, a 22-year-old British student, who traveled to Spain last
year to participate in a PETA-inspired protest against animal cruelty during
the Pamplona bull run, Bertie offered interesting insights. While other
protesters sprayed red paint on their bodies, Heather chose instead to protest
topless. “I’ve got an inkling,” Bertie wrote. “Just an inkling—largely due to
the total disregard of the equally nearly-naked male protester next to Heather
in the story—that yes, yes! Heather’s nipples might have been what got this
protest into the news.”
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| FEMEN protest against EURO 2012 |
The truth,
though, is that over the years, nudity has been effectively employed in
protests to attract public attention to a cause. But nudity, according to Bertie,
might not have much to do with animal rights, all the same, Heather understood
that the only way to get attention was to strip because of the power still
carried by the image of a woman’s naked body. Further, Bertie observed that nude
protests had worked for FEMEN (a group of Ukrainian topless female activities)
up to a point. “The problem is that their argument was entirely undermined when
it turned out that these beautiful women who risked their lives to campaign
against stifling sexism had apparently been auditioned on the basis of their
attractiveness.” Her verdict? “Exploiting other women’s confidence and trust on
that level is pretty depressing.”
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| Mollie King |
In fact, many
pundits hold the opinion that a line should be drawn between nudity as a form
of protest for a specific cause and nudity for the sheer purpose of
exhibitionism.
Last November, the British newspaper columnists, Jan Moir, in her piece in the Daily Mail captioned, “Why these X-rated
red carpet dresses betray women,” went as far as saying that those ‘guilty of this indecent exposure’ were deluding themselves and demeaning their sex.
“Down on the red carpet and up on the stage, a new frontier in feminism is
being established,” she wrote.
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| Rosie Huntington-Whiteley |
“Battle lines have been drawn in a crusade where
she-celebrities seem to be competing to see who can wear the least the best,
all in the name of emancipation and fashion forward self-expression. Who dares
to bare wins? Everyone loves a bit of sexy glamour, but stars are stepping out
in ever more terrifying outfits: barely there frocks that seem to get skimpier,
tighter, more outrageous and revealing than before. First there was actress
Salma Hayek in eye-popping ruffled plunge, showing more breast than a 10lb
turkey. Then there was Marks & Spencer model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in
the kind of navel-grazing sequins that might give Jessica Rabbit pause for
thought. Pop singer Mollie King wore a dress slit to the navel - from both directions
- which was so revealing we could all see she had dutifully kept her waxing
appointments…That is why it is rather
depressing to see that, within the Tinseltown confines of show business, so
many of them seem to be content to reduce themselves to the kind of sexy
stereotypes worshiped by men.”
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| Salma Hayek |
As with other aspects of feminism, the talk about women’s freedom to
express themselves through nudity and fashion is an ongoing debate.
In this context, Angelina Chapin,
the Blog editor of the Huffington Post
said that “Some of the most important moments in modern feminism have been the
result of tensions between feminists.”
In her opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen entitled, “Why Feminists
Should Argue Over Kim Kardashian’s Selfie,” she asserted that “We should also
ask questions older feminists did not, such as why Serena Williams’ body is
shamed while Maria Sharapova’s is celebrated and why a white woman’s assault
matters more than an Aboriginal woman’s murder.”
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| Caitlyn Stasey |
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the argument, inevitably,
touches yet again on the body issue, which the Australian actress, Caitlyn Stasey had a rather unusual
response to early last year.
Caitlyn, according to a report in the Mail Online, in a bold move to show her
dissatisfaction with the way women were being presented across all forms of
media, launched what she called a female-empowerment website complete
with a series of full-frontal photographs.
While the initiative was positively
received, pundits are still struggling to find a convincing answer to the all-important
question, does nudity really prove the point?
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